Personality Concomitants of the Cognitive Style of Field Dependence/independence

The term cognitive style derives its meaning from the words cognition, which refers to the process of knowing and perceiving, and style, which refers to an individual\u27s manner or mode of behaving. Cognitive style, then, refers to individual differences in the process of knowing and perceiving. These elements are present in Kogan\u27s (1971, p. 224) definition of cognitive styles as individual variation in modes of perceiving, remembering, and thinking, or as distinctive ways of apprehending, storing, transforming, and utilizing information. The emphasis, then, is on individual differences regarding the manner in which information is acquired, stored, transformed, and used as opposed to the ease of acquisition or the total amount eventually learned..