Kornilova, T.V.

Background. Individual techniques, or decision-making styles, are included in the regulation of hierarchies of processes that mediate a person’s exit from situations of uncertainty. Diagnostics of these styles helps both to solve practical problems and to clarify theoretical issues — in particular, the issue of the generalization of styles and their connections with the intellectual and personal spheres.

Objective. The aim is to test and adjust the General Decision-Making Style Inventory questionnaire to a Russian sample.

Study Participants. 456 people aged 18 to 50 years (M = 24.80; SD = 7.61); of these, 74 were men (M = 22.96; SD = 4.88) and 358 were women (M = 25.25; SD = 8.08), 24 subjects did not indicate gender. 80% were university students, 20% were working employees.

Methods. The study included 3 stages: translation, assessment of structural validity and reliability on a Russian sample, assessment of convergent validity. 4 questionnaires were used: the General Decision-Making Style, Rational-Experiential Inventory, Personal Factors of Decision Making (PFDM), Impulsivity-7.

Results. A structural model of connections between the scales (factors) of the General Decision-Making Style Questionnaire has been constructed. The model demonstrated good fit to the data and Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficients were acceptable (0.75 to 0.85). The convergent validity of the questionnaire scales was confirmed. Analysis of differences by gender revealed significantly higher scores for Intuitive and Dependent styles in women.

Conclusions. The General Decision-Making Styles Questionnaire has a 5-factor structure and acceptable psychometric properties. Convergent validity has been demonstrated primarily for the Rational and Intuitive styles when identifying their connections with other similar constructs. Both styles are not related to each other, but are related in the opposite way to the Spontaneous (Impulsive) style.

Background. In recent years, the identification of individual style regulation of decision-making (DM) has become relevant, since DM is an integral characteristic of human life in a complex and uncertain world. As a new aspect, the cross-cultural commonality and specificity of the emotional and personal components of DM are highlighted.

Objective. The aim is to carry out a cross-cultural analysis of the decision-making style of Russian and Chinese samples according to productive and unproductive approaches to coping with uncertainty distinguished in the Melbourne Decision Making Questionnaire (MDMQ).

Sample. The sample consisted of 531 participants: 259 from Russia (М age= 27,67; 32,4 % men) and 272 from China (Мage= 27,76; 38,6 % men).

Methods. The four-factor structure of MDMQ for the Chinese sample was verified. In addition, the participants were presented with the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule — PANAS. All participants were tested through informed collaboration; in Russian sample it was conducted in person, in Chinese sample online testing through the Wen Zhuan Xing (䰞ধᱏ) platform was involved.

Results. Cross-cultural comparison of sample means revealed greater Vigilance in Russians and greater Back-Passing and Hypervigilance in Chinese participants. Correlation analysis has shown (1) similar interrelations of unproductive coping among Russians and Chinese men and differences in Chinese women; (2) positive relations of Vigilance with positive affect and positive relations of unproductive coping with negative affect.

Conclusions. Considering differences in the variables of personal regulation of decision making, we should speak about the generality of their correlation in the latent classes of the two cultural samples.

Background. Empathy is widely recognized as a multifaceted trait that includes cognitive and emotional components. The Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy (QCEI) (Reniers et al., 2011) has been widely used in many countries. However, the question of its factor structure as applied to the Chinese samples was not resolved in two previous worksOur approbation allowed us to clarify its psychometric characteristics, which is important for its further application in China and in cross-cultural studies.

The problem of the relationship between the implicit theories (IT) of emotions and personality and empathy, which has not yet been investigated, is also relevant.

Objective. 1) re-adaptation of the QCEI questionnaire on a Chinese sample, 2) testing hypotheses about the connections of implicit theories of personality and the ability to control emotions with the cognitive and affective components of empathy (on a Chinese sample).

Design. 1,319 Chinese participants completed the QCEI questionnaire, of which 520 in person and 799 through online communication.Their data was randomly split into two samples. Exploratory factor analysis was carried out for the first sample, and confirmatory factor analysis was done for the second one.These 1319 people filled out the questionnaire of implicit theories of emotions (ITE). 520 participants filled out the questionnaire of implicit theories of personality (ITP) as well.To assess the convergent validity of our Chinese version of the QCAE questionnaire 799 participants also completed the M. Davis IRI empathy questionnaire.

