Individual differences in religiosity as a function of cognitive ability and cognitive style

The current study examines the degree to which individual differences in cognitive ability and cognitive style (rational thinking vs. experiential thinking) uniquely and jointly account for differences in religiosity. Using an array of measures of religiosity, results show that cognitive ability has a medium to large negative effect on various aspects of religiosity. Though also negatively related to religiosity, rational thinking style did not add significant unique effects, nor did it convey a significant indirect effect from cognitive ability. Experiential thinking was generally unrelated to ability but was positively related to some aspects of religiosity. Overall the results confirm that those with higher cognitive ability are less likely to accept religious doctrine or engage in religious behaviors and those with lower ability are more likely to accept religious doctrine and exhibit higher levels of fundamentalism. Cognitive style appears to play a lesser role in explaining individual differences in religiosity than cognitive ability.     

Process differences and individual differences in some cognitive tasks

This study is based on three distinct elementary cognitive tasks (ECTs) using chronometric techniques: (a) the S. Sternberg memory scan task, (b) a visual scan task which is perfectly analogous to the memory scan, except that the target digit is presented first and the subject must then scan a set of digits and indicate the presence or absence of the target digit in the set, and (c) the Hick paradigm, which involves responding to a visual stimulus (a light going “on”) when the stimulus is one among sets of either 1, 2, 4, or 8 equally probable alternatives. Certain parameters of all three tasks, such as intercept and slope of RT as a function of set size, from which different cognitive processes are inferred, are compared experimentally and correlationally. Subjects were 48 university students, tested and retested on the three tasks in a counterbalanced design on two separate days to obtain the retest reliabilities needed to correct all correlations for attenuation. Subjects were also given Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices as a measure of psychometric g. Parameters of the ECTs are significantly and, in some cases, quite substantially correlated with g. Virtually all of this correlation is due to the general factor of the various ECTs, rather than to specific processing components (independent of the general factor). The results also indicate that different ECT paradigms (e.g., visual search and memory search tasks) may yield markedly different values in terms of the group means of analogous parameters, indicating different processes, and yet not show independence of the parameters in terms of individual differences; that is, measurements of the different parameters in individuals are perfectly correlated (i.e., disattenuated correlations do not differ significantly from r = 1). This is found for the intercept parameter of visual and memory search. The reverse condition is also found for the other parameters (e.g., slope); that is, their mean values are nearly identical, suggesting the same processes, yet disattenuated correlations between individual differences are relatively low, or even negative, indicating different processes. Although the general factor clearly predominates, it does not completely overwhelm individual differences in various component processes that are distinct from the general factor.     

An analysis of diversity in the cognitive performance of elderly community dwellers: individual differences in change scores as a function of age.

This longitudinal study investigated whether age is associated with increases in interindividual variability across 4 ability domains using a sample of 426 elderly community dwellers followed over 3.5 years. Interindividual variability in change scores increased with age for memory, spatial functioning, and speed but not for crystallized intelligence for the full sample and in a subsample that excluded dementia or probable dementia cases. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that being female, having weaker muscle strength, and having greater symptoms of illness and greater depression were associated with overall greater variability in cognitive scores. Having a higher level of education was associated with reduced variability. These findings are consistent with the view that there is a greater range of responses at older ages, that certain domains of intelligence are less susceptible to variation than others and that variables other than age affect cognitive performance in later life.     

Dissociative style and individual differences in verbal working memory span

Dissociative style is mostly studied as a risk factor for dissociative pathology, but it may also reflect a fundamental characteristic of healthy information processing. Due to the close link between attention and working memory and the previous finding of enhanced attentional abilities with a high dissociative style, a positive relationship was also expected between dissociative style and verbal working memory span. In a sample of 119 psychology students, it was found that the verbal span of the high-dissociative group was about half a word larger than of the medium and low-dissociative groups. It is suggested that dissociative style may be one of only very few individual differences that is directly relevant to consciousness research.     

