Cognitive Style: Not Culture's Consequence

Many authors have drawn attention to the differences in psychosocial variables which exist between national cultures. This paper investigates Prato Previde's (1991) hypothesis that Adaptive-Innovative (A-I) cogni- tive style is a stable cognitive process within the individual which is largely uninfluenced by national culture. Empirical findings and statis- tical analyses are brought together from a range of studies in different countries to test this hypothesis. In all, the conclusion is drawn that the data are largely consistent with this hypothesis. The principal factors supporting this conclusion comprise: (1) the similarity between the psy- chometric properties and factor structures obtained for each of the current five language versions (English, French, Dutch, Italian, and Slovak) of the KAI — the measure of (A-I) cognitive style; and (2) the evidence that A-I cognitive style varies more by occupation and by work function than by nation.

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