Results. A four-factor QCAE model was established for the Chinese sample (as opposed to the author's five-factor model);IRI components are significantly positively correlated with QCAE components, which indicates the commonality of their nomological network.Based on the fact that the incrementality index for ITE is significantly and positively correlated with cognitive empathy, we accepted the hypothesis of the cognitive component as the leading one in the person's assumption about the possibility of controlling emotions.The ITP incrementality index positively correlates only with the “Adjustment” subscale, which indicates a lower representation of the cognitive component in ITP in the Chinese sample. It followsfrom our results that the hypothesis on the connection of the affective component of empathy with the IT of emotions and personality can be rejected.

The study performed a comprehensive examination of interrelationships among intelligence, motivation, and personality traits in problem solving that requires a combination of prognostic activity and following logical rules.

Objective. To determine the role of motivation, personality traits, and intelligence in predicting choice of strategies and the effectiveness of problem solving (using the Wason selection task). 

Method. Seventy-five undergraduate and graduate students from Moscow and Saint Petersburg participated in the study (age M = 21.2, SD = 2.6) and were asked to perform a problem-solving task on a computer. They also received a set of questionnaires: the Ten Item Personality Inventory (Big Five), Personal Preferences Schedule (motivation), two subtests aimed at measuring verbal crystallized intelligence (Mill-Hill and Verbal Analogies) and fluid intelligence (Three-Dimensional Rotation, Matrix Reasoning).

Results. Fluid intelligence showed a positive correlation with extraversion, while verbal intelligence showed a negative correlation with agreeableness and conscientiousness. These three personality traits were also related to problem-solving effectiveness. Fluid intelligence showed a negative correlation with guilt, while verbal intelligence showed a positive correlation with achievement motivation. Intelligence scores were not related to the success of problem solving in the Wason selection task, and neither were emotional stability and openness to experience. 

Effectiveness and the duration of decision making in different attempts to perform the task were correlated with motivation of autonomy, guilt, aggression, and, at the statistical trend level, with motivation of achievement and intraception.

Conclusion. The data largely supported the general hypothesis regarding the role of non-specific motivational tendencies in solving the Wason selection task. For this deterministic problem, we found positive correlations of decision making with motivation of autonomy and endurance, whereas negative correlations were obtained for motivation of aggression.

The article presents the result of a series of five empirical studies. Across multiple samples with typical development we have established a set of relationships between decision making strategies in Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) and such traits as intelligence (general, verbal), executive functions (shifting and inhibition), as well as personality traits of tolerance/intolerance for uncertainty and Big Five personality traits.

The series of empirical studies aimed at verifying a set of hypotheses regarding the role of intelligence and tolerance/intolerance for uncertainty as predictors of choice strategies in IGT, regarding the contribution of executive functions to the regulation of these strategies, as well as identifying the specifics of prognostic strategies of professionals whose occupation involves high risk – i.e., military leaders.

The main measure was Iowa Gambling Task. This task relies on the prognostic/anticipatory activity of the person playing the game that regulates the sequence of choices that they make from four decks of “cards” that have a probabilistic structure of gains and losses, unknown to the participant at the beginning. According to A. Damasio's somatic marker hypothesis, emotional components play a key role in decision making regulation.

Studies 1 through 3 recruited undergraduate students and general population samples; studies 4 and 5 relied on samples of military leaders.

In addition to the IGT, we also measures a set of cognitive and personality traits, including executive functions (using the Go/No Go paradigm), intelligence (using ROADS and ICAR), tolerance-intolerance for uncertainty (using the NTN questionnaire), Big Five personality traits (using the TIPI questionnaire), and personal factors of decision making (using the LFR questionnaire).

The studies revealed significant and positive contributions of intelligence and executive functions (i.e., shifting and inhibition) to decisional efficiency and the development of choice strategies, thus implicating cognitive orienting as the key component of decision making in IGT. We also established a set of group differences in both strategies and patterns of the regulation of choices in IGT between military and non-military samples. We also found that it is specifically during early game stages (characterized by maximal uncertainty) that specific personality traits contribute most to decision making – tolerance for uncertainty was such a predictor for our non-military samples, and risk readiness acted as one in military leaders. Conventional Big Five personality traits did not contribute to participants’ performance in the IGT.

