NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT LAB

PAUL JONES, ED.D.
UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA, LAS VEGAS

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Internet/WWW Assessment of Personality Traits

Assessment Lab Report 4-1
June/2000

The instrument identified as CogStyle has been included in studies in this lab because of its general utility and continued interest in investigations associated with the relationship between personality traits and cognitive functions. The traits measured in CogStyle are comparable to four of the traits in the "big five" model of personality function (Costa & McCrae, 1992) and the personality types (Myers & McCaulley, 1985) measured with the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).

In the CogStyle instrument, attitude is a measure of extraversion-introversion, similar to the extraversion scale (big five) and the EI scale (MBTI), approach is a measure of preference for working with data or working with ideas, similar to the "openness to experience" (big five) and SN (MBTI) scales, focus is a measure of preference for working with things or working with people, similar to agreeableness (big five) scale and the TF (MBTI) scales, and process is a measure of detailed or contextual style preference, similar to the conscientiousness (big five) and JP (MBTI) scales.

Scale names in CogStyle have roots in work (Lowen, 1982) on computer modeling of personality traits. Development history and results of previous research with CogStyle in this lab are available (lab report 2-5).

Method

Participants

Details about participants and general procedure in the Series Four studies are available in a related report. As described in that report, suspect datasets were eliminated prior to analysis. This is reflected in the results below with some variance in the number of subjects associated with the various analyses. Apparently valid CogStyle datasets were available for 63 of the 65 subjects in the total participant sample.

Instrumentation

Descriptions of all instruments used in the Series Four studies are available (series four tests). CogStyle factor scores are on a scale ranging from 1 to 100 with higher scores associated with extraversion, data, things, and detail preferences. The scaling for the CogAttention, CogMemory, and CogListening tests is the simple total raw score correct. The CogPlanning score is the absolute difference in cognitive efficiency (correct responses/minute) between Condition A and Condition B on this instrument (lab report 4-3).

Results

Table 1 below displays descriptive statistics including interrelationships among the four CogStyle scales for the participants in this study. In comparison with an undergraduate student sample in prior study (lab report 2-5), the graduate students in this participant sample were much more likely to express an introverted attitude preference. Both this sample and the prior undergraduate sample showed an evident overall "context" preference on the process scale. The high correlation between the process (detail vs. context) scale and the approach (data vs. ideas)scale was evident with both samples.

TABLE 1
INTERCORRELATION MATRIX
n = 63

	attitude m=37.8 s.d.=33.39	approach m=48.8 s.d.=24.79	focus m=48.7 s.d.=28.57	process m=41.7 s.d.=37.78
attitude (extravert-introvert)	1.00	.17	-.26*	-.09
approach (data-ideas)	.17	1.00	.26	.63*
focus (things-people)	-.26*	.26*	1.00	.34
process (detail-context)	-.09	.63*	.34*	1.00

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Table 2 below provides product moment correlation coefficients between the CogStyle scales and the cognitive performance measures used in the Series Four studies. The attitude (extraversion-introversion) scale was not significantly related to the cognitive measures. There was a statistically significant relationship between scores on the approach (data-ideas) scale and performance on the CogPlanning scale with higher scores on the latter associated with the "data" preference. A statistically significant relationship was evident between the focus (things-people) scale and performance on CogListening with higher performance associated with the "people" preference. A statistically significant relationship was evident between the process (detail-context) scale and both CogAttention and CogPlanning. A "context" preference was associated with higher performance on the former; a "detail" preference was associated with higher performance on the latter.

TABLE 2
COGSTYLE SCALES AND COGNITIVE
PERFORMANCE CORRELATION COEFFICIENTS

	CogAtt (n=63)	CogMem (n=61)	CogListen (n=62)	CogPlan (n=62)
attitude (extravert-introvert)	.14	.22	.13	.12
approach (data-ideas)	-.06	-.03	.17	.39*
focus (things-people)	-.20	-.13	-.27*	.17
process (detail-context)	-.31*	.07	.00	.30*

* significant at .05 level

CogAtt: CogAttention Raw Score (maximum is 10)
CogMem: CogMemory Raw Score (maximum is 55)
CogListen: CogListening Raw Score (maximum is 24)
CogPlan: CogPlanning Condition Contrast Efficiency Score

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Tables 3-6 below provide additional data regarding the relationship between CogStyle and the cognitive performance scales used in the Series Four studies. For each of the CogStyle scales, scores of 1-24 and scores of 76-100 are identified as strong preference with scores from 25-75 identified as mixed preference. For this analysis, performance on the cognitive measures was contrasted between strong preference groups on each of the CogStyle scales. With the exception of a lack of statistically significant difference on the focus (things-people) scale, the results in Tables 3-6 mirror the significant relationships identified by correlation coefficients in Table 2.

