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Career Specialty Preferences Among Psychology Majors: Cognitive Processing Styles Associated With Scientist and Practitioner Interests
Author(s) -
Leong Frederick T. L.,
Zachar Peter,
Conant Lisa,
Tolliver Dwight
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
the career development quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.846
H-Index - 53
eISSN - 2161-0045
pISSN - 0889-4019
DOI - 10.1002/j.2161-0045.2007.tb00087.x
Subject(s) - preference , psychology , ambiguity , cognition , need for cognition , cognitive style , specialty , ambiguity tolerance , graduate students , applied psychology , social psychology , pedagogy , linguistics , philosophy , neuroscience , psychiatry , economics , microeconomics
The authors investigated cognitive processing styles associated with interests in scientist and practitioner activities among a sample of undergraduate psychology majors who planned to attend graduate school. Results indicated that interests in scientist activities were associated with a greater motivation to engage in effortful processing (i.e., need for cognition). Interests in practitioner activities were not correlated with need for cognition. Contrary to theoretical expectations, neither interests in scientist activities nor in practitioner activities were related to ambiguity intolerance (i.e., preference for clear‐cut solutions to problems).