The multiple self and psychological openness.

Introduction: This research identifies and explores two distinct modes of self-experience and their influence on psychological openness. We distinguish between the unitary self-mode, where individuals perceive themselves as cohesive, stable entities, and the multiple self-mode, where they recognize their diverse, context-dependent aspects. These modes represent fundamentally different ways of experiencing and organizing self-knowledge that can be situationally activated. While both modes of self-experience have been theoretically described, their influence on psychological functioning remains empirically unexplored. Methods: Through five experiments ( Results: Induction of the multiple self enhanced psychological openness compared to induction of the unitary self. This effect was consistently observed across various domains of openness: openness as a state (Study 1, Discussion: These findings indicate that the way in which individuals organize their self-knowledge has important implications for their cognitive and experiential flexibility, contributing to our understanding of personality plasticity and development.