TABLE 3
COGSTYLE ATTITUDE AND PERFORMANCE ON COGNITIVE MEASURES

	strong introvert preference	strong extravert preference
	mean (s.d.)	mean (s.d.)	t	p
CogAtt	7.6 (2.00)      n=33	8.8 (1.77)      n=16	1.99	.051
CogMem	37.6(12.22)      n=33	42.7 (9.30)      n=16	1.48	.147
CogListen	20.3 (2.01)      n=33	21.2 (1.72)      n=16	1.46	.151
CogPlan	2.4 (2.75)      n=33	3.8 (3.18)      n=15	1.46	.151

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TABLE 4
COGSTYLE APPROACH AND PERFORMANCE ON COGNITIVE MEASURES

	strong ideas preference	strong data preference
	mean (s.d.)	mean (s.d.)	t	p
CogAtt	8.2 (2.32)      n=16	7.9 (2.34)      n=11	.31	.763
CogMem	42.6(10.97)      n=16	41.3 (12.06)      n=10	.27	.786
CogListen	20.5 (2.10)      n=16	21.2 (1.72)      n=11	.89	.382
CogPlan	.7 (4.10)      n=16	4.0 (3.39)      n=10	2.14	.042*

* significant at .05 level

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TABLE 5
COGSTYLE FOCUS AND PERFORMANCE ON COGNITIVE MEASURES

	strong people preference	strong things preference
	mean (s.d.)	mean (s.d.)	t	p
CogAtt	8.1 (2.09)      n=15	7.1 (2.28)      n=15	1.25	.221
CogMem	42.5(10.54)      n=15	41.0 (12.38)      n=15	.37	.718
CogListen	21.0 (2.36)      n=15	19.4 (2.95)      n=15	1.64	.112
CogPlan	1.0 (4.31)      n=15	3.1 (3.1)      n=15	1.57	.128

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TABLE 6
COGSTYLE PROCESS AND PERFORMANCE ON COGNITIVE MEASURES

	strong contextual preference	strong detailed preference
	mean (s.d.)	mean (s.d.)	t	p
CogAtt	8.3 (2.24)      n=28	6.9 (2.05)      n=19	2.16	.036*
CogMem	40.7(11.22)      n=27	42.2 (11.06)      n=18	.42	.677
CogListen	20.2 (2.62)      n=27	20.4 (1.35)      n=19	.36	.721
CogPlan	1.3 (4.23)      n=27	3.9 (2.99)      n=19	2.31	.026*

* significant at .05 level

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In the introduction to the CogStyle test instrument used in the Series Four studies, each participant was asked to respond to four questions which were then used as a "self-classification" on each of the four scales in this instrument. The questions were:

Do you think of yourself as more extraverted and outgoing or introverted and thoughtful?
Are you usually more interested in facts or ideas?
Do you usually prefer working with things or people?
Do you think of yourself as more organized or spontaneous?

For each question, the subject could choose one of the bipolar descriptors or respond with "mid-range/uncertain". Tables 7-10 describe the relationship between the self-classifications and the scores on the related CogStyle scale. There was significant evident discrepancy between the self-reports and the measured outcomes. For example, 52 percent of this participant sample had scores identified with an introverted preference while 81 percent of this sample identified themselves with an introverted preference.

TABLE 7
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SELF-IDENTIFIED
AND MEASURED ATTITUDE

	self-report introversion	self-report mid-range	self-report extraversion	total
measured result introversion	81%	39%	37%	52%
measured result mid-range	5%	22%	42%	22%
measured result extraversion	14%	39%	21%	25%

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TABLE 8
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SELF-IDENTIFIED
AND MEASURED APPROACH

	self-report ideas	self-report mid-range	self-report data	total
measured result ideas	38%	27%	9%	25%
measured result mid-range	42%	67%	68%	57%
measured result data	19%	7%	23%	17%

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TABLE 9
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SELF-IDENTIFIED
AND MEASURED FOCUS

	self-report people	self-report mid-range	self-report things	total
measured result people	35%	8%	60%	24%
measured result mid-range	52%	46%	0%	52%
measured result things	13%	46%	40%	24%

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TABLE 10
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SELF-IDENTIFIED
AND MEASURED PROCESS

	self-report context	self-report mid-range	self-report detail	total
measured result context	87%	38%	26%	44%
measured result mid-range	0%	38%	32%	25%
measured result detail	13%	23%	41%	30%

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Summary and Discussion

These data continue the trend evident in studies in this lab of a relationship between personality traits and cognitive performance. In this study at least one statistically significant correlation coefficient was found between cognitive performance and each personality trait except attitude (extraversion-introversion). Whether the personality trait has a causative effect on the cognitive scale or vice versa remains to be determined, but these data continue to confirm the prior suggestion that personality trait assessment appears to be warranted as a part of a comprehensive neuropsychological workup.

The evident discrepancy between self-report of personality trait and measurement with the CogStyle scale did not include appraisal of an external criterion. Thus, while this study did not investigate the relative accuracy of the two modes, these data clearly indicate that they do not provide equivalent outcomes.

The relatively high correlation between the data-ideas and context-detail scales, now evident in two studies in this lab, warrants further investigation. While this could be an artifact for participant samples of education majors, additional study with external anchor measures is needed.

References

Costa, P.T., Jr., &; McCrae, R.R. (1992). NEO PI-R: Professional manual. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.

Lowen, W. (1982). Dichotomies of the mind: A systems science model of the mind and personality. New York: John Wiley.

Myers, I.B., & McCaulley, M.H. (1985). Manual: A guide to the development and use of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.

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Guide to Reports

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