Intellectual styles are individuals' preferred ways of using their abilities. This book provides the first comprehensive and systematic review of existing research on the value and desirability of different intellectual styles. By critically analyzing findings from hundreds of international studies undertaken over eight decades, Li-fang Zhang demonstrates that the creativity-generating Type I styles are generally superior to the norm-conforming Type II styles in relation to a wide range of learning processes and developmental outcomes, work performance, physical and mental health, and many other domains of people's lives. She further demonstrates that people explicitly and implicitly express their preference for Type I styles over Type II styles. Professor Zhang elucidates the practical value of cultivating diverse intellectual styles, especially Type I styles, in both academic and nonacademic settings, and lays the groundwork for future research to advance the field of intellectual styles and to inform scholarly work in other academic disciplines.

The nature of intellectual styles

A central purpose of education is to improve students' reasoning abilities. The present review examines research in developmental psychology and science education that has attempted to assess the validity of Piaget's theory of formal thought and its relation to educational practice. Should a central objective of schools be to help students become formal thinkers? To answer this question research has focused on the following subordinate questions: (1) What role does biological maturation play in the development of formal reasoning? (2) Are Piaget's formal tasks reliable and valid? (3) Does formal reasoning constitute a unified and general mode of intellectual functioning? (4) How does the presence or absence of formal reasoning affect school achievement? (5) Can formal reasoning be taught? (6) What is the structural or functional nature of advanced reasoning? The general conclusion drawn is that although Piaget's work and that which has sprung from it leaves a number of unresolved theoretical and methodological problems, it provides an important background from which to make substantial progress toward a most significant educational objective.



All our dignity lies in thought. By thought we must elevate ourselves, not by space and time which we can not fill. Let us endeavor then to think well; therein lies the principle of morality. Blaise Pascal 1623-1662.

A Review of Research on Formal Reasoning and Science Teaching.

Psychoanalytic interpretation in Rorschach testing.

The current status of the Defense Mechanism Inventory (DMI) is assessed through a review of the published research. Despite some psychometric problems and questions of scale interpretation, the defense scales are found to be meaningfully related to cognitive, personality, pathological, and demographic variables. An argument is presented for the continued use of the individual scales.

The Defense Mechanism Inventory: A Review of Research and Discussion of the Scales

The Defense Mechanisms Inventory (DMI), the Coping Operations Preference Enquiry (COPE), and the scales developed by Joffe and Naditch (J&N) were compared using multitraitmultimethod logic. Convergent validity was tow as measures of the same defense were not highly correlated across instruments. Similar patterns of correlations occurred within instruments but the J&N scales, and particularly the DMI scales, had high interscale correlations so overall discriminant validity was limited. These results suggest that either the defense constructs or at least some of the defense scales studied lack validity. Another possibility is that the scales are valid, but assess different parameters of defensiveness (e.g., intensity versus breadth of use of mechanisms). Comparisons of the scales' predictive validity should help resolve these points.

Comparison of three psychological defense mechanism questionnaires.

This study investigated the relationship between field independence and defense clustering as measured by the Defense Mechanisms Inventory and lateral eye movements. Subjects had previously been classified either as hysterical or obsessive style by the Rorschach and WAIS Comprehension subtest. Previous findings indicate that these subjects have a preferred direction of lateral eye movement in a questioning format (hysterical style = left; obsessive style = right). This study found no relationship between field independence and defense clustering and lateral eye movements. To the extent that eye gaze indexes hemispheric activation, we conclude that neither field independence nor defense clustering was related to hemispheric lateralization.

Evelyn Wolf

Papers

Field independence, lateralization and defensive style.