Psychological Processes in Stages of Problem Solving: Production and Revision Stages Administered under Quantity-Stressing and Criteria-Cued Instructions, Respectively

Abstract

Summary Volunteer male and female college students (N = 156) rated themselves on Sciortino's Inventory of Psychological Processes (IPP-3), immediately after the production and revision stages of Sciortino's Solutions Test. The production stage was administered under “quantity-stressing” instructions and the revision stage under “criteria-cued” instructions. Ss' combined scores on the IPP-3, from both the production and revision stages, were, first, subjected to a principal components analysis and, then, rotated according to the equamax procedure. Seven equamax factors were extracted: that is, accomplishment, frustration, evaluated modification, variegated thinking, insightful thinking, motivated associative thinking, and freewheeled thinking. Ss' scores on each of the above seven equamax factors were then subjected to an analysis of variance for repeated measures. The results show that the mean values of factors frustration, variegated thinking, motivated associative thinking, and freewheeled thinking were significantly higher (either at the .05 or at .01 level) in the production than in the revision stage. Moreover, the mean values of factors accomplishment and evaluated modification were significantly higher (at the .01 level) in the revision than in the production stage. However, the difference between the mean values of factor insightful thinking in the production and revision stages was not significant at the .05 level.