A discussion of the major modalities that form the distinctions of the questions can be found in a previous blog post: A Structural Model of Mind and Cognition. Discussion of the functioning and interaction of modalities and pathways of the model will be posted in the near future.
The poll data is presented in the table.
The proportion of people’s preference for each is represented as a percentage
in the bottom-left and top-right corners of each cell. The statistical
probability of the Chi2 test is presented in the top-left corner and
highlighted green if it is less than the benchmark of .05, and the total number
of respondents to each distinction is presented in the bottom-right corner of
each cell.
Results
Major Modality Distinctions
Statistically Significant Differences
Six out of ten of the distinctions were
found to have a statistically significant difference in the proportions of
people favouring them. These were for the following questions;
o 37.9% Emotions
§ Represents the Motivational Modality
o 62.1% Reasons
§ Represents the Orientational Modality
o 64.5% Quality
§ Represents the Motivational Modality
o 35.5% Details
§ Represents the Environmental Modality
o 68.3%
Scenarious
§ Represents
the Orientational Modality
o 31.7%
Dialogues
§ Represents
the Communicational Modality
o 80.8% Behaviour
§ Represents the Behavioural Modality
o 19.2% Communication
§ Represents the Communicational Modality
o 69.9% Actions
§ Represents the Behavioural Modality
o 30.1% Events
§ Represents the Environmental Modality
o 39.6% Words
§ Represents
the Communicational Modality
o 60.4%
Pictures
§ Represents
the Environmental Modality
There was an overall trend in the
distinctions that showed a statistically significant difference in people’s
preferences. All of these distinctions showed a preference towards internal-management
(or ‘top-down’) modalities over external-sensory modalities for thinking.
Motivational and Orientational modality thinking were favoured over the
external-sensory modalities of Communicational and Environmental. The
Behavioural modality, which is theoretically both internal-management and
external-sensory, was also generally favoured for thinking over the external-sensory
modalities. Finally, between the external-sensory modalities, people generally
favoured Environmental modality thinking over Communicational thinking.
Equivalent Distinctions
There was no overall difference in
preference for the remaining four modalities, represented in these questions;
o
54.0% Motivation
§
Motivational Modality
o
46.0% Action
§
Behavioural Modality
o
50.5% Objectives
§
Orientational Modality
o
49.5% Steps
§
Behavioural Modality
o
50.4% Motivation
§
Motivational Modality
o
49.6% Message
§
Communicational Modality
o
55.7% Approach
§
Orientational Modality
o
44.3% Elements
§
Environmental Modality
People’s preferences were balanced for
these distinctions; however the nominal trend was still towards
internal-management modalities over external-sensory modalities.
Additional Exploration
Three questions about distinctions between
major information processing routes, and a hypothetical difference between
hemispheric lateralisation were also included. These were;
o Internal-Management
Modalities
o Contextualising
Information
o 76.4% Quality
§ Motivational Modality
o 23.6% Domain
§ Orientational Modality
o p < .01
o N = 55
o Internal-Management Modalities
o Specifying Information
o 52.3% Values
§ Motivational
Modality
o 47.7% Principles
§ Orientational
Modality
o p = .63
o N = 107
o Hemispheric lateralisation
o 82.9% Possibility
§ Static-relational, Left-Hemisphere
o 17.1% Certainty
§ Dynamic-Referents, Right-Hemisphere
o p < .01
o N = 123
People showed a statistically significant
preference for Motivational thinking for processing that involved broad
contextual information, but no preference between Motivational and
Orientational thinking for processing that involved specific instances or
details. This result was somewhat in the opposite direction to the overall
group preference for Orientational thinking when compared to Motivational
thinking.
There was a significant preference for
thinking that involved the application of fixed-relationships to find ‘possibilities’
when thinking. This style of information processing is hypothetically linked to
the left-hemisphere due to hemispheric lateralisation and specialisation of
language and communication which are characteristically relational following
fixed syntactic patterns. Conversely, dynamic-referent thinking is
characterised by fluidly applying fixed points of reference in search of ‘certainty’.
This style of thinking is linked with the right hemisphere due to
lateralisation and specialisation of spatial processing which is
characteristically about coordinate reference points.
Discussion
People generally show a preference towards
internal-management modalities for thinking, supporting the idea that internal-management
modalities are critically involved for evaluation, planning, and the regulation
of external-sensory modalities.
Between motivational and orientational
modalities, the patterns of results suggested that people’s preferences for
connected external-sensory modalities were different. People showed no preference
between communicational thinking and motivational thinking, but did show a
preference for motivational thinking over environmental thinking. Conversely,
people showed no preference for environmental thinking and orientational
thinking, but showed a preference for orientational thinking over
communicational thinking. This juxtaposed arrangement is suggestive of
different cognitive thinking styles and perhaps modality interconnectivity in
cognition.
Whilst overall people showed a preference
for Orientational thinking when internal-management modalities were compared,
the direction of preference reversed when the comparison was for thinking about
broad contexts. The number of respondents for this question however was
relatively small compared to other questions (N = 55) which could suggest difficulties in the ease at which the
question was understood. There was also no particular preference for either
type of thinking for specific instances. Further investigation is required
before conclusions can be drawn about processing pathways at the
internal-management level.
The hypothetical question comparing left
and right hemispheric thinking styles showed a strong and significant preference
towards the left-hemisphere. The strength of this preference approached the
population statistic of handedness (10% left, 90% right), and even closer if
mixed-handedness is considered (5-6% of the population). This result supports
the utility of the question, and the general proposition of left-hemispheric
dominance in the population.
Overall, preferences were fairly evenly
spread across the various modality distinctions made. This even spread of
preferences supports the utility of modality based thinking distinctions for
measuring personality.
Limitations
Ipsative, forced-choice, poll data is
fairly insensitive in that it does not measure the extent of individual’s
preferences or biases. It is possible that some of the proportions in
preference could disappear or be reduced if people had the option to answer
with ‘a balance of the two’. As such, this data and results can be little more
than suggestive, utilisable only for qualitative and anecdotal purposes.
Further limitations that arose, judged by
comments made by respondents, are that the framing and wording of these
distinctions could affect people’s preferences. For example, questions oriented
towards thinking about the ‘self’ could incur different preferences compared to
thinking about ‘others’ or thinking about subjects that are not to do with
people at all. The social attractiveness of some word labels, e.g., ‘Quality’
and ‘Behaviour’, also appeared to be associated with stronger preferential bias
from the group.
Conclusions
Suggestive evidence for the existence of
cognitive styles based on distinctive profiles for internal-management and
external-sensory thinking was found. These styles may follow the conceptual
distinction between ‘explorers’ (motivational preference, opportunistic and
focused on the environment) and ‘planners’ (orientational preference, directive
and focused on communication) - following the exploratory-exploitative decision making strategy that is outlined in the broader research literature. Future investigation should include measures of
strength of preference and focus on interrelationships between preferences
within individuals. Results from a short-form pilot questionnaire that included
these elements will be presented in the near future.
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