Cognitive-experiential Self-theory Research Articles

Advancing a theoretical framework for exploring heuristics and biases within HR decision-making contexts

PurposeThis paper aims to provide an elucidative and explanatory overview of decision-making theory that human resource management and development (HR) researchers and practitioners can use to explore the impact of heuristics and biases on organizational decisions, particularly within HR contexts.Design/methodology/approachThis paper draws upon three theoretical resources anchored in decision-making research: the theory of bounded rationality, the heuristics and biases program, and cognitive-experiential self-theory (CEST). A selective narrative review approach was adopted to identify, translate, and contextualize research findings that provide immense applicability, connection, and significance to the field and study of HR.FindingsThe authors extract key insights from the theoretical resources surveyed and illustrate the linkages between HR and decision-making research, presenting a theoretical framework to guide future research endeavors.Practical implicationsDecades of decision-making research have been distilled into a digestible and accessible framework that offers both theoretical and practical implications.Originality/valueHeuristics are mental shortcuts that facilitate quick decisions by simplifying complexity and reducing effort needed to solve problems. Heuristic strategies can yield favorable outcomes, especially amid time and information constraints. However, heuristics can also introduce systematic judgment errors known as biases. Biases are pervasive within organizational settings and can lead to disastrous decisions. This paper provides HR scholars and professionals with a balanced, nuanced, and integrative framework to better understand heuristics and biases and explore their organizational impact. To that end, a forward-looking and direction-setting research agenda is presented.

Dog-Friendly Accommodation: Specialty OTAs and Decision-Making

ABSTRACT This study utilizes Cognitive-Experiential Self-Theory (CEST) to examine the underserved, but flourishing, market of travelers seeking dog-friendly accommodation. Extant hospitality research has not examined the evaluation/judgment of using specialty OTAs as an information source. CEST allows for an investigation of how experiential and analytic processing of emotion-driven and logic-driven dispositions impact affective and cognitive responses, resulting in the consumer behavioral tendency to use a specialty OTA. Results based on 697 questionnaires from people who had previously traveled with their dogs show that human well-being beliefs impact peoples’ attitude (affective response) and intention to use the specialty OTA. Interestingly expertise has no impact on attitude or usage intention. Further, institutional trust and risk attitude impact the perceived usefulness (cognitive response) and usage intention. A novel, empirically tested model to predict the specialty OTA usage of those wishing to book dog-friendly leisure accommodation is presented. Managerial implications are provided.

Tourist loyalty in the metaverse: the role of immersive tourism experience and cognitive perceptions

Purpose Metaverse technology is of interest to researchers and practitioners in tourism and hospitality. The metaverse offers tourists the capacity to enjoy unprecedented tourism experiences. These opportunities may radically change the tourism and hospitality landscape. This study aims to examine how metaverse experiences affect tourists' cognitive processing, satisfaction and loyalty toward metaverse tourism using the stimulus-organism-response paradigm and cognitive experiential self-theory. Design/methodology/approach An online survey was undertaken to gather information from 329 respondents who were frequent users of different metaverse applications to meet the study's objectives. Data were evaluated through partial least squares structural equation modelling. Findings The findings revealed that metaverse experiences, such as immersion, escapism and enjoyment, had a significant positive impact on metaverse organismic experience. Additionally, metaverse cognitive processing positively influenced metaverse tourist responses, including satisfaction and loyalty, with tourist involvement acting as a moderator. Originality/value This study provides guidelines for metaverse developers and travel industry professionals to encourage visitor satisfaction and loyalty to metaverse tourism.

