Cognitive style

Massaro, D. and Ferguson, E., Cognitive style and perception The relationship between category width and speech perception, categorization and discrimination. The American Journal of Psychology, 106(1), 25-50,1993. 

Kanit L, Taskiran D, Furedy JJ, Kulali B, McDonald R, Pogun S. (1998). Nicotine interacts with sex in affecting rat choice between "look-out" and "navigational" cognitive styles in the Morris water maze place learning task. Brain Res Bull. 46(5) 441-45. 

Pascual-Leone, J. In Cognitive Style and Cognitive Development Globerson, T. Zelniker, T. Eds. Ablex Norwood, NJ, 1989 pp 36-70. 

Another widely used metric is the Kirton Adaption-Innovation Inventory. This is based on the Kirton Adaption-Innovation Theory, which considers that, before people can feel comfortable when tackling a problem they will differ amongst them on what structure they require and whether there is a need for a consensus on that structure. Another important factor is how important is the outcome of the problem solving, what is the reward or alternatively the punishment to be felt by the people concerned. This is called the cognitive style [C-50],... 

The key assumption of this theory is that there is a continuum of cognitive style, ranging from high adaption to high innovation, on which people can be placed dependent on the characteristic mode in which they solve problems (create or make decisions). The Kirton Adaption-Innovation Inventory (KAI) is the psychometric measurement devised to locate respondents on this continuum. It is concerned with the different ways in which people think, and particularly the way they show their creativity, solve problems and make decisions. Three sub traits, which are measured to give a total score, are explained as follows [C-51] ... 

When all team members understand their own cognitive style, as well as the styles of other team members, the process of working together becomes much smoother and more productive—and you avoid unnecessary conflicts and delays. For example, a more adaptive team member who would ordinarily be frustrated with a more innovative team leader can, instead, understand the differences and use them to the team s advantage. 

What s not typically known or understood is the critical aspect of team members respective cognitive styles. Cognitive style researchers have proven that people who are more adaptive prefer to accept and work within the given paradigm those who are more innovative prefer to solve problems by looking at them from new angles and perspectives (Exhibits 9.1, 9.2, 9.3, and 9.4). 

All innovation projects have steps that are adaptive and others that are innovative in nature. Therefore, you need a collaborative team with the appropriate motive, resources, cognitive level, and diversity of cognitive style. But research shows that people with differing cognitive styles struggle to... 

Examine the Cognitive Style of Each Team Member... 

To determine the best ht for the task at hand, given the pool of potential candidates, be aware of the cognitive style that each team member brings to the task. You can do this in one of two ways ... 

If you want a more sophisticated way to determine cognitive style, use the Kirton Adaption-Innovation (KAI) Inventory, a highly validated and reliable psychometric instrument developed by psychologist Dr. Michael Kirton. Available at www.kaicentre.com, the KAI inventory works like this ... 

Cognitive style (adaptive or innovative) is different and unrelated to cognitive level (knowledge and capacity). 

One s preferred cognitive style is genetically determined and stable over a lifetime. 

Don t mistake poor performance to always be a symptom of low problemsolving level or motivation. Instead of jumping to replace these team members, examine how you might reassign tasks to achieve better alignment with their preferred cognitive styles. 

The larger the gap between people s cognitive styles, the harder it will be to collaborate, communicate, and solve problems. 

To select your innovation project team members, start by identifying the combination of technical and change leadership skills that will be required to bring your innovation to market. The appropriate number of team members should be driven by the complexity and requirements of the innovation. You can also examine the candidates problem-solving styles (see Cognitive Style, Technique 9) to ensure an effective and diverse mix. 

Miller, A (1987) Cognitive Styles An Integrated Model. Educ Psychol 7 251-268. 

Rezaei, AR and Katz, L (2004) Evaluation of the Reliability and Validity of Cognitive Styles Analysis. Pers Indiv Differ 36 1317-1327. 

Riding, R and Douglas, G (1993) The Effect of Cognitive Style and Mode of Presentation on Learning Performance. Brit J Educ Psychol 63 297-307. 

Ramsay, A, Hanlon, D and Smith, D (2000) The Association between Cognitive Style and Accounting Students Preference for Cooperative Learning An Empirical Investigation. J Acc Ed 18 215-228. 

Authoritarianism Open/close-mindedness Cognitive needs Cognitive style Commitment... 

Cognitive style Relational-conceptual Inferential-categorical... 

The developmental task is to acquaint these individuals with their own cultural patterns. Many intercultural professionals include such topics in their diversity work, such as nonverbal behavior, communication styles, values, interaction rituals, conflict styles, cognitive styles, and learning styles. (Topics such as identity development, stereotyping, privilege, gender, power, and prejudice are best promoted in the ethnorelative/difference-seek-ing mindsets.) These topics draw from many disciplines, but all are employed in the examination of meaning making. 

In sum, individual creativity is a function of antecedent conditions [e.g., past reinforcement history, biographical variables), cognitive style and ability (e.g., divergent thinking, ideational fluency), personality factors [e.g., self-esteem, locus of control), relevant knov/ledge, motivation, social influences [e.g., social facilitation, social rewards), and contextual influences (e.g., physical environment, task and time constraints)."... 

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