Inconsistency in preference behaviour was predicted on the basis of variability in cognitive control. Twenty-eight undergraduates performed an aesthetic preference task, and were subsequently assessed for intra-individual variability on the cognitive-control dimension of breadth of categorization. The results supported the hypothesis at better than the 0.01 level of significance by a one-tailed test.The past decade has witnessed the growth of a sizeable body of theory and data concerning ' cognitive controls ' or individual consistencies in processing stimulus input (e.g. Gardner, 1962). While considerable attention has been accorded interindividual variation in these characterological response dispositions, the question of intra-individual variability in cognitive control has gone unexamined. Inasmuch as intra-individual variability is itself a fundamental and stable phenomenon (Fiske, 1961), variability in cognitive control should have certain predictable consequences. For instance, an individual characterized by a marked degree of fluctuation in cognitive control should find himself the victim of confused and contradictory information processing leading to inconsistent and 'unpredictable ' behaviour. The present study was designed to test such an hypothesis. METHODThe dimension of cognitive control selected for study was that of breadth of categorization, i.e. the tendency to establish narrow or broad cognitive categories. Variability in breadth of categorization was assessed by means of the Category Width (CW) scale (Pettigrew, 1958). The CW scale consists of 20 items. Each item states an average value for a category (e.g. average number of lynchings per year in the United States). The subject is asked to choose one of four randomly ordered alternatives for each of (a) the upper limit of the category (e.g. the largest number of lynchings) and ( b ) the lower limit of the category (e.g. the smallest number of lynchings). The range between these two limits defines the width of the category. Values of 0, 1 , 2 , 3 are assigned to the four degrees of deviation from the stated average; thus a range of 0 indicates the narrowest category, and a range of 6 indicates the broadest category. The subject's variability in breadth of categorization is represented by the magnitude of his variance over the 20 items of the CW scale.The behaviour to which variability in cognitive control was hypothesized to predict was aesthetic preference. This area of functioning was chosen because aesthetic preferences are meaningful to the subject while the criteria for preference are usually ambiguous to some degree, thereby generating a range of inconsistent preferences among subjects. The aesthetic preference task consisted of indicating preferences between the members of all possible pairs of ten Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) (Murray, 1943) cards selected for stylistic variety (cards 2, 8GF, 11, 12BG, 13B, 13G, 14, 17BM, 17GF, 19). The subject's inconsistency score was the number of within-pair reversals of preference made between ...
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