Personality and Individual Differences 38 (2005) 1915–1925
www.elsevier.com/locate/paid
Validating the theory of mental self-government
in a non-academic setting q
Li-fang Zhang
*
Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong
Received 24 May 2004; received in revised form 27 October 2004; accepted 23 November 2004
Available online 26 January 2005
Abstract
This study pioneered the investigation of the efficacy of the theory of mental self-government in a nonacademic setting. Three hundred and thirty-three people from various business sectors in Guangzhou, PR
China, volunteered to participate in the research. The participants responded to the Thinking Styles Inventory-Revised and to a range of questions concerning their actual and perceived work environments. Results
indicated that the Thinking Styles Inventory-Revised is reliable and valid for assessing the thinking styles of
the participants. Furthermore, the participantsÕ reported work environments statistically predicted their
thinking styles. Results supported SternbergÕs claim that the theory of mental self-government is a general
theory of styles that applies to both academic and non-academic settings. Implications of the findings are
discussed for organizational psychologists, human resource management personnel, providers of management training and development, as well as for the ordinary workforce.
Ó 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Thinking styles; Work environments
q
This project was supported by the Committee on Research and Conference Grants as administered by the
University of Hong Kong.
*
Tel./fax: +852 2859 2522.
E-mail address: [email protected]
0191-8869/$ - see front matter Ó 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.paid.2004.11.009
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L.-f. Zhang / Personality and Individual Differences 38 (2005) 1915–1925
1. Introduction
The period between the late 1950s and the early 1970s saw a proliferation of theories and research on intellectual styles, variously termed as cognitive styles, learning styles, and thinking
styles. Recently, there has been a resurgence of interest in the work on styles. In 1988, Sternberg
expressed his interest in styles by proposing a new theory of styles––the theory of mental selfgovernment.
Using the word ‘‘government’’ metaphorically, Sternberg contended that just as there are different ways of governing a society, there are different ways that people use their abilities. These
preferred ways of using oneÕs abilities are construed as ‘‘thinking styles.’’ According to Sternberg,
there are 13 thinking styles which can be classified into five dimensions: (1) functions (including
the legislative, executive, and judicial styles), (2) forms (hierarchical, monarchic, oligarchic, and
anarchic styles), (3) levels (global and local styles), (4) scopes (internal and external styles), and
(5) leanings (liberal and conservative styles). Potential readers of this article might already be
familiar with the characteristics of each style that has been described in many previous studies
(see e.g., Zhang, 1999, 2004a). These 13 styles have been classified into three types of styles based
on empirical data (e.g., Zhang, 2004a; Zhang & Sternberg, 2000). In the following, we focus on
introducing these three types of styles. Meanwhile, one characteristic for each of the 13 individual
styles can be found in the bracket next to each corresponding style.
Type I thinking styles are the ones that tend to be more creativity-generating and that denote
higher levels of cognitive complexity, including the legislative (being creative), judicial (evaluative
of other people or products), hierarchical (prioritizing oneÕs tasks), global (focusing on the wholistic picture), and liberal (taking a new approach to tasks) styles. Type II thinking styles are styles
that suggest a norm-favoring tendency and that denote lower levels of cognitive complexity,
including the executive (implementing tasks with given orders), local (focusing on details), monarchic (working on one task at a time), and conservative (using traditional approaches to tasks)
styles.
The anarchic (working on whatever tasks that come along), oligarchic (working on multiple
tasks with no priority), internal (working on oneÕs own), and external (working with others) styles
are Type III styles. They may manifest the characteristics of the styles from both Type I and Type
II groups, depending on the stylistic demand of a specific task. For example, one could use the
anarchic style in a sophisticated way (characteristic of Type I styles)––such as dealing with different tasks as they arise, but without losing oneÕs sight of the whole picture of the central issue. By
contrast, one also could use the anarchic style in a more simple-minded way (characteristic of
Type II styles)––such as dealing with tasks as they come along without knowing how each task
contributes to his/her ultimate goal.
According to Sternberg, styles are at least in part socialized, suggesting that they can be modified by the environment in which people live. Furthermore, Sternberg claimed that his theory be
applicable to both academic and non-academic settings.
