A Novel Approach to Measuring an Old Construct: Aligning the Conceptualisation and Operationalisation of Cognitive Flexibility

Author:

Beckmann Jens F.1ORCID,Birney Damian P.2ORCID,Sternberg Robert J.3ORCID

Affiliation:

1. School of Education, Durham University, Durham DH1 1TA, UK

2. School of Psychology, University of Sydney, Camperdown, NSW 2006, Australia

3. Department of Psychology, College of Human Ecology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA

Abstract

A successful adjustment to dynamic changes in one’s environment requires contingent adaptive behaviour. Such behaviour is underpinned by cognitive flexibility, which conceptually is part of fluid intelligence. We argue, however, that conventional approaches to measuring fluid intelligence are insufficient in capturing cognitive flexibility. We address the discrepancy between conceptualisation and operationalisation by introducing two newly developed tasks that aim at capturing within-person processes of dealing with novelty. In an exploratory proof-of-concept study, the two flexibility tasks were administered to 307 university students, together with a battery of conventional measures of fluid intelligence. Participants also provided information about their Grade Point Averages obtained in high school and in their first year at university. We tested (1) whether an experimental manipulation of a requirement for cognitive inhibition resulted in systematic differences in difficulty, (2) whether these complexity differences reflect psychometrically differentiable effects, and (3) whether these newly developed flexibility tasks show incremental value in predicting success in the transition from high school to university over conventional operationalisations of fluid intelligence. Our findings support the notion that cognitive flexibility, when conceptualised and operationalised as individual differences in within-person processes of dealing with novelty, more appropriately reflects the dynamics of individuals’ behaviour when attempting to cope with changing demands.

Funder

U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences

Publisher

MDPI AG

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