Cognitive orientation type as a source of individual differences in information processing

Abstract

The introduction of technological change in the workplace has raised the question of how easily people can adapt to changes in paper-based information processing. The research assessed the suitability of the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) for identifying individual differences in cognitive information processing style.Behavioural evidence for differences in information processing between the four types was obtained from the performance of forty subjects on a word association task,sorting and recall task, and from their perceptions of their cognitive sorting strategy. The Jungian-based personality inventory gave four cognitive orientation types. Each type was defined by two cognitive functions associated with characteristic ways of evaluating and organizing information. (People evaluated through Sensing or Intuition and organized through Thinking or Feeling). The cognitive functions were each associated with the processing of particular kinds of information. People who evaluated through the Sensing function found it easier to process concrete, object specific information than Intuitive persons who were oriented to more abstract information. Intuitive people were characterized by more flexible information processing than Sensing persons and, consequently, the former are probably more adaptable to change. The same subjects organized information: if through Thinking, by emphasizing distinctive features and if through Feeling, by stressing shared features. Discernable differences were found between two types, Sensing-Feeling and Intuition-Thinking, whose cognitive processing tended to be independent of each other. The former had superior recall performance when compared with the other types; the latter had the poorest recall performance but the most original word association response style. The results were discussed in terms of their significance for Jung's speculations as a cognitive theory of personality that links cognition and affect through the concept of cognitive orientation. The correspondence between Jungian personality concepts and aspects of cognitive style was discussed as well as the ease with which the different information processing types can adapt to change.