Neuroscience
People who are narrow-minded and dogmatic have a poorer working memory capacity, which is what makes it harder for them to process new information. That's according to Adam Brown who tested 212 university students on a verbal working memory task.
The students listened to several sentences that had a word missing at the end, then after hearing all the sentences they had to propose words to fill in the gaps, in the right order.
They also completed a measure of dogmatism which gauged their agreement with statements like: “When it comes to differences in opinion in religion, we must be careful not to compromise with those who believe differently than the way we do.”
Brown found that the poorer a student's performance on the working memory task, the more likely they were to be dogmatic. Other measures such as their college admission exam performance (SAT), their age or gender didn't make any difference to this relationship.
“I predicted that it may be reasonable to expect differences in verbal working memory capacity, and this may directly affect one's ability to effectively process new information, especially if it is complex,” Brown said. “The results support this prediction.”
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Brown, A.M. (2007). A cognitive approach to dogmatism: An investigation into the relationship of verbal working memory and dogmatism. Journal of Research in Personality, 41, 946-952.
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
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Neuroscience
People who are dogmatic have poorer working memory
People who are narrow-minded and dogmatic have a poorer working memory capacity, which is what makes it harder for them to process new information. That's according to Adam Brown who tested 212 university students on a verbal working memory task.
The students listened to several sentences that had a word missing at the end, then after hearing all the sentences they had to propose words to fill in the gaps, in the right order.
They also completed a measure of dogmatism which gauged their agreement with statements like: “When it comes to differences in opinion in religion, we must be careful not to compromise with those who believe differently than the way we do.”
Brown found that the poorer a student's performance on the working memory task, the more likely they were to be dogmatic. Other measures such as their college admission exam performance (SAT), their age or gender didn't make any difference to this relationship.
“I predicted that it may be reasonable to expect differences in verbal working memory capacity, and this may directly affect one's ability to effectively process new information, especially if it is complex,” Brown said. “The results support this prediction.”
__________________________________
Brown, A.M. (2007). A cognitive approach to dogmatism: An investigation into the relationship of verbal working memory and dogmatism. Journal of Research in Personality, 41, 946-952.
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
- Extras
Eye-catching studies that didn't make the final cut (plus some other tit-bits): Did working memory spark creative culture? How thinking of sex vs. love changes our mode of mental processing. Thinking of love boosts our global processing, including...
- Fusing Psychology And Neuroscience
By Chris Chatham, of Developing Intelligence. Psychology is appealing to me partly because it requires so much stealthiness. We can't directly observe mental events, but must instead use indirect methods to test our hypotheses. We must cleverly misdirect...
- Neuropsychology Abstract Of The Day: Pediatric Epilepsy And Memory Assessment
Everyday verbal memory and pediatric epilepsy Epilepsy and Behavior. 2011 Jul; 21(3): 285-290. Chapieski L, Evankovich K, Hiscock M, Collins R Abstract This study addressed the reliability and validity of reports of everyday verbal memory with a sample...
- Neuropsychology Abstract Of The Day: Traumatic Brain Injury
Are self-reported symptoms of executive dysfunction associated with objective executive function performance following mild to moderate traumatic brain injury? Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology. 2011 Jul;33(6):704-14 Schiehser DM, Delis...
- Emotion & Cognition
Interesting article in last month's Wall Street Journal about emotions & cognitive performance. The free abstract sums it up: "After years of studying situations such as choking under pressure or succumbing to 'stereotype threat' (in which...