In this paper, we report the results from an empirical study that used a college students sample (n=304, Mean=19.49, SD=2.11; 206 females, 98 males) and investigated the relationship among rigidity variables, acceptance of uncertainty (tolerance/intolerance for uncertainty, risk readiness), rationality and reflexivity, intelligence (analytical and practical), and creativity. We used the following measures: The New Tolerance for Uncertainty Questionnaire, Personality Factors of Decision Making, Tomsk Rigidity Questionnaire, Reflexivity-27 Questionnaire, and the ROADS battery. We tested a set of hypotheses regarding the positive relationships between rigidity and a set of variables that included rationality, reflexivity, and intolerance for uncertainty, regarding the relationships between creativity and tolerance for uncertainty, risk readiness, and rigidity, as well as regarding the relationships between personality variables and academic achievement (GPA). We found that verbal creativity was positively related to reflexivity and negatively — with attitudinal rigidity. Crystallized intelligence was positively related to both academic achievement and creativity. Fluid intelligence was negatively related to rationality, and although both intelligence measures were positively inter-correlated, fluid intelligence was not related to creativity. We also showed that creativity is a positive predictor of achievement, whereas premorbid rigidity is a negative one; tolerance for uncertainty, creativity, and rationality were not related to achievement. However, reflexivity was related to creativity measured with the “Creative Stories” task: higher creativity was related to higher personality reflexivity and low attitudinal rigidity. Intolerance for uncertainty and risk readiness, on the other hand, are negatively related to achievement in college students.

The paper describes the results of a series of studies aimed at revealing the regularities in accepting and overcoming uncertainty that characterizes choice contexts. The formation of dynamic regulative systems (DRS) in the actual genesis of choice is considered to be realization by the subject of his intellectual and personality potential in preparing for and making a choice. We also show how structural equation modeling techniques provide tools for making the notion of the unity of personality and intellectual predictors of choice, and of the components of psychological regulation of choice, more concrete and specific. 

In this paper the features of O.K. Tikhomirov’s approach to human reasoning are discussed. These features are connected with the interpretation of conscious as a system, with the unity of the fields of intellect and senses, with the dynamical interaction of cognitive and personal formations. The author pays attention to the sources of the modern psychology of decision making, which one can find in of personal meanings theory of thinking. It is mentioned in the paper, that O.K. Tikhomirov appealed not only to the methodology of cultural_historical and activity approaches, but also to other methodological conceptions (for instance, K. Popper’s), which support the idea of the pluralism of human’s reasoning.

The contribution of the O.K. Tikhomirov’s school in the field of psychology of thinking is analyzed, and the main elements of the personal meanings theory of thinking are presented: namely, personalityrelated determination of thinking, regulative function of emotions, actual genesis of goalsetting and senseformation processes, creative thinking, and the impact of information technologies on the transformations of intellectual and communicative activities.

Intellectual abilities and personality traits of students were considered as predictors of academic success. R. Amthauer’s intelligence structure test, A. Edwards’ personal preferences questionnaire, C. Dweck’s questionnaire modified version, LFR questionnaire and new method of group estimation of mind (GEM) were used. Results of this study of MSU students sample (N=177) allowed to conclude, that: 1. Group estimation of mind acts as significant prognostic variable of students’ exam passing success. Psychometric intelligence variables concede to it. 2. “Self-esteem of mind” correlates with “self-esteem of academic success” and with academic progress, but doesn’t act as it’s significant predictor. 3. A set of motivation variables appears to predict effectiveness of learning better, than intellectual abilities.

The study is aimed at revealing interrelationships between coping behavior and intellectual and personality components of the dynamic regulation of choice under uncertainty in college students (n=480). We establish correlations between productive/unproductive coping strategies and academic achievement, analytical and practical intelligence, implicit theories of intelligence and personality, goal orientations and also such personality predictors of overcoming uncertainty as risk readiness and rationality.