Meaning in life through work: A cognitive-experiential self-theory (CEST) perspective

This article explores existential meaning-making from work using the cognitive-experiential self-theory (CEST). To start with, we use the tenets of CEST to elaborate on how the cues from archetype work environments—a realization facilitating work environment (RfWE) and justification facilitating work environment (JfWE)—are interpreted by information-processing systems to imbue meaning in life (MiL) as internal or external manifestations of coherence, purpose, and significance. Next, we explain how individual differences in work centrality and proactive meaning-crafting ability moderate the impact of JfWE, but not of RfWE, on MiL. Finally, we create a nomological network of existential meaning states emerging from the simultaneous presence or absence of RfWE and JfWE. In summary, by applying the information-processing lens of CEST, we develop an integrated model that explains how work drives MiL, elucidates the resultant existential states, and assesses the role of individual differences in meaning-making.

Approach to problem solving and use of intuition by engineering technology students

Engineering technology students often forgo a methodical approach of solving or answering questions on assignments or exams in favor of an intuition-based approach, emphasizing educated guessing (Broberg et al., 2008). Faculty observations have noted these student solutions often provide explanations, usually sans calculations, to support answers the students believe to be reasonable when in reality deviated from the correct answer. An extensive study was developed to assess several distinctions between student intuition and use of cognition in problem solving, as related to a generalized student population. The study was comprised of a survey and interview. The survey utilized two instruments, the Types of Intuition Scale (TIntS) and the Cognitive-Experiential Self Theory (CEST). The interview element was comprised of questions related to the student's background and personal experience with math phobia. Data provided by study participants responding to specific questions from the TIntS and CEST instruments allowed researchers to determine how likely students are to use intuition rather than analytical processes. The results of the study found these students prefer to approach problems using logic but tend to rely upon their intuition when problem solving, especially in unfamiliar and high-pressure scenarios. Furthermore, this paper is intended to enlighten educators and other related groups regarding the degree to which intuition is used as a means of solving problems, and the types of intuition generally involved, especially for engineering technology students. Thus, providing practitioners and administrators with a better idea of what these students may provide in response to homework or other problem-solving situations.

Risk perception of COVID-19 and its related factors among centralized medical isolation groups in China.

Medical isolation is one of the most effective measures to slow the spread of the virus when dealing with a pandemic. Millions of people in China have undergone centralized medical isolation (CMI) during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aims to assess the centralized medical isolation group's COVID-19 risk perception and to explore the influencing factors. A total of 400 participants (200 who had experienced CMI and 200 who had not experienced) completed a questionnaire related to COVID-19 risk perceptions. The questionnaire was designed with the Cognitive-Experiential Self-Theory (CEST) and the Common Sense Model of Risk Perception (CSM). It adopted nine questions to measure risk perception in terms of Emotional feelings, Cognitive judgment, and Mental representation of unusual severity. Descriptive statistical analysis, correlation analysis, and multiple linear regression analysis were conducted with SPSS 26.0 software. The mean risk perception score for the CMI group was 30.75, with a standard deviation of 7.503, which was significantly higher than that in the non-centralized medical isolation (NCMI) group (risk perception score was 28.2, and the standard deviation was 7.129). The results show that risk perceptions were higher for older age, risk perceptions were higher for higher education, risk perceptions were higher for those who had received the COVID-19 vaccination, and risk perceptions were higher for those who lived in a family with children. Risk perception is significantly higher in CMI groups than in NCMI groups. The government should draw more care to the risk perception and psychological wellbeing of the CMI group and provide extra support and assistance to the elderly and those raising younger children. In dealing with future pandemics like the COVID-19 outbreak, the government should actively guide the public to properly isolate at home and cautiously implement a CMI policy.

Risk Perception of COVID-19 as a Cause of Minority Ethnic Community Tourism Practitioners' Willingness to Change Livelihood Strategies: A Case Study in Gansu Based on Cognitive-Experiential Self-Theory.

