THE DECISION-TAKING PERSONALITY: INTELLIGENCE, TOLERANCE OF UNCERTAINTY, MOTIVATION, AND SELF-AWARENESS

Foreword

This series of theoretical and empirical research presents modern approaches to the study of the regulatory role of intelligence in decision-making and shows its connection to structures of various levels in the personality domain. The results obtained by the authors question a number of well-established theoretical interpretational schemes. In particular, this refers to the understanding of the framing effect as a purely cognitive phenomenon, the regulation of choice strategies in conditions of uncertainty at the level of visceral feedback components, the association of the intellectual and motivational scales.

The authors share the general idea of the unity of intellect and affect, which does not negate the idea of the multi-level multiple regulation of decisions and actions of a person. The following should be considered when developing these ideas. In decision-making in each situation different processes come forward and take a leading role. In the research aspect, the rationale for the relevant key role of the intellectual or personal components should mean that they are identified as predictors or at least as significantly related to the performance indicators of decision-making (or performance efficiency).

In order for the decision-making process to be successful, forecasting is the essential component, or rather a number of processes that enable the prognostic activity of a person. Possible consequences of the choice alternatives are assessed through these processes, which also includes the problems of the “possible in thinking” and the possibilities for personal identity. It is challenging to implement in one research such an integrated approach that would cover all possible aspects of the choice strategies regulation. The presented research is certainly analytical. However, it is aimed at correlating the representation of cognitive and personal aspects in the integral regulation of decision-making and the success of activity.

In the paper by T.V. Kornilova, M.A. Chumakova and S.A. Kornilov Intellect and the success of forecasting strategies in the implementation of the Iowa test (IGT) the regulative role of intelligence is analyzed by comparing two approaches to understanding human prognostic activity. The first approach is presented in A. Damasio’s hypothesis of “somatic markers” (Damasio et al., 1996), which has been verified many times in the Iowa Gambling Task. This approach assumes that in decision-making the primary role belongs to the feedback from individual experience that records the experiences of success (or failure) of choices in the hypothetical “somatic markers”. The researcher used subjective experiences (“something lurched inside”, etc.) in the model to postulate the regulatory role of the emotional domain. It has been repeatedly confirmed in the evidence of distorted prediction strategies in patients with various nosology characterized by an emotional imbalance. However, there has been very few studies conducted on the IGT material with norm groups.

The authors found that the approach, which results in the generalization of the disturbed mechanisms of prognostic activity regulation as the basic principles of activity regulation in the case of norm, should be considered wrong. In addition, consciousness can be considered as the upper level of activity regulation (in the concept of A. N. Leontiev), in particular, with the idea of the image of the world as a guiding amodal formation that can be directed by a person to address the stimulation and that is relies on systems of meanings. The authors suggested a different (a second) hypothetical understanding, according to which the somatic bases of feedback be considered the sole sources of human cognitive activity in uncertain conditions. The person’s anticipating prognostic activity is guided by the development of an image of the situation. It includes cognitive reference points and is directed by the level of intelligence no less than by the hypothetical somatic markers. This was demonstrated by revealing the connection between the intelligence indicators (crystallized and fluid intelligence were measured) and the success in IGT. “Verbal Intelligence” was a predictor of change in various indicators of the strategies used by the participants at different stages of the game. Without abandoning the idea of the role of hidden emotional components, the authors showed that “general intelligence” and “verbal intelligence” (at different stages of the game) were key factors in the decision-making success requiring the identification of hidden patterns in a dynamic uncertain situation.

The formation of anticipations includes their objective content and the guiding role of the image of the world. At the same time, the dynamic regulation of decisions under uncertainty and risk prompts diagnostic problems (in terms of which processes reached the leading level of regulation). Thus, theoretical concepts require a transition to higher-level conceptions of prognostic activity, irreducible to the visceral feedback components.

In the study conducted by T. V. Kornilova and S. G. Kerimova Characteristics of personal prerequisites for decision-making (based on the framing effect), susceptibility to the framing effect (viewed in cognitive psychology from the perspective of “mind traps” and in the context of correlating the work of cognitive System 1 and System 2 (D. Kahneman et al.)) is presented in a new context: in terms of associations with personal characteristics reflecting a person’s attitude toward uncertainty and individual differences in decision-making. In this study the problem of interaction between the cognitive and personal domains is discussed by comparing two vocational samples (doctors and university lecturers). The prognostic activity is necessarily entwined in the diagnostic process conducted by doctors. Although, the reliance on fundamental knowledge does not exclude the specifics of the individual regulation in decision-making. Amos Tversky in the Harvard study showed that doctors could be prone to the framing effect. But in A. Tversky’s and D. Kahneman’s “prospective theory” research, personal regulation of cognitive phenomena (be it the framing effect or other distortions of decision-making under uncertain conditions) was not studied. On the contrary, according to the concept of the unified functioning of a person’s intellectual and personal potentialand the dynamic hierarchization of regulatory systems, which include the multilevel processes of psychological mediation (Kornilova, 2016), the framing effect should not be considered a purely cognitive phenomenon. Personal qualities, which reflect the person’s attitude to uncertainty, are not only tested by one or more scales in questionnaires, but also fulfill their regulatory role acting as predictors of choice or when structured into latent personal decision-making profiles (Kornilova, 2013).

