Developing software beyond customer needs and plans: an exploratory study of its forms and individual-level drivers

"Literature is scarce regarding the psychological predictors of chess expertise and A-level chess performance. Methods: A cross-sectional study was designed and conducted on a total number of 90 Hungarian and Romanian competitive chess players. More than half were males, the average age was 32.07 (SD=12.99). The study aimed to explore the predictive influence of age, gender, number of hours spent practicing, preferences for rational and intuitive thinking styles, self-efficacy, and emotionality on the likelihood of obtaining a publicly accessible ELO rating within the range of 1800-2500 (indicating at least A-level expertise or higher). Binary logistic regression was applied to examine the weight of each predictor. Results: The data evinced the statistically significant role of gender, and rational thinking style on A-level chess expertise and from all the conclusive predictors the most determinant was the rational thinking style which raised the chance of high expertise more than 60 times. Conclusions: Practice contributes positively to the development of A-level competence. However, the most crucial factor in predicting high chess expertise and performance is the preference for rational thinking style. Keywords: chess expertise, ELO rating, A-level, emotionality, self-efficacy, rational thinking, intuitive thinking, practice, adults"

Faced with the threat posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, many nations have mandated sets of requirements, such as social-distancing measures. However, compliance with such measures is likely to be shaped by a range of factors. Here, we proposed and tested a mediation model in which rejection of COVID-19 conspiracy theories and/or theorists mediates the relationship between rational thinking style and compliance with mandated requirements. An online, nationally representative sample of the adult population in the United Kingdom ( N = 520) completed a previously validated measure of rational thinking style, as well as novel measures of rejection of COVID-19 conspiracy theories/theorists and compliance with mandated requirements. Intercorrelations between scores on all three measures were significant and positive. Mediation analysis indicated that rational thinking style and rejection of COVID-19 conspiracy theories/theorists, respectively, were directly associated with compliance, and that the mediated association was also significant. These results may have implications for practical policy aimed at promoting greater compliance with mandated requirements, including social distancing.

The importance of popularity, rational thinking style and nonverbal sensitivity to achieve academic success

Emotional expressions of care and concern by customer service chatbots: Improved customer attitudes despite perceived inauthenticity

Gender role orientation, thinking style preference and facets of adult paranormality: A mediation analysis.

Purpose Brand identities have a dual nature that appeals to the head (rational appeal) and to the heart (emotional appeal) of their consumers. Furthermore, consumers can process information in a predominately analytic or intuitive cognitive style (CS) manner. This study aims to analyze the influence of brand identity-cognitive style (BI-CS) fit on the perceived value of a brand. It also analyzes how different forms of social influence affect the perceived value of the brand. Design/methodology/approach Using a two-step experimental design, Step 1 examines the effect that BI-CS fit has on consumer-based brand equity (CBBE); Step 2 evaluates the effect that the three elements of social influence–compliance, identification and internalization–have on CBBE. Findings Both the BI-CS fit, and the identification and internalization forms of social influence have a significant and positive effect over the perceived value of the brand. A rational brand identity is given a higher perceived brand value by analytic CS consumers than intuitive CS consumers. Conversely, an emotional brand identity is given a higher perceived brand value by intuitive CS consumers than analytic CS consumers. However, whether the brand identity is more emotional or rational is less important than the values and beliefs that the brand communicates to create social influence. Research limitations/implications This study contributes to the branding literature by introducing the CS concept to better understand the influence of emotional and rational brand identities on consumers with either rational or intuitive cognitive thinking styles and reinforce the importance of the brand duality concept. Practical implications The results demonstrate the importance of brand duality and show how firms could present emotional or rational brand identities depending on their consumers’ CS to increase the effectiveness of their messaging to build stronger brand images that increase the perceived value of the brand. These findings could have important implications for market segmentation. Originality/value Brand identities can be emotional or rational, and this creates more or less value depending on the consumers’ CS, but what is more important is that consumers internalize the brand’s message or identify with what the brand represents. Although this has been discussed in prior literature, the original contribution of this paper is tying all these concepts together.

We conducted a meta‐analysis to examine the relations of individual differences in reflective (or rational) and intuitive thinking styles with workplace task performance. We meta‐analyzed 113 effect sizes from 71 independent samples (N = 11,713). Results indicate that reflective thinking style has a positive and non‐zero meta‐analytic relation with task performance (ρ = .213). This positive relation is stronger in environments characterized by higher task complexity, greater importance of creativity and innovation for work tasks, and higher time pressure associated with work tasks. Intuitive thinking style, conversely, has a very small but positive meta‐analytic relation with task performance (ρ = .051), and this relation is stronger in environments characterized by higher task complexity. Finally, incremental validity analyses reveal that reflective thinking style explains unique variance in task performance, beyond conscientiousness and intelligence (general mental ability). Overall, this meta‐analysis demonstrates that reflective thinking style is an important antecedent to task performance.