Since its publication in 1988, the theory of mental self-government has guided much research in
academic settings in several cultures (e.g., Bernardo, Zhang, & Callueng, 2002; Dai & Feldhusen,
1999; Grigorenko & Sternberg, 1997). Empirical evidence has supported SternbergÕs argument
that thinking styles are at least in part socialized in academic settings (e.g., Sternberg & Grigorenko, 1995; Zhang, 1999; Zhang & Sternberg, 2002). However, SternbergÕs claim for the appli-
L.-f. Zhang / Personality and Individual Differences 38 (2005) 1915–1925
1917
cability of his theory to non-academic settings has never been verified. The present study will
make such an attempt.
The study of intellectual styles in work settings has long been an interest of both organizational
psychologists and management theorists and researchers since the early 1970s. Yet, there are three
major limitations to the existing studies. First, the majority of these studies are based on KirtonÕs
(1976) adaption-innovation theory (e.g., Foxall, Payne, & Walters, 1992; Jacobson, 1993; Keller
& Holland, 1978; Kirton, 1980) that addresses merely one dimension of cognitive styles––viewing
people as either adaptors or innovators. Second, most existing studies were carried out in Western
countries. Among the few investigations conducted in non-Western countries, the majority tended
to be studies of intellectual styles of either students in management learning (e.g., Harvey & Miceli, 1999; Loo & Shiomi, 1997) or of consumers (e.g., Cowley, 2002). Finally, most existing studies are limited to the investigation of the cognitive/learning styles of managers.
There were two objectives for this research. The first was to test the internal consistencies of the
scales and internal validity of the Thinking Styles Inventory-Revised for the present sample. The
second was to test whether or not the assumption that thinking styles are at least in part socialized
could be confirmed by examining the predictive relationships of participantsÕ reported work environments to their thinking styles. According to the assumption that thinking styles are at least in
part socialized, the participantsÕ thinking styles should vary as a function of socialization variables. The variables examined in this study were actual work environment variables (e.g., job title)
and perceived work environment variables (e.g., job satisfaction).
Based on the claim that the theory can be applied to both academic and non-academic settings,
it was predicted that the Thinking Styles Inventory-Revised is a reliable and valid inventory for
assessing the thinking styles of the present sample. Moreover, based on previous research findings
supporting the argument for styles being socialized in both academic (e.g., Mahlios, 1989; Zhang,
1999; Zhang & Sternberg, 2002) and non-academic settings (e.g., Foxall et al., 1992; Jacobson,
1993; Yiu & Saner, 2000), it was anticipated that the participantsÕ thinking styles were significantly
different as a function of their reported work environments. In general, people who report a more
favorable work environment, actual or perceived, would score significantly higher on Type I
thinking styles, whereas those reporting a less favorable work environment would score significantly higher on Type II thinking styles. Moreover, participants who perceive their work environment as being more favorable would use a wider range of thinking styles. In examining these
anticipated relationships, we took age, gender, length of work experience, and educational level
into account.
These predictions are based on both theoretical conceptualization and logical reasoning
and previous findings. Sternberg (1997) contended that thinking styles are partially socialized,
suggesting that work environments may influence peopleÕs thinking styles. It is conceivable that
people who are in a more favorable work environment are generally happier and thus more willing to take risks, to be innovative, and to be persistent in trying different ways of solving problems. That is, they tend to think more creatively (i.e., using Type I thinking styles) and use a
wider range of thinking styles. Empirically, teachers who perceived their teaching environment
as being more positive reported a wide range of thinking styles, including Type I styles, whereas
teachers perceiving themselves as working in a less favorable environment reported the use of
Type II thinking styles (see Zhang & Sternberg, 2002). Similar findings were anticipated for the
present sample.
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L.-f. Zhang / Personality and Individual Differences 38 (2005) 1915–1925
2. Method
2.1. Participants
Three hundred and thirty-three (215 male and 118 female, aged between 20 and 61 years) volunteers from various business sectors (e.g., real estate, sales, export and import, manufacturing,
banking, security, auditing, investment, rental, and so forth) in Guangzhou, PR China, participated in this study. The sizes of the work units in which the participants were working varied from
consisting of two employees to being composed of 80,000 employees. The participantsÕ job titles
also covered a wide range, broadly categorized as chief executive officers, mid-level departmental
chiefs, managers, and ordinary workers (e.g., technicians, sales people, and clerical staff). Among
these participants, 46 were holding a high school degree or a non-degree certificate, 121 had a
BachelorÕs degree, and 166 had earned their post-graduate degree. Finally, with an average of
13 years and a median of 11 years, the length of work experience of the participants ranged from
1 to 37 years.
