An Exploratory Study of Cognitive Style in Performance on Matched and Mismatched Tasks

Abstract

Researchers have suggested that task performance is often dependent upon the congruence of cognitive style and task. To explore this suggestion, 44 female and 4 male undergraduates were administered the Cognitive Style Analysis, the Closure Flexibility, the Composite Gestalt Completion Test, and the Vocabulary subtest from the WAIS. Specifically, four hypotheses were tested: (1) that participants with an analytic style will perform better than those with a wholistic style on the Closure Flexibility; (2) that participants with a wholistic style will perform better than those with an analytic style on the Composite Gestalt Completion Test; (3) that participants with an intermediate style will outperform persons with an analytic style on the Composite Gestalt Completion Test; and (4) that intermediate scorers would perform better than those with a wholistic style on Closure Flexibility. Only the second hypothesis was supported, so results provide only minimal support for the effect of match or mismatch of cognitive style and task performance.