Personality and Behavioral Correlates of Set-Shifting in a College Student Sample
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2016-12
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University of Hawaii at Manoa
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The aim of the present study was to provide context for understanding how set-shifting relates to personality and behavioral characteristics in a normal sample of college students. Set- shifting has generally been defined as the ability to efficiently switch mental tasks, or more broadly, to think flexibly. While many studies have previously focused on set-shifting in samples of individuals with psychopathology, no study had examined how set-shifting functions in a normal sample. In the current study, 191 undergraduate men and women were assessed using the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task – 64 card version (WCST-64), the Brixton task, the Trail Making Test (TMT) Parts A and B, and the Cognitive Flexibility Inventory (CFI). Self-report measures captured level of depressive, anxiety, eating disorder, and obsessive-compulsive symptomatology, perfectionism, systemizing, dietary restraint, emotion regulation, and five factors of personality (agreeableness, extraversion, emotional stability, conscientiousness, and intellect). Following examination of the full sample, individuals with elevated eating disorder (n = 27), anxiety (n = 82), and depressive (n = 45) symptomatology were considered separately. Bivariate correlations indicated only negligible correlations between many of the measures of set-shifting across samples. Associations between the independent variables and the measures of set-shifting were diverse, with some associations in a direction consistent with hypothesized relations between set-shifting and the independent variables, some showing a complex pattern apparently dependent upon degree of symptomatology, and several demonstrating a set of correlations opposite to the predicted model. The diversity in these findings underscores the necessity of additional research focusing on precisely defining set-shifting and examining the extent to which current tools can be considered appropriate measures of this variable.
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Theses for the degree of Master of Arts (University of Hawaii at Manoa). Psychology
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