Cognitive Styles and Personality Traits as Predictors of Consciousness Among University Students

Abstract

One s Cognitive Style and Personality Traits affect the way one can impress others, the decisions made, one s judgement processes, the way one handle ideas, the way problems are solved, and the way plans are prepared. Cognitive Styles and Personality Traits mould our experience of the world, not only giving us perspective but also teaching us how to comprehend things that occur around us. Consciousness Quotient is regarded as the general level of being conscious/ aware in one s normal life conditions. The sample of the present study consisted of 500 students from undergraduate and postgraduate classes from 5 faculties viz: Faculty of Social Sciences, Faculty of Education, Faculty of Science, Faculty of Commerce and Faculty of Engineering of Dayalbagh Educational Institute, Deemed University, Dayalbagh, Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India. The Consciousness Quotient inventory (CQ-i) by Brazdau (2013), Cognitive Style Inventory (CSI) by Jha (2001), and the NEO-FFI Personality Inventory by Costa and McCrae (1994), were used to obtain the raw scores for statistical analysis. Correlational design was used for the present study. Multiple regression analysis was used to analyse the raw data. The results showed that the Cognitive Styles (Systematic and Intuitive) and the Personality Traits (Extraversion, Openness to experience, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness except Neuroticism) are positively and significantly correlated with Consciousness. Results also reflected that the Cognitive Styles (Systematic and Intuitive) and the Personality Traits (Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness to experience, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness) have a joint contribution of 24% in the determination of Consciousness (R = 0.24).The goal of this research is to elucidate trends and perspectives in the field of cognitive psychology and to recommend an integrated outline to guide future research. newline