[Correction Notice: An Erratum for this article was reported online in Journal of Experimental Psychology: General on Jul 23 2020 (see record 2020-54558-001). In the original article, significance levels indicated by the asterisks in Table 2 are incorrect. The corrected Table 2 is given in erratum. All versions of this article have been corrected.] What is it that provides us an accurate window into the thoughts and feelings of others? Although, intuitively, it might seem as though trait empathy would enhance this ability, research has produced decidedly mixed results, ultimately failing to uncover robust, systematic relationships between the two. Recent research has suggested, however, that different facets of empathy-emotional contagion, on the one hand, and empathic concern, on the other-are psychologically distinct and result in different behavioral tendencies (Jordan, Amir, & Bloom, 2016). In 5 preregistered studies involving nearly 2,600 participants, we assessed the opposing contributions of these distinct facets of empathy to empathic accuracy. We found that whereas trait concern is beneficial to empathic accuracy, trait contagion is, paradoxically, detrimental. These patterns emerged across 4 different measures of empathic accuracy that involve emotional and mental states communicated through the eyes (Study 1), paralinguistic cues in the voice (Study 2), facial expressions (Studies 2 and 4), and cues presented during a mock interview (Study 3). Moreover, in Study 4, we identified rational thinking style as a mechanism for these opposing effects. Whereas those who exhibit contagion tend to be less rational, those who exhibit concern tend to be more rational. These differences in cognitive style mediate the opposing relationships of contagion and concern with interpersonal accuracy. Our studies thus highlight the value of empirically separating psychologically distinct facets of empathy to more accurately characterize their independent contributions to interpersonal processes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Rapid intuitive hunches or gut feelings may be a compelling source of evidence for paranoid ideas. Conversely, a failure to apply effortful analytic thinking may contribute to the persistence of such thoughts. Our main aim was to examine for the first time the associations of persecutory thinking with experiential and rational thinking styles. Five hundred individuals recruited from the general population completed self-report assessments of current persecutory ideation, general reasoning styles and personality traits. Persecutory ideation was independently associated with greater use of experiential reasoning and less use of rational reasoning. The correlations were small. Persecutory ideation was also positively associated with neuroticism and negatively correlated with extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness. There was no evidence of an interaction between neuroticism and experiential reasoning in the prediction of paranoia, but high experiential reasoning in the context of low rational reasoning was particularly associated with persecutory ideation. Overall, the study provides rare evidence of self-reported general reasoning styles being associated with delusional ideation. Perceived reliance on intuition is associated with paranoid thinking, while perceived reliance on deliberation is associated with fewer such thoughts. The dual process theory of reasoning may provide a framework to contribute to the understanding of paranoid thinking.

The matter of the effectiveness of applying smart technologies in agriculture of the Republic of Kazakhstan will be of interest to the academic community, regardless of territorial affiliation. The relevance of the research is in the need to inform farmers on the efficiency of such technologies and how to use them. Economic valuation, cost-benefit analysis were used to compare traditional and digital agricultural technologies in grain production. Wealthy farmers from developed countries widely use digital technology, reducing operating costs for wage labour and productive resources. In this research, the authors attempted to prove the hypothesis of significant economic and environmental efficiency in the application of precision technologies. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the results of the application of precision farming tools from an economic standpoint, these results can contribute to the study of the efficiency of digital technologies at the global and local levels. This research displays that with application of modern digital technologies in production, under certain circumstances, a farm can increase wheat yield by at least 25-30%. Gross profit with traditional technologies in agriculture amounted to 31 US dollars per hectare, while application of digital technologies brought 54 US dollars per hectare.

Individual investor behavior is subject to many factors including risk attitude, behavioral heuristics, cognitive biases, herding, etc. The aim of this study was to investigate the impacts of selected behavioral factors of an investor as a leader in making individual investment decisions. To achieve this aim, we conducted an economic experiment which allowed us to observe individual behavior of subjects on an artificial stock exchange. In this study, we investigated two groups of factors, applying: (1) psychological scales assessing two independent thinking styles: rational and experiential which may affect investors’ decisions and (2) measures of subjective self-assessment of investors’ characteristics, namely their expected emotional response to losses and risk attitude. We claim that subjects behave according to how they perceive themselves and how they would like to be perceived. Therefore, they are subject to confirmation bias. Analyzing data from an economic experiment, we found that propensity to invest in the case of male subjects was influenced by the following six factors: experience in investing, need for cognition, faith in intuition, risk attitude, age and the time of decision making. Higher need for cognition refrains some investors from investing when they regard the amount of possessed information as insufficient. Faith in intuition increases the propensity to invest in the case of seemingly positive financial results of the analyzed firm. However, both results concerning rational and affective thinking styles hold true only for male subjects. In the case of female subjects, no significant impact of the need for cognition and of faith in intuition was reported. Propensity to invest in the case of female subjects was influenced only by two factors: expected emotional response to losses and trust in strangers. Curiously, these are the remaining two factors that did not affect male subjects’ investment decisions.

