Individual differences in self-regulatory abilities and their role in worldviews

Abstract

Nowadays individuals find themselves living in increasingly multifaceted and diverse societies with varying capabilities to deal with them. Investigating individual differences in cognition and their relationship with beliefs and behaviours, may shed light on how different people navigate such diversity. This thesis aims to do this by providing evidence for the importance of investigating individual differences in cognition, and by contributing towards the theorisation and empirical study of the social-cognitive mechanisms of generalised beliefs, referred to as worldviews (Sammut, 2019; Sammut et al., 2022). Worldviews encompass beliefs that shape one’s outlook on life and can be classified into five unique types, namely; Localised, Orthodox, Pragmatist, Reward, and Survivor. Three studies were carried out, the measures of which were all included in a two-part online data collection session. Study 1 provides evidence for a relationship between social values (Schwartz, 1992) and the five-factor typology of worldviews. Results showed that worldviews may be mapped onto two value dimensions; Openness to Change versus Conservation, and Self-Transcendence versus Self-Enhancement. Study 2 and Study 3 found that significant individual differences may be observed in self-regulatory abilities, within the context of worldviews. Particularly, there is evidence for a relationship between self-regulatory cognitive mechanisms, namely, inhibitory control (Study 2) and cognitive flexibility (Study 3), and worldviews. Inhibitory control was measured through one’s performance in the Go/No-Go task, whereas cognitive flexibility was measured through one’s performance in the Letter-Digit Classification task. Notably, the individual differences in Study 3 did not emerge from conventional analyses; they only became evident as a result of drift diffusion model analyses. Findings from Study 2 showed that individuals who were better at inhibitory control were more likely to endorse the Orthodox worldview, whereas findings from Study 3 showed that those who were better at cognitive flexibility were more likely to endorse the Localised or Pragmatist worldview. Overall, the findings of this inquiry supported the hypotheses that variations in cognitive processes give rise to divergent perceptions and experiences of the world. They also highlight the importance of shifting away from conventional data aggregation analyses to time-based modelling when investigating individual differences.