This study based on the cognitive-experiential self-theory, with risk attitude as the mediator and livelihood capacity as the moderator, explores the mechanism of the effect of risk perception of COVID-19 on minority ethnic community tourism practitioners' willingness to change livelihood strategies. Taking 423 tourism practitioners from five minority ethnic tourism communities as the objects of investigation in Gansu Province, China. This paper empirically tests the theoretical model by using Amos and SPSS. The results indicated the following: Risk perception of COVID-19 has a significant positive impact on the willingness of minority ethnic community tourism practitioners to change their livelihood strategies. Risk attitude partially mediated the relationship between risk perception of COVID-19 and willingness to change livelihood strategies. Livelihood capacity negatively moderated the relationship between risk perception of COVID-19 and willingness of minority ethnic community tourism practitioners to change their livelihood strategies. Livelihood capacity also negatively moderated the mediation effect of the relationship between risk perception of COVID-19 and willingness to change livelihood strategies. Based on the research conclusions, it provides theoretical guidance and practical enlightenment for minority ethnic community tourism practitioners on how to improve the stability and sustainability of their livelihoods through the adjustment and transformation of livelihood strategies in the post-epidemic era.

Origin of Value Creation: The Role of a Cognitive Shift in Entrepreneurial Problem Framing

Highly successful entrepreneurial ventures and innovation often result from finding and solving problems that have not been solved before (i.e., entrepreneurial problems). The challenge in solving such problems is that value creators—individuals who intend to create value and solve entrepreneurial problems—often have incomplete information about the problems. The problem-solving perspective and entrepreneurship literature indicate that value creators benefit from relying on intuition or gut feeling to develop new problem frames or theories on the domains of problems. Novel problem frames are new, untested theories on the domains of problems. The frames provide the foundational assumptions about the problems so that problem-solvers can think of potential causes and solutions. Intuition is valuable given incomplete information and knowledge to form rational, analytic judgments and decisions. However, scholars caution that intuition often results in the exploitation of familiar experiences and mental models, which are rarely appropriate for entrepreneurial problems that often have unique traits and characteristics that differentiate them from previously solved problems. What can value creators do then to more effectively generate novel frames of entrepreneurial problems? This dissertation draws on Cognitive-Experiential Self-Theory (CEST) to propose that a cognitive shift from rational, analytic thinking to intuition is likely to generate novel frames for entrepreneurial problems. Evidence from an archival study and a randomized field experiment with samples of entrepreneurs provide support for the value of the proposed cognitive shift.

Customer Engagement: An Experiential System View

Purpose - This conceptual research analyses the interrelationship of cognition and affect in the development of customer engagement in the backdrop of the cognitive-experiential self-theory. Design/methodology/approach - The existing literature on the interpretation of customer engagement and cognitive experiential self-theory is used to develop the new theoretical framework of customer engagement Findings -The multidimensional view of the interaction between the intra-psychic subsystems of cognition, affect, inner dispositions and behaviour is the one generally followed by investigators in the analysis of customer engagement. In the dynamics of customer engagement, it has been recognized that cognition and affect individually and interactively contribute to the state of customer engagement as these are considered to be the core processes of engagement. Research limitations - Being a conceptual paper, primary empirical support is lacking to explain the cognitive-experiential system view of customer engagement Practical implications -The mechanisms of customer engagement in the application of marketing strategy and the understanding of the consumption patterns of the consumer provide new insights to the marketing activities and the consumer. Originality/value -The suggested framework of customer engagement provides yet another way of interpreting the same from the perspective of intra-individual sub-systems.

Seeking Proxies for Internal States as a Possible Alternative for Rationality and Experientiality

The Cognitive–Experiential Self-Theory (CEST) proposes rationality and experientiality as independent personality constructs explaining how people process information. Recent empirical studies show that some people have low scores on both of these dimensions (the so-called disengaged profile). Another model, Seeking Proxies for Internal States (SPIS), primarily proposed to explain obsessive-compulsive tendencies, provides a framework under which both rationality and experientiality can be understood as internal resources of a person. Low rationality and experientiality could thus be overcome by seeking external clues. In two subsequent studies on independent nonclinical samples (psychology students N = 268 and technical sciences students N = 549), we examined the relationship between constructs from CEST and SPIS models, and in addition, explored their patterns of interoceptive awareness (IA) in Study 2. A latent profile analysis showed that the disengaged profile was related to high SPIS and OC tendencies in both samples. In addition, rationality and experientiality had similar and more positive correlations with some IA dimensions, compared to SPIS (and OCI)—IA correlations. Thus, impaired connection to internal states together with OC tendencies might contribute to the understanding of the specific thinking style of those who do not primarily rely on either rationality or experientiality.