2.2. Measures
The participants provided several basic demographic characteristics (age, gender, educational
level, and length of work experience) and reported their work environments. Work environments consisted of two kinds: actual work environments and perceived ones, with the former
including the participantsÕ job title, salary scale, size of work unit, and number of supervisees,
and the latter containing participantsÕ ratings of their job satisfaction, freedom to work on tasks
they were interested in, and rating of their salary, as well as their perceived prospect for a salary
increase.
The participants also responded to a self-report test––The Thinking Styles Inventory-Revised
(TSI-R, Sternberg, Wagner, & Zhang, 2003). The 65-item inventory contains 13 scales, each corresponding to a thinking style in SternbergÕs theory. Each scale is composed of five items. Each
item is a statement that allows respondents to rate themselves on a 7-point scale from 1 to 7, with
1 indicating that the statement does not at all describe the way they normally carry out their tasks,
and 7 denoting that the statement characterizes extremely well the way they normally carry out
tasks.
The TSI-R is a revised version of the Thinking Styles Inventory (Sternberg & Wagner, 1992).
The need for this revision arose from the consistent obtainment of low alpha coefficients for three
scales: the local, monarchic, and anarchic scales. In the first study employing the TSI-R, great
improvement has been made on the local and monarchic styles, whereas the alpha coefficient
for the anarchic style remained low (see Zhang, 2004b).
It should be noted that although previous studies suggested that the 13 thinking styles normally
clustered into three or four substantively meaningful factors, empirical studies (including the present one) examining the thinking style construct continue to assess the original 13 individual thinking styles. There is a major justification for doing so. That is, the number of factors should not be
the only way of deciding on the units of a theory. Instead, the constructs in a theory can be hierarchical. Lower order factors can be put into higher order factors. The lower order factors (in this
case, the individual styles) add to the interpretation of data.
L.-f. Zhang / Personality and Individual Differences 38 (2005) 1915–1925
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2.3. Data analysis
Estimates of internal consistency for the 13 thinking-style scales were obtained as Cronbach
alphas. To examine the validity of the TSI-R, an exploratory factor analysis was conducted,
using an oblique rotation. Possible group differences in participantsÕ thinking styles were
examined based on age, gender, length of work experience, and educational level. Significant
differences in particular thinking styles were found based on participantsÕ age, length of work
experience, and their educational background, although not on gender. To eliminate the effects
of age, length of work experience, and educational level, when testing the predictive power of
work environments for thinking styles, we forced the three variables into the regression model
first.
3. Results
3.1. Scale reliabilities
The alpha coefficients for the present sample were .78, .60, .71, .70, .69, .82, .77, .77, .68, .71,
.55, .75, and .71, respectively for the legislative, executive, judicial, global, local, liberal, conservative, hierarchical, monarchic, oligarchic, anarchic, internal, and external styles. These estimates
are similar to those reported in ZhangÕs recent work (Zhang, 2004b) in which the TSI-R was used
with a Hong Kong university student sample.
3.2. Factor analysis
Table 1 summarizes the results obtained from the factor analysis. Visual inspection of eigenvalues with the scree test (Cattell, 1966) supported the extraction of four factors that accounted
for 69.0% of the variance in the data.
The first factor was dominated by loadings from Type I styles and two of the Type III styles,
while the second factor was loaded by scales from the Type II group and a Type III style. The
third factor contrasted the internal style with the external style, while the fourth factor contrasted
the global style with the local style. Whereas the first two factors supported the notion of the three
types of styles, the last two factors represented two of the five dimensions of thinking styles proposed in SternbergÕs theory. Taken together, these four factors lent strong support to the validity
of the TSI-R for assessing the present research participantsÕ thinking styles. Furthermore, they are
consistent with those obtained in many previous studies using the original version of the
inventory.
