A study of cognitive interference related to academic achievement and personality

Abstract

The ability of an individual to choose and maintain a uniform course of action independent of the intrusion of competing stimuli represents a crucial aspect of his personality. The purpose of the present study was to demonstrate that the ability varies, within individuals and is related to their cognitive interference (CI) effects. The CI effects of Ss were inferred from their performance on the modified Stroop Color Word test (SCW). This test consists of eight cards. On the card A five color-names red, blue, green, yellow and black are printed in purple in Japanese. On the other hand card B had the same five colors. Three Low Interference (LI) cards had all th Color-names printed in the corresponding colors while three High Interference (HI) cards had no color-names printed in the corresponding color. The Ss were 43 junior high school pupils for Experiment 1, 20 college students and 20 schizophrentic adult patients for Experiment 2. They were instructed to read aloud as rapidly as possible the color on each interference card irrespective of color-names. The main results were as follows: (I) In Experiment I LI Ss of junior high school pupils, as compared with HI Ss had shown higher intelligence, superior scholarship and over academic-achievement. The CI effects also correlated with some personality-traits as measured by the Yatabe-Guilford Personality Inventory. The personality traits of LI Ss were more cooperativeness, interpersonal dominance and extraversion than HI Ss.(II) In Experiment 2 schizophrenic Ss showed higher CI effects than normal Ss. The CI effect in both groups increased in proportion to the degree of complexity of the interference cards and the difference of CI effects between schizophrenics and normals also grew according to the degree of complexity. Lastly, the author discussed CI effects from the. view point of congnitive interference (conflict) theory. © 1970, The Japanese Association of Educational Psychology. All rights reserved.