Exploring the Factors Influencing Consumers to Voluntarily Reward Free Health Service Contributors in Online Health Communities: Empirical Study.

BackgroundRewarding health knowledge and health service contributors with money is one possible approach for the sustainable provision of health knowledge and health services in online health communities (OHCs); however, the reasons why consumers voluntarily reward free health knowledge and health service contributors are still underinvestigated.ObjectiveThis study aimed to address the abovementioned gap by exploring the factors influencing consumers’ voluntary rewarding behaviors (VRBs) toward contributors of free health services in OHCs.MethodsOn the basis of prior studies and the cognitive-experiential self-theory (CEST), we incorporated two health service content–related variables (ie, informational support and emotional support) and two interpersonal factors (ie, social norm compliance and social interaction) and built a proposed model. We crawled a dataset from a Chinese OHC for mental health, coded it, extracted nine variables, and tested the model with a negative binomial model.ResultsThe data sample included 2148 health-related questions and 12,133 answers. The empirical results indicated that the effects of informational support (β=.168; P<.001), emotional support (β=.463; P<.001), social norm compliance (β=.510; P<.001), and social interaction (β=.281; P<.001) were significant. The moderating effects of social interaction on informational support (β=.032; P=.02) and emotional support (β=−.086; P<.001) were significant. The moderating effect of social interaction on social norm compliance (β=.014; P=.38) was insignificant.ConclusionsInformational support, emotional support, social norm compliance, and social interaction positively influence consumers to voluntarily reward free online health service contributors. Social interaction enhances the effect of informational support but weakens the effect of emotional support. This study contributes to the literature on knowledge sharing in OHCs by exploring the factors influencing consumers’ VRBs toward free online health service contributors and contributes to the CEST literature by verifying that the effects of experiential and rational systems on individual behaviors can vary while external factors change.

One or two minds? Neural network modeling of decision making by the unified self

Ever since the seminal work of Tversky and Kahneman starting in the late 1960s, it has generally been accepted that many characteristic human decision patterns do not follow the norms of economic theories based on rational utility maximization and consistency across frames. Yet people do often make decisions and numerical judgments that are mathematically consistent. In order to account for the range of rational, intuitive, and emotional influences on decision making, prominent psychologists have developed a number of dual-process or dual-system theories of decision processes. Among these theories are System 1 and System 2, Cognitive-Experiential Self-theory, and Fuzzy Trace Theory. Fuzzy Trace Theory (FTT) is the most amenable of these theories to a unified biologically based neural network approach. This article reviews several years of research on a decision theory that integrates the gist and verbatim representations of FTT into a network model. The model is based on several constructs by Grossberg and his colleagues including Adaptive Resonance Theory and Gated Dipole Theory, combined with selective attention and probabilistic distribution of some parameters representing individual differences in decision style. It incorporates data on the functions of several brain regions including sensory cortex, amygdala, orbitofrontal cortex, ventral striatum, thalamus, and anterior cingulate, and premotor cortex.