3.3. Regression analysis
Table 2 shows the results from the regression analyses. The table includes the variance accounted for by the controlled variables (R2AþWþE ), the total variance accounted for by the controlled variables and the participantsÕ reported work environment variables (R2Total ), and the
variance uniquely contributed by participantsÕ work environment variables (R2Work Env ). Also
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L.-f. Zhang / Personality and Individual Differences 38 (2005) 1915–1925
Table 1
Oblique-rotated four-factor model for the thinking styles inventory-revised (N = 333)
Scales
Legislative
Executive
Judicial
Global
Local
Liberal
Conservative
Hierarchical
Monarchic
Oligarchic
Anarchic
Internal
External
% Variance
Cumulative variance
Eigenvalue
Factor 1
Factor 2
Factor 3
Factor 4
.32
.56
.83
.73
.81
.75
.40
.78
.88
.66
.58
.76
.50
.77
33.23
33.23
4.32
.50
15.94
49.17
2.07
.87
.54
10.37
59.54
1.35
9.42
68.96
1.22
Note: Variables with factor loadings of less than j.30j are omitted.
presented in the table are the F value and degree of freedom in the analysis of variance for each
final model.
Results indicated that all 13 thinking styles were statistically predicted by participantsÕ reported
work environment variables over and above their age, length of work experience, and educational
level. The incremental variance in participantsÕ thinking styles due to their reported work environments ranged from .02 to .19, with a median of .05.
Specifically, regarding actual work environments, the following relationships were found. First,
job title was positively predictive of the legislative and hierarchical thinking styles. Second, salary
scale was positively predictive of the judicial style. Finally, the size of the business organization
positively contributed to the liberal thinking style, but did so negatively to the conservative style.
Concerning perceived work environments, predictive relationships were identified as follows.
First, job satisfaction was positively predictive of the legislative, global, liberal, hierarchical,
and executive styles. Second, freedom to work on the tasks one was interested in positively contributed to the judicial, global, liberal, and hierarchical styles, but did so negatively to the conservative style. Third, participantsÕ perceived prospect for their salary improvement positively
contributed to the judicial, liberal, anarchic, and external styles, but did so negatively to the conservative style. Finally, participantsÕ rating of their own salary positively contributed to the local,
conservative, monarchic, oligarchic, and internal styles, but did so negatively to the external style.
4. Discussion
A primary objective of this study was to verify SternbergÕs claim that the theory of mental
self-government is a general theory of styles that applies to populations in both academic and
Scales
Leg
Exe
Jud
Global
Local
Lib
Con
Hier
Mona
Oli
Ana
Inter
Ext
R2Total
R2AþWþE
R2Work Env
.06
.01
.05
.16Satc
.15Titlec
.04
.02
.02
.14Satc
.13
.03
.10
.16Prosc
.15Salac
.14Freec
.11
.04
.07
.19Freeb
.15Satc
.08
.03
.05
.24Ratea
.04
.02
.02
.14Ratec
.06
.01
.05
.23Rateb
.05
.01
.04
.23Prosb
.07
.02
.05
.21Rateb
.09
.05
.04
.18Prosb
.14Ratec
2.22
4, 223
5.66a
6, 224
5.30a
5, 224
5.11b
4, 228
.15
.03
.12
.27Ratea
.18Prosc
.14Sizec
.15Freec
5.75a
7, 224
.21
.04
.17
.29Sata
.19Titleb
.14Freec
3.01c
5, 225
.22
.03
.19
.27Prosa
.16Freec
.18Sizeb
.14Satc
9.18a
7, 225
10.19a
6, 227
2.53c
4, 225
3.76b
4, 226
2.82c
4, 226
3.92b
4, 219
4.65a
5, 227
ßWork Env1
ßWork Env2
ßWork Env3
ßWork Env4
F
DfL
Note: Leg = Legislative, Exe = Executive, Jud = Judicial, Glob = Global, Loc = Local, Lib = Liberal, Con = Conservative, Hier = Hierarchical,
Mona = Monarchic, Oli = Oligarchic, Ana = Anarchic, Inter = Internal, Ext = External; A + W + E = Age + Length of Work Experience + Educational Level; Work Env. = Work Environment; Sat = job satisfaction, Title = Job Title, Pros = Prospect for salary increase, Sala = salary scale,
Free = Freedom to work on tasks interested, Size = Size of oneÕs company, Rate = Rating of oneÕs salary level; LListwise cases exclusion was used.
a
p < .001.
b
p < .01.
c
p < .05.
L.-f. Zhang / Personality and Individual Differences 38 (2005) 1915–1925
Table 2
Predicting thinking styles from work environment variables (N = 333)
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L.-f. Zhang / Personality and Individual Differences 38 (2005) 1915–1925
non-academic settings. An equally important objective was to obtain empirical support for the
argument that thinking styles are partially socialized.
