Concept Formation and Attainment as a Function of Personality Organization

摘要

This study investigated differences that occured in concept formation and concept attainment between groups of subjects which were classified into the four systems of conceptual functioning proposed by Harvey et al. (1961). There were ten subjects in each system. The concept formation task involved the sorting of instances into meaningful classes or categories. The concept attainment task (Bruner et al., 1956) involved discovering the defining attributes of the instances included in a category specified by the experimenter. The concept formation task was scored for (1) completion, (2) repetition, (3) novelty of concepts, and (4) appropriateness of concepts. The concept attainment task was scored for (1) time required to solve each problem, (2) number of cards tested, (3) total number of steps taken in solving each problem, (4) ratio of guesses to total number of steps, (5) effect of the shift from the ordered stimulus display, (6) orientation toward the problems, (7) informational redundancy in the selection of instances for testing, (8) basis for guesses, and (9) the use of inappropriate concepts. Thus each task was scored on both qualitative and quantitative measures.