Eco‐Fashion Consumption: Cognitive‐Experiential Self‐Theory

Drawing upon cognitive‐experiential self‐theory (CEST), this study examined how individuals’ differences in emotion‐driven dispositions (i.e., need for variety and fashion interest) and logic‐driven dispositions (i.e., ecological consciousness and social consciousness) can influence their information processing and decision making in the context of eco‐fashion. A focus group of nine participants and an online questionnaire involving 657 participants were used to accomplish the purpose of the study. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the hierarchical relationships among individual differences, responses, and consumer behavioral tendencies. The results indicated that consumers’ need for variety positively influenced their affective responses, purchase intention, and willingness to pay more for eco‐fashion. Consumers’ ecological consciousness and social consciousness positively influenced their cognitive responses and eventually their purchase intentions and willingness to pay more for eco‐fashion. Furthermore, cognitive responses had strong impacts on affective responses.

Relating rational and experiential thinking styles with trait emotional intelligence in broader personality space

The usual distinction between rational and intuitive thinking styles is still a subject of scientific debate, as there is no consensus about their nature, mutual relations and relations to other personality constructs. Cognitive-experiential self-theory (CEST) proposes rational and experiential thinking styles as original personality constructs not fully explainable by five-factor personality models. Following CEST, we aimed to examine: 1. The uniqueness of rational and experiential dimensions by relating them to other personality constructs: trait emotional intelligence (TEI) and HEXACO; 2. Thinking style profiles defined through combined rational and experiential dimensions, and the possible role of TEI in understanding them. A total of 270 undergraduate students (82% females) completed the TEIQue-SF, REI-40, and HEXACO-PI-R. Our results showed that constructs from all three paradigms were low to moderately correlated to each other. TEI had incremental validity in explaining both rational and experiential dimensions, but large amounts of their variances remained unexplained by both TEI and HEXACO. We revealed four thinking style profiles defined through combined rational and experiential dimensions. TEI was the highest when both dimensions were high and the lowest when both were low, which could be related to processes of understanding and managing emotional functioning – proposed as an essential part of TEI, while within CEST they are seen as the way in which rationality influences experientiality. This finding might be of specific significance for understanding irrationality as not exclusively related to high intuition, but to low rationality as well.

Thinking about smoking: A novel approach to describing cognitive style profiles

Cognitive-Experiential Self-Theory (CEST) emphasizes the dual roles of rational and experiential thinking, with individuals having varying preferences for each style. This study explored the relationship between these constructs, illustrating the value of the derived model in addictive behavior, as illustrated by smoking. Data were extracted from a study of the predictors of men’s health behavior. Participants comprised 212 Australian men (aged 25–65years) who completed a self-report questionnaire which assessed thinking styles and recorded smoking status. Rational and experiential data were subjected to cluster analysis and median splits to identify logical subgroups based on participants’ dual responses. The four derived clusters were more representative of smoking status than groups defined by median splits. In general, both smokers and ex-smokers preferred experiential thinking and non-smokers preferred rational thinking. There was a strong tendency for smokers to report both low rational and high experiential thinking. The use of cluster analysis advanced the evaluation of the interactive nature of rational and experiential thinking by allowing an empirical test of their potential relationship. The thinking profiles reported represent an advance in the assessment of CEST which may provide a useful model for applications in fields both related to, and beyond, addiction.

Is experiential-intuitive cognitive style more inclined to err on conjunction fallacy than analytical-rational cognitive style?

In terms of prediction by Epstein’s integrative theory of personality, cognitive-experiential self-theory (CEST), those people with experiential-intuitive cognitive style are more inclined to induce errors than the other people with analytical-rational cognitive style in the conjunction fallacy (two events that can occur together are seen as more likely than at least one of the two events). We tested this prediction in a revised Linda problem. The results revealed that rational and experiential cognitive styles do not statistically influence the propensity for committing the conjunction fallacy, which is contrary to the CEST’s predictions. Based on the assumption that the rational vs. experiential processing is a personality trait with comparatively stabile specialities, these findings preliminarily indicate that those people who are characterized by “rational thinking” are not more inclined to use Bayes’ deduction than the other people who are labeled by “intuitive thinking” or by “poor thinking.”