Results indicated that both reliability and validity data were supportive of findings obtained in
previous studies using the Thinking Styles Inventory as well as those obtained in a recent study
that used the revised inventory. Therefore, the present study confirmed SternbergÕs claim that
the theory of mental self-government is applicable to people both within and outside academic
settings.
Regression results suggested that when participantsÕ age, gender, length of work experience,
and educational level were taken into account, all except one of the reported work environment
factors contributed to the prediction of the participantsÕ thinking styles (with the variable ‘‘number of people one supervises’’ being the exception). Overall, from the perspective of thinking
styles, the following general patterns of relationships have been identified. First, Type I thinking
styles were statistically predicted by both actual and perceived work environment factors. Second,
Type II thinking styles were predominantly predicted by perceived work environment factors
(‘‘job satisfaction’’, ‘‘prospect for a salary increase’’, and ‘‘rating of oneÕs salary level’’), with
the exception of one Type II style (the conservative style) being negatively predicted by one actual
work environment factor: the size of the organization in which people worked. Finally, Type III
styles were statistically predicted by either peopleÕs rating of their current salary scales or their perceived prospect for an increase of their salary scales.
From the perspective of reported work environment variables, the perceived environment factors manifested more predictive power for thinking styles than did the actual work environment
factors. Each of the perceived work environment factors predicted five particular thinking styles
which fell into all three types of styles. However, of the four actual work environment factors
examined, three of the factors predicted five thinking styles in all. The three actual work environment factors (job title, salary scale, and size of the company) positively contributed to the prediction of four of the Type I styles, and negatively to one Type II style.
The reader would naturally ask two questions in relation to these findings. First, do these results lend support to the predictions made earlier? Second, do these predictive relationships make
sense; and if so, how?
It was anticipated that participants who reported their work environments (actual and/or perceived) as being more favorable would score significantly higher on Type I styles, but significantly
lower on Type II styles. Vice versa, participants who reported their work environments as being
less favorable would score significantly higher on Type II styles, but significantly lower on Type I
styles. Furthermore, perceived favorable work environments would be related to the use of a
wider range of thinking styles.
Essentially, all predictions were supported by the results. First, seven of the eight work environment variables (with the variable ‘‘number of people one supervises’’ being the exception) have
positively contributed to the prediction of Type I thinking styles (legislative, judicial, global, hierarchical, and liberal), which lent strong support to the part of the prediction that more favorable
work environments were associated with the use of Type I styles. Two perceived work environment variables (‘‘freedom for working on tasks one was interested in’’ and ‘‘prospect for a salary
increase’’) negatively contributed to the prediction of the use of the conservative thinking style,
which supported the part of the prediction that people who reported more favorable work environment tended to score lower on Type II styles. Finally, the prediction that perceived favorable
L.-f. Zhang / Personality and Individual Differences 38 (2005) 1915–1925
1923
work environments would statistically contribute to the use of a wider range of thinking styles was
supported by the finding that not only were perceived favorable work environments significantly
predictive of the use of Type I thinking styles, but also they (in particular, the variables ‘‘job satisfaction’’, ‘‘prospect for salary increase’’, and ‘‘rating of oneÕs own salary level’’) were significantly predictive of all of the Type II styles (executive, local, conservative, and monarchic), as
well as three of the four Type III styles (anarchic, oligarchic, and internal).
Regarding the substantive sense that the findings make, there is much to be said. However, only
two examples are given due to the limited space. A first example is the predictive relationships of
participantsÕ perceived freedom for working on tasks they were interested in to their tendency for
using the judicial, global, liberal, and hierarchical styles and their tendency for not using the conservative style. It is conceivable that people who consider themselves as having freedom to determine what they do would tend to approach their work in the following fashion: They take a global
view about what needs to be done, trying to conceptualize how different tasks fit in the whole picture (global style). This could be followed by an evaluation of the importance and/or the urgency
of each of the tasks (judicial style), which would naturally lead one to prioritize the tasks at hand
(hierarchical style). None of these ways of dealing with tasks in a work situation would have been
possible without the freedom (be it perceived or actual) to do so. Furthermore, with freedom (actual or perceived) to determine what one does, one would, understandably, deal with tasks in a
more norm-challenging way (liberal style), rather than in a traditional way (conservative style).
