Cognitive styles and personality

Abstract

This paper investigates the relationship between cognitive styles and Eysenck personality dimensions. To measure cognitive styles, we developed a special twelve-scale questionnaire based on self-report (Field Dependence/Independence, Narrow/Wide Range of Equivalence, Flexibility/Rigidity of Cognitive Control, Impulsivity/Reflectivity, Concrete/Abstract Conceptualization, Tolerance/Intolerance of Unrealistic Experience). Two hundred and twenty eight second-year students (psychologists and teachers) took part in the study. We revealed four significant factors, one of which covered five cognitive styles and the other three included both cognitive and fundamental personality dimensions which we called “cognitive-personality complexes”. The first complex included personality trait Extraversion/Introversion and two cognitive styles Field Dependence and Impulsivity. The second complex covered Psychotic trait and such cognitive styles as Field Independence and Wide Range of Equivalence. The third complex contained Neurotic traits and one cognitive style Intolerance. Thus, we showed the existence of the factor of “authentic” cognitive styles, on the one hand, and three mixed cognitive-personality styles, on the other, in the structure of individual behavior. The data obtained are useful for understanding the nature of the cognitive styles and the sources of human individual differences.