Field dependence and interpersonal behavior.

Abstract

People with a field-dependent or field-independent cognitive style are different in their interpersonal behavior in ways predicted from the theory of psychological differentiation. Field-dependent people make greater use of external social referents, but only when the situation is ambiguous and these referents provide information that helps remove the ambiguity; field-independent people function with greater autonomy from others under such conditions. Field-dependent people are more attentive to social cues than field-independent people. Field-dependent people have an interpersonal orientation: they show strong interest in others, prefer to be physically close to people, are emotionally open and gravitate toward social situations. Field-independent people have an impersonal orientation: they are not very interested in others, show both physical and psychological distancing from people and prefer nonsocial situations. Finally, field-dependent and field-independent people are different in an array of characteristics which make it likely that field-dependent people will get along better with others. Altogether, field-dependent people have a set of social skills that are less evident in field-independent people. On the other hand, field-independent people have greater skill in cognitive analysis and structuring. This pattern suggests that, with regard to value judgments, the field-dependence-independence dimension is bipolar; each of the contrasting cognitive styles has components adaptive to particular situations.