Thinking styles in relation to personality traits: an investigation of the Thinking Styles Inventory and NEO-PI-R

This study is an investigation of the Sternberg-Wagner Thinking Style Inventory (TSI), with regard to cross-cultural replication and relation to the five-factor personality model (FFM). TSI and NEO-PI-R were administered to 107 participants from USA and 114 participants from Norway. Inter-correlations between NEO-PI-R dimensions and TSI-scales and factors were not very strong, few exceeding 0.40, and the correlations were in predicted directions. Joint factor analyses of TSI and NEO-PI-R showed that TSI covers variance that NEO-PI-R does not explain. Thus, it is argued that the thinking styles give an independent contribution beyond FFM dimensions. However, TSI did not relate to FFM in the same manner in the two samples. Finally, the TSI-scales and factors were replicable across samples by Procrustes rotation. The question whether thinking style may be regarded as a valid and reliable construct is discussed.