In the study by Kornilova and Kerimova, samples of Azerbaijani doctors and teachers demonstrated, firstly, a more frequent manifestation of framing in the group of doctors, and secondly, the connections of personality traits measured by the Personal Factors of Decision Making and the Melbourne decision-making questionnaire with the criterion of professional affiliation and exposure to the framing effect. The links between risk readiness and rationality with susceptibility (or lack thereof) to the framing effect are more typical for the rational and discursive System 2, rather than the fast and intuitive System 1, and this suggests a greater involvement of the former in the framing effect.

The paper by M.S. Zirenko Implicit theories of intelligence and personality: correlations with intelligence, motivation and personality traits based on the measurements of the corresponding variables in students demonstrated the way implicit theories (IT) (which reflect the beliefs about the stability or variability of cognitive and personal characteristics of a person) are engaged in the regulation of their educational activities. Dweck’s division into “constant” and “incremental” ITs is considered for the first time in reference to Russian students in a complex analysis of relationships with motivational and personal factors. The measurements of intelligence were carried out by M. Zirenko on the basis of the ICAR test (the same test was used by the authors of the first research paper, establishing the correlations with the IGT strategies). However, the purpose of the research was to clarify the association of IT to stable structures: cognitive (intelligence) and personal (the Big Five traits, deep motivation, measured by the Edward’s questionnaire). While the correlations between intelligence and the IT of the “Developing (incremental) intelligence” and the “Developing (enriching) personality” were established for students earlier in a number of foreign and Russian studies (Kornilova et al., 2010), the association with the motivation in the questionnaire (which, like TAT, measures motives understood as “sociogenic needs” (in G. Murray’s classification)) was for the first time analyzed differentially for persons of different gender. From the point of view of the specifics of Russian students’ choices, a new fact was established in that both men and women understood intelligence independently of their levels of academic intelligence, fluid and crystallized intelligence. Another established fact was that the measured parameters of intelligence were significantly associated with personal traits: Conscientiousness (for men and women), Openness to experience (for women) and Motivation for self-knowledge (for men). The Developing personality IT of a person found a negative correlation with Verbal Intelligence in women. The correlations of the measured variables of the intellectual and personal potential with the Self-evaluation of learning and GPA achievements are also presented.

The study by Yu. V. Krasavtseva using a sample of mid-level managers demonstrated the correlations of three personal properties of the Dark Triad (subclinical Narcissism, subclinical Psychopathy and Machiavellianism) to Tolerance of Uncertainty and direct self-assessments of intelligence and personality.

In earlier works in collaboration with M A. Novikova it was shown that, firstly, the significant correlations were found between academic intelligence and self-assessed intelligence (SAI), which corresponds to the results of Western research. Secondly, the means of structural modeling showed the mediating role of the Intellectual I-concept that connects the latent variables of Intelligence and Adapting to uncertainty and risk is demonstrated in students’ samples (Kornilova, Novikova, 2011). Yu. V. Krasavtseva for the first time tested in her study (on a sample of Russian managers) the hypotheses of SAI associated with direct self-assessments of personality (according to a similar procedure for SAP – self-assessed personality) and with Attitude toward uncertainty in persons who clearly show in their professional activities the stages of decision-making (management activities). The appeal to the properties of the Dark Triad was due to the fact that there were pending questions about the expression of these properties in managers and their relationship with Tolerance-Intolerance to Uncertainty in the personal profiles of the managers. The fact that managers with high Tolerance to Uncertainty rated their intelligence (according to SAI) and their personalities (according to SAP) higher, was considered in favor of the hypothesis about the productive role of a positive attitude toward uncertainty in the personal profiles of managers. The analysis of the interrelationships of these variables with the the Dark Triad traits reinforces the understanding of the level of self-awareness of personalityas playing a major role in the structuring of personal and cognitive components.

The article by E. M. Pavlova that completes the issue is aimed at revealing the correlations of Self-Assessment of Creativity to the measurable Creativity, Self-Assessed Intelligence and a person’s attitude to uncertainty. With regard to Self-Assessment of Creativity a procedure similar to the one proposed by Furnham for SAI was used. Structural modeling was used to reveal significant correlations between the latent variables of Creativity, Integral Self-Assessment of Creativity and Intelligence and Adoption of Uncertainty and Risk. The regulative function of the self-awareness of the individual is reconstructed on the basis of a discussion of the data obtained after testing samples of top professionals in creative activities (composers, writers and film directors) and students. It was shown that in psychology students, the self-assessment of creativity is primarily based on accepting uncertainty, whereas the fulfilled representatives of creative professions build their self-assessments on objective results (the productivity of their creative performance).

In general, the proposed series of papers gives an idea of the correlation between intelligence and deep motivation in the functioning of the unified intellectual and personal potential of a person, of their combination in self-consciousness at the level of implicit theories and self-assessments of the possibility for the development of intelligence and personality. The research shows the way direct self-assessments of intelligence and creativity are related to each other and to creativity, the way these variables are related to the a person’s attitude to uncertainty and the way the measured multilevel properties are represented in the establishment of decision-making strategies. The results of these studies provide an opportunity for a theoretical rethinking of a number of well-established views on the regulative role of intelligence, attitudes toward uncertainty, and the self-awareness of an individual who makes decisions in conditions of uncertainty and risk (be it an experimental model or real life situations of educational and professional activities, including creative performance).

T. V. Kornilova