Many studies have shown the relevance of “intuition” for what concerns decision making in organizations (Hodgkinson, Sadler-Smith, Burke, et al., 2009). In the Cognitive-Experiential Self-Theory by Epstein (2008; 2010), intuition is considered as a product of the experiential system. Carruthers (2006) considers intuition as a process where the underlying “mental model” remains unconscious, but its effects on motivational modules can become conscious. These effects translate into emotions, i.e. the output of intuitive processes. Finally, according to Betsch (2008), emotions are used for decision making. The study of cognitive styles thus becomes important to explain naturalistic decision making, given the possible connections between intuition and managerial competences (Castelli, Berganton, 2013). Unfortunately, available tools like the R.E.I. by Pacini and Epstein (1999) or the C.S.I by Cools, Van Den Broeck (2007) show some weaknesses: the percentage of explained variance is low, and in the wording of their items there are serious social desirability biases. For these reason, a new instrument was built, designed for administration in organizational contexts, where social desirability bias play a relevant role. The new tool, in its Italian version, has been administered to a sample of 261 Italian participants. Its statistical properties seem to be quite good. A second administration of its English version to a sample of English native speakers is forecasted.

1. A New Questionnaire for the
Evaluation of Cognitive Styles
Stefano Castelli
Alessandro Antonini
Giancarlo Lavazza
(Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca)

2. «Style»
 “…a habitual pattern or preferred way
of doing something” (Grigorenko,
Sternberg 1995).

3. Cognitive styles (1)
 "Cognitive styles are individual
preferences in perceiving and
processing information" (Cools, Van
Den Broeck 2007, p.359).
 “…the individual way a person
perceives, thinks, learns, solves
problems, and relates to others.”
(Witkin, Moore, Goodenough, Cox
1977).

4. Cognitive styles (2)
 “…the way people process and
organize information and arrive at
judgments or conclusions on the
basis of their observations.” (Hunt et
al., 1989).
 “…individual differences in ways of
organizing and processing information
and experience (Messick 1984).

5. Personality, styles, cognition
 According to some authors, «styles»
are the «missing link» between
personality and cognition. They are
independent from, but interacting
with, personality (Riding, Rayner
1998; Riding 2000a).

6. Two concepts (at least) about
cognitive styles:
 Unidimensional (analytic vs.olistic;
Beyler, Schmeck 1992; logical vs.
not-logical; Barnard 1938, etc.)
 Two independent processes (dual-
process theories). Two modalities of
information processing (Evans 2003,
2008; Kahneman 2003; Stanovich,
West 2000, etc.).

7. System 1 and System 2
 System 1: intuition. System 2:
rational elaboration. Epstein (1990,
1996, 2008) contrasts experiential
processes and rational processes.
According this author, people use
both processes, integrating them.

8. Intuition defined
 "Intuition is a process of thinking. The
input to this process is mostly provided
by knowledge stored in long-term
memory that has been primarily
acquired via associative learning. The
input is processed automatically and
without conscious awareness. The
output of the process is a feeling that
can serve as a basis for judgments and
decisions.“ (Betsch, 2008, p. 4)

9. Carruthers (2006) considers intuition as
a process where the underlying “mental
model” remains unconscious, but its
effects on motivational modules can
become conscious. These effects
translate into emotions, i.e. the output
of intuitive processes.

10. Many studies have shown the relevance
of “intuition” for what concerns decision
making in organizations (Hodgkinson,
Sadler-Smith, Burke, et al., 2009). In
the Cognitive-Experiential Self-Theory
by Epstein (2008; 2010), intuition is
considered as a product of the
experiential system.

11. There are evidences for a
role of intuition in the
management of complex
systems (Castelli,
Berganton, 2013).

12. WHAT TOOLS for research
and consultation?
PMPI Perceived Modes of Processing Inventory
Burns, D’Zurilla (1999)
DSQ Decision Styles Questionnaire
Leykin, DeRubeis (2010)
CoSI Cognitive Style Indicator
Cools, Van Den Broeck (2007)
GDMS General Decision-Making Style
Scott, Bruce (1995)
PID Preference for Intuition and Deliberation scale
Betsch (2004, 2008)
REI-40 Rational Experiential Inventory
Pacini, Epstein (1999)

13. REI-40 Rational Experiential
Inventory
 Poor psychometric qualities:
“The 40 REI items were entered into a principal
components factor analysis with varimax rotation,
and two factors were extracted. The two-factor
solution confirmed that rationality and
experientiality are independent and orthogonal.
The first factor accounted for 19.4% and the
second factor for 14.6% of the variance” (Pacini,
Epstein, 1999, p. 975)
36 % of variance explained

14. REI-40 Rational Experiential
Inventory
 Very strong desirability biases
- “I don't like to have to do a lot of
thinking”
- “I don't reason well under pressure”
- “I don't have a very good sense of
intuition”
- “Thinking is not my idea of an enjoyable
activity”
- Etc…

15. REI-40 Rational Experiential
Inventory
 Too long …

16. Objectives:
 to build a simple and quick-to-
administer tool for the assessement
of cognitive styles,
 with good psychometric properties
 with low social desirability biases

17. Step 1: Method of item
selection / development
 Starting from the 6 above-mentioned
tools, and on the basis of an
independent evaluation by 3 judges
about the content validity of the
items, a new 43-item tool was
developed.

18. Step 1: Participants
 Participants were:
Sample S1: 81 students attending a BA
in Economics from Università degli Studi
di Milano Bicocca.
Sample S2: 180 professionals from an
Hospital in Milano
Sample S3 = (S1+S2) = 261

19. Step 1: results
 Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) on the
two independent samples  two or
three factors
 Parallel Analysis strongly suggested a
two-factor solution

20. From Step 1 to Step 2
 Item analysis, i.e. iterative removal of items,
with subsequent factor analyses. Unacceptable
items were:
- Primary/secondary saturation < 2
- Primary saturation < |.3|
- face validity
- Inter-item correlation > |.6|
 Comments to an open-ended question about
the questionnaire were taken into due
consideration

21. Step 2
A new 20-item questionnaire was
developed.
Participants:
240 professionals from and hospital in
Milano.
Good news!

23. Looking for your help in
validating the English version.
Thank you in advance!
Stefano, Alessandro, Giancarlo
Stefano.Castelli@unimib.it