A second example is the finding about the relationship between perceived favorable work environments and the use of a wider range of thinking styles. As anticipated, the perceived favorable
work environments were not only predictive of the use of Type I thinking styles, but also related to
the use of Type II and Type III thinking styles. This result is consistent with our common-sense
notion that when people consider themselves working in a good work environment, they have more
room for using their thinking styles in a more flexible way. Suppose an employee perceives a great
deal of freedom in his/her work situation, and who, at the same time, perceives that he/she has a
good prospect for getting a big salary increase, how would the employee deal with his/her work
situations? It is very likely that while using Type I thinking styles in dealing with his/her tasks,
the employee would also need to make sure that he/she follows instructions (executive style), conducts business according to rules and procedures (conservative style), and keeps a close working
relationship with his/her colleagues (external style). These latter ways of dealing with tasks (i.e.,
using the executive, conservative, and external styles) are critical for getting the salary increase
the employee expects, for a salary increase might be heavily dependent upon his/her supervisorÕs
viewing him/her as someone who is able to take directions, abide by rules and regulations, and enjoy
working with colleagues, apart from being someone who tends to come up with creative ideas.
In summary, significant predictive relationships have been identified between the participantsÕ
reported work environments and their thinking styles. The present findings supported the argument that styles are in part socialized (e.g., Hunt, 1964; Saracho, 1993; Sternberg, 1997). Furthermore, these results confirmed previous findings regarding the relationships between teachersÕ
thinking styles in teaching and their reported work environments (e.g., see Sternberg & Grigorenko, 1995; Zhang & Sternberg, 2002). By the same token, the present findings confirmed
the previous research results obtained in organizational settings based on the investigations of
other style constructs and of other socialization factors (e.g., Foxall et al., 1992; Jacobson,
1993; Yiu & Saner, 2000).
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L.-f. Zhang / Personality and Individual Differences 38 (2005) 1915–1925
5. Limitations, significance, and implications
Evidently, a study such as this has its limitations that make its results suggestive rather than
conclusive. First, the predictive relationships of work environments to thinking styles were identified completely through analyzing self-reported data. It is well understood that self-reported
data are not always highly congruent with data obtained through behavioral measures. Second,
the present study is the first that examined thinking styles in SternbergÕs theory among personnel
in work settings. Further studies need to be conducted among similar samples to prove that the
present results can be replicated.
Despite these limitations, the present study has made several contributions. First, it has provided preliminary evidence for SternbergÕs claim that the theory of mental self-government is a
general theory of styles. Second, the results obtained have contributed specifically to the data
bank on the theory of mental self-government, and more broadly, to the growing literature in
the field of styles. Third, there has been a severe lack of valid measures of styles in work settings.
Having been proved to be a reliable and valid measure of thinking styles among personnel in the
present sample, the Thinking Styles Inventory-Revised has the potential to become an additional
research tool for organizational psychologists apart from the one recent measure of styles in work
settings: RidingÕs (1991) Cognitive Styles Analysis.
As the present study is an initial test of the validity of the Thinking Styles Inventory-Revised
among personnel in non-academic settings, the work should be considered exploratory. Statistically significant predictive relationships of reported work environment factors to thinking styles
identified here do not guarantee any causal relations between the two variables. Nevertheless, because the results supported the anticipated relationships and make substantive sense, some implications for human resource management personnel, providers of management training and
development programs, as well as for the ordinary workforce may be proposed.
Human resource management personnel may benefit from being aware of their employeesÕ
thinking styles. With this knowledge, top management personnel would be more likely to view
their employees as a diversified human resources portfolio. They would manage their available
personnel more wisely by taking into account their employeesÕ thinking styles. As Yiu and Saner
(2000) have rightfully argued, the ability to master perceptual–cognitive complexity distinguishes
successful leaders from less successful leaders.
Providers of management training and development programs may want to understand the
relationship between thinking styles and work environments. With this knowledge, program
designers could create training and development programs that match training to the thinking
styles of the trained personnel.
Ordinary workforce could benefit from the knowledge of thinking styles. Such knowledge may
enhance peopleÕs awareness of their own styles as well as the styles of their colleagues. Such an
awareness should be conducive for the effectiveness of organizational behavior.
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