ObjectivePopulist attitudes and the tendency to believe in specific conspiracy theories (conspiracy beliefs) are often exploited by extremist or populist parties. However, more scientific research is needed to scrutinize this association. Consequently, the present non-preregistered exploratory online study assessed whether and how conspiracy beliefs and populist attitudes are associated and whether populist attitudes moderate the association between the preference for an analytical or intuitive thinking style and conspiracy beliefs.ResultsWe assessed 483 nonclinical individuals regarding their conspiracy beliefs, populist attitudes, and thinking styles and found a moderate correlation between populist attitudes and conspiracy beliefs. Conspiracy beliefs were significantly predicted by three facets of populist attitudes (anti-elitism, preference for unrestricted popular sovereignty, and belief in the homogeneity and virtuousness of the people). Anti-elitist attitudes and a preference for unrestricted popular sovereignty significantly moderated (reduced) the impact of an analytical thinking style on conspiracy beliefs. Anti-elitism and a preference for popular sovereignty might enhance a person’s vulnerability to conspiracy beliefs. We assume that these populistic attitudes reduce a person’s motivation to use a more effortful thinking style to reinterpret ideology-inconsistent information to protect existing conspiracy beliefs. Our results provide new insights into the interplay between conspiracy beliefs, populism, and a preference for an analytical/more effortful thinking style.

This meta-analysis examined whether tendencies to use reflective and intuitive thinking styles predicted decision performance (normatively correct responding) and decision experience (e.g., speed, enjoyment) on a range of decision-making tasks. A pooled sample of 17,704 participants (Mage = 25 years) from 89 samples produced small but significant weighted average effects for reflection on performance (r = .11) and experience (r = .14). Intuition was negatively associated with performance (r = -.09) but positively associated with experience (r = .06). Moderation analyses using 499 effect sizes revealed heterogeneity across task-theory match/mismatch, task type, description-based versus experience-based decisions, time pressure, age, and measure type. Effects of both thinking styles were strongest when the task matched the theoretical strengths of the thinking style (up to r = .29). Specific tasks that produced the largest thinking style effects (up to r = .35) were also consistent with system characteristics. Time pressure weakened the effects of reflection, but not intuition, on performance. Effect sizes for reflection on performance were largest for individuals aged either 12 to 18 years or 25+ (up to r = .18), and the effects of both reflection and intuition on experience were largest for adults aged 25+ (up to r = .27). Overall, our results indicate that associations between thinking styles and decision outcomes are context dependent. To improve decision performance and experience, decision architects and educators should carefully consider both individual differences in the decision maker and the nature of the decision task.

This article is devoted to the problems of development and implementation of digital production technologies at industrial enterprises. The structure of the technological processes and principal approaches to automation of production enterprises with various technological processes is considered. An analysis of the conditions of the change in the enterprises to multiproduct small-scale manufacturing is carried out. The problems of changing modern production enterprises to the Industry 4.0 concept are specified. The urgent problems are stated, solving of which is required to develop digital machine-building production in the Industry 4.0 concept. A definition of the digital production is proposed.

ObjectivesThis study aimed to identify dual‐process cognitive profiles in an Australian sample and to examine how the profiles were associated with substance use and treatment outcomes.MethodA total of 242 adults were recruited using convenience sampling (n = 123) and from a substance abuse treatment program (n = 119). All participants completed a web‐based survey that included the Rational‐Experiential Inventory and substance use measures. In‐treatment participants also completed treatment outcome measures.ResultsCluster analysis of 242 rational and experiential thinking style scores identified four profiles comprising individuals who reported high rationality and low experientiality, low rationality and high experientiality, high rationality and high experientiality, or low rationality and low experientiality. Profiles that included low rationality reported the highest substance use and were overrepresented by in‐treatment participants. Profiles that included high rationality were associated with the best treatment outcomes, even when accompanied by high experientiality.ConclusionsThese findings are in line with dual‐process theory and suggest that: (a) individuals who are at risk of abusing substances may benefit from strategies that increase cognitive control, and (b) treatment programs may produce better outcomes if they incorporate strategies to increase cognitive control.