Modeling the links between need for cognition and the acquisition of a complex skill

Neurophysiological Measures of Involuntary and Voluntary Attention Allocation and Dispositional Differences in Need for Cognition

“…Consistent with this, efforts to relate NFC to established personality dimensions such as the five factors proposed by Costa and McCrae (1992) have shown that NFC is positively correlated with Conscientiousness and Openness to Experience (Sadowski & Cogburn, 1997;Tuten & Bosniak, 2001;Woo, Harms, & Kuncel, 2007), whereas concerning an association between NFC and cognitive ability, no or only moderate correlations have been observed (Bors, Vigneau, & Lalande, 2006;Cacioppo, Petty, Kao, & Rodriguez, 1986;Day et al, 2007;Tidwell, Sadowski, & Pate, 2000). Integrating these findings with the results outlined above, individuals high in NFC tend to show stronger intrinsically motivated goal-oriented behavior and, at the same time, are more attracted by complexity and novelty, without necessarily having a higher ability to achieve their goals.…”

“…According to the elaboration likelihood model (ELM; , these findings can be interpreted in terms of a higher likelihood of high-NFC individuals to engage in deep elaboration, or central processing, whereas low-NFC individuals tend to show little elaboration and rather peripheral processing. Supporting evidence for effortful and elaborated processing also comes from studies demonstrating that high NFC is associated with better performance in cognitive tasks (Dornic, Ekehammar, & Laaksonen, 1991;Sadowski & Gulgoz, 1992), with greater success in adaptive decision making (Levin, Huneke, & Jasper, 2000;Sargent, 2004) and problem solving (e.g., Nair & Ramnarayan, 2000) as well as with better performance in complex skill acquisition (Day, Espejo, Kowollik, Boatman, & McEntire, 2007).…”

Item Response Theory analysis and Differential Item Functioning across age, gender and country of a short form of the Advanced Progressive Matrices

“…The present work aimed to extend the study of the psychometric properties of the Arthur and Day's APM-SF applying the IRT models since until now the characteristics of the scale have been investigated using classical test theory (Arthur & Day, 1994;Arthur et al, 1999;Day et al, 2007). Moreover, this is in line with the International Test Commission's recommendations for the proper description and evaluation of existing and widely used psychological instruments (e.g., Muñiz, 2011).…”

“…Ties were reconciled by selecting the most difficult item or the item with the largest drop in internal consistency if deleted from the test. A 12-item scale was obtained and administered to samples of university students in order to test its factor structure, the progressive item difficulty, and its reliability (Arthur & Day, 1994;Arthur, Tubre, Paul, & Sanchez-Ku, 1999;Day, Espejo, Kowollik, Boatman, & McEntire, 2007). A confirmatory factor analysis indicated that a single-factor model adequately represents the structure of the short form, and satisfactory indices of internal consistency and test-retest were obtained.…”

On the Role of Goal Orientation Traits and Self-Efficacy in the Goal-Setting Process: Distinctions That Make a Difference

“…Reviewing this literature reveals that although a few researchers have attempted to manipulate goal orientations temporarily (e.g., Kozlowski et al, 2001;Steele-Johnson, Beauregard, Hoover, & Schmidt, 2000) or have measured task-specific, state goal orientations (e.g., Breland & Donovan, 2005;Day, Espejo, & Kowollik, 2007), the vast majority of I/ O researchers have focused on goal orientations as traits. Furthermore, the empirical evidence for the utility of trait goal orientations is overwhelming, relative to that for state goal orientations.…”