Balancing novelty and familiarity: a person-centered approach to openness to change and conservation values in tourism

Abstract

Understanding how personal values shape preference formation is a central concern in personality and social psychology, and increasingly relevant to tourism research. This study examines how openness to change (self-direction, stimulation, and hedonism) and conservation values (conformity, tradition, and security) are associated with preferences for novelty and familiarity in vacation experiences. Unlike prior variable-centered studies, this research adopts a person-centered approach to identify profiles based on within-person value structures. Using latent profile analysis on data from 498 US tourists, we identified four distinct value profiles: Tradition-focused, Stimulation-focused, Strong, and Weak. The Tradition-focused profile aligns with conservation values, favoring familiar experiences, while the Stimulation-focused profile, aligned with openness to change, favors novel experiences. The Strong profile places high importance on both openness to change and conservation values, showing the most balanced preference for new and familiar elements among the four profiles. The Weak profile places low importance on all values, reflecting flexible vacation preferences. These findings challenge the traditional dichotomy of novelty and familiarity, demonstrating that individuals can simultaneously hold preferences for both. By showing that openness to change and conservation values can be jointly important within individuals, this study extends the theoretical understanding of compatible and conflicting values and contributes to person-centered research on individual differences. Applied to tourism, these insights offer practical implications for tailoring vacation experiences to diverse value profiles.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Frontiers in Psychology, 2026 · DOI ↗