HOW VISUAL ABILITIES AND SOCIAL TRAITS SHAPE OUR COGNITIVE STYLE

Abstract

The aim of the study is to investigate how cognitive abilities and personality traits relate to cognitive style. Past research has provided evidence that cognitive style develops through interaction with the external environment based on innate predispositions, such as cognitive abilities and personality traits. This study focused on the condition of visualization abilities, which refer to one’s object and spatial visualization ability, and social traits such as one’s social competitiveness or self-perceived social value, in relation to the fundamental cognitive style dimensions. Study 1 examined the relationship between cognitive style and visualization abilities, whereas Study 2 focused on the relationship between cognitive style and social traits. The results show that visualization abilities and certain measures of social traits contribute to some dimensions of cognitive style (i.e., Context, Integration and Locus); whereas other dimensions of cognitive styles (i.e., Rule and Metastyles) could not be predicted by visualization abilities or social traits. In conclusion, both cognitive abilities and personality traits contribute to certain dimensions of cognitive styles, and both should be considered together when examining how cognitive style develops in an individual. However, at the same time, some cognitive style dimensions cannot be reduced to either of them.