German students showed small shifts in openness and conscientiousness after first psychedelic use, but causality remains uncertain

German university students who tried a psychedelic for the first time showed small relative increases in Openness and decreases in Conscientiousness over roughly one year compared with students who had never used psychedelics. The study analyzed 102 first-time users and 1,066 never-users from a larger Berlin student survey, using a brief Big Five personality measure. No clear changes emerged in Extraversion, Agreeableness, or Neuroticism. After adjustment for age, sex, income, mental health history, and other substance use, the observed differences were no longer statistically strong enough to exclude chance. Comparisons with students who first used another illicit drug further weakened the findings, suggesting novelty-seeking, social context, or broader experimentation may explain part of the pattern. Because use was self-reported and non-randomized, with no data on dose, setting, timing, motivation, or intensity, the results provide limited evidence for a causal or lasting personality effect.