Religious orientations as a predictor of rational thinking among secondary school students

Cognitive experiential self-theory (CEST) postulates that past experiences develop implicit beliefs in human cognitive system. These beliefs modify and generate schemas attaching meanings to self, others and relations between self and others. Allport's religious orientations are explanations of people religious beliefs focusing the reasons of their religiousness. We, in the current study investigated the contribution of secondary school students’ religious affiliations (fellowship with Hinduism, Christianity or Islam) as well as religious orientations (intrinsic, extrinsic personal and extrinsic social) in developing their cognitive experiential thinking systems. The Hindu (N=1050), Christian (N=1073), and Muslim (N=1394) secondary school students participated in the study. Age universal I–E (intrinsic–extrinsic religiosity) scale and rational experiential inventory for adolescents (REI-A) were adapted to collect the required information. We conclude that the students’ religious affiliations and orientations have significant impacts on their cognitive systems, specifically on rational thinking rather than on experiential thinking. The religious orientations moderately explain the variances in rational thinking of Hindu and Muslim students, while their impact on the rational choices of the Christian students is very small. In general, both an intrinsic orientation to religion and an external personal orientation are positively associated with rational thinking, while an external social orientation is negatively associated. Religious affiliations and orientations have very little effect on experiential thinking.

The Emotional Representation of Sexual Crime in the National British Press

The relationships between the media, public attitudes, and crime are complex, with evidence suggesting that public interaction with these press reports influencing wider social and political attitudes. Here, 543 articles from 8 of the 10 most-read British national newspapers were examined in terms of their representativeness of crime rates, and their linguistic properties. Results include a 9:1 representation of sexual crime, a 2.5:1 representation of violent crime, and a 1:4 representation of acquisitive crime within press articles compared with official statistics. Rating the linguistic content indicates that sexual crime articles comprised angrier and more emotionally negative tones than stories on all other groups. Tabloid and broadsheet differences were found in headlines, but not in the main bodies of the articles. Cognitive–experiential self-theory is offered as just one social psychological framework for understanding the role of emotion in sexual crime reporting.

Relationships Between Support for the Death Penalty and Cognitive Processing

Cognitive Experiential Self-Theory (CEST) posits that individuals process information rationally (measured by Need for Cognition [NFC]) or experientially (measured by Faith in Intuition [FI]). This study investigated whether information processing traits (NFC and FI) and states (CEST logic problems) are related to general death penalty attitude and sentencing verdict—and whether these relationships differed for students versus community members. FI and NFC were related to sentencing verdicts. An increase in FI was related to a higher likelihood of a death sentence; an increase in NFC was related to a higher likelihood of a life sentence. CEST logic problems were related to sentencing verdicts and general attitudes. However, these relationships were moderated: For community members, but not students, a decrease in rational processing was related to a higher likelihood of a death sentence and support for the death penalty. Results have implications for psychology and the legal system.

Effects of the “intimate conviction” instruction on the processing of judicial information

Introduction and objectiveThe aim of this study was to examine the effects of the “intimate conviction” (IC) instruction on the processing of judicial information. The IC instruction encourages the use of impressions to form a verdict. As such, according to cognitive-experiential self-theory (CEST) (Epstein, 1994), it is more likely to (1) elicit experiential information processing, and (2) bias judgments, compared with instructions prompting the rational and objective processing of information running counter to IC (CIC). Method and resultsNinety-four mock jurors were randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions (IC, opposite IC and control), and asked to view a video of a criminal appeal hearing, deliver judgments and perform a thought-listing task. Results confirmed that, in the IC and control conditions, participants were more likely to (1) process evidence in an experiential mode, (2) judge the defendant's acts as being more intentional than participants in the opposite IC condition. However, contrary to our expectations, the effects of the instructions on the attribution of intention were not mediated by the information processing mode. ConclusionDirections for future research and the implications of the present study for judicial systems using inquisitorial procedure are discussed.