Attachment style and individual differences in leadership perceptions and emergence

The authors examined whether individuals' approaches to relationships, expressed in terms of attachment styles, was related to how they viewed ideal leadership and to their degree of tendency to emerge as team leaders. Specifically, the authors hypothesized that attachment styles, or cognitive representations of orientation to others, would explain individual differences in leadership perceptions and emergence. Participants were 127 American students in college teams. The authors found that securely attached individuals (n = 81) perceived themselves as more effective team members than did insecurely attached individuals (n = 46) and that fellow team members saw securely attached team members as emerging team leaders significantly more often than they did insecurely attached team members.     

Sex differences in interaction style as a product of perceived sex differences in competence

Males' and females' interaction styles were observed while they worked in four-person, mixed-sex groups on a discussion task. In some groups, members were only given information about each others' names and gender. In this circumstance, men were perceived by themselves and other group members to be higher in competence than women. Further, men engaged in a greater amount of active task behavior than women (e.g., giving information, giving opinions), and women exhibited a greater amount of positive social behavior than men (e.g., agreeing, acting friendly). In other groups, members' competency-based status was manipulated by providing false feedback that they were high or low relative to their group in intellectual and moral aptitude. High status members were then perceived to be more competent than low status ones and, further, high status individuals engaged in more active task and less positive social behavior than low status ones. In this condition, no sex differences were obtained on perceived competence or on active task or positive social behavior. Overall, these findings support the idea that the gender differences obtained in interaction when status was not specified were partially a function of group members' belief that the sexes differ in competence. Direct information concerning members' intellectual and moral competence apparently blocked the perceived gender-to-competence link, and status alone affected perceived competence and interaction style.     

Adult age differences in function concept learning

Function concept learning and knowledge use was explored across adulthood. During training older and younger adults predicted an amount of physiological arousal produced as a negative and positive function of a chemical substance. Knowledge use was evaluated with two transfer conditions requiring a switch between contextual contingencies: a relationship inversion, predicting the chemical amount given the physiological arousal, and a change from graphic based to text based stimuli. Older adults were impaired in applying the negative slope concept. However, there was no relative deficit in switching between the negative and positive function slopes or inverting the learned relationship. Our results suggest that age-related differences in relational reasoning tasks vary not only with processing efficiency, but also task related conceptual knowledge.     

Reliability coefficients as a function of individual differences induced by a learning process assuming identical organisms

In this article we show that a particular mathematical learning model, the Bower-Trabasso (1964) concept identification model taken together with an assumption of independence of replicate measurements, implies the existence of substantial and statistically significant performance differences across individuals. The individual differences in turn imply a sizeable reliability coefficient. These results contradict naive intuition, for this model (like many other mathematical models of learning) assumes that all individuals begin the experiment with identical parameter values for the process under study. Thus at least one such model has the characteristic of implying the generation of individual performance differences among originally identical organisms.Examination of data from an experiment by Cotton shows that the Hoyt reliability coefficient under classical test theory, a lower bound for the (composite) reliability of total scores for a series of trials, increases with the number of trials analyzed and exceeds the corresponding theoretical values implied by the Bower-Trabasso model. An experiment by Levine was also analyzed because its use of blank trials between feedback trials permitted direct calculation of composite reliability (or more properly stated composite consistency). For this experiment, the theoretical development just discussed (Case I) was used together with Restle's hypothesis selection model specialized to include a local consistency assumption, the so-called P₂ model of Gregg and Simon (Case II). Moderate conformity of empirical and theoretical reliabilities was found, with discrepancies between observed and predicted values usually being smaller with Case II. However, the Hoyt reliability coefficient is not a lower bound for composite reliability in Case II, because composite reliability is underestimated when identical stimuli are not used for comparable trials.Despite the Bower-Trabasso assumption of no initial differences, it seems reasonable to attribute the difference between predicted and obtained reliabilities to preexisting individual differences. Implications of the tentative conclusion that individual differences in concept identification performance are attributable to a combination of preexisting differences and differences induced in a current task are discussed briefly.