While intelligence and motivational variables are well-established predictors of academic achievement, Need for Cognition (NFC), the stable intrinsic motivation to engage in and enjoy challenging intellectual activity, has not yet been considered comprehensively in this field, especially not longitudinally. By applying latent change score…

The present study examined individual differences in 3 cognitive abilities: attention control (AC), working memory capacity (WMC), and fluid intelligence (gF) as they relate the tendency to experience task-unrelated thoughts (TUTs) and the regulation of arousal. Cognitive abilities were measured with a battery of 9 laboratory tasks, TUTs were…

Given the recent emphasis on exploring valence in creative behavior, this study examines negative creativity via a person-situation interactionist perspective. By manipulating goal valence (uses or misuses) and object valence (positive or negative), four conditions of an adapted Divergent Thinking task were used to predict positive and negative…

This study provides the first analyses connecting individual differences in infant attention to reading achievement through the development of executive functioning (EF) in infancy and early childhood. Five-month-old infants observed a video, and peak look duration and shift rate were video coded and assessed. At 10 months, as well as 3, 4, and…

While some individuals are able to confidently make competent choices, others make poor decisions but are unjustifiably confident. What are their individual characteristics? This study examined individual differences in cognitive and metacognitive competence and arrogance. In doing so, we determined the role of metacognitive confidence and…

Objective: Identifying which preterm children (PT) are at increased risk for language and learning differences increases opportunities for participation in interventions that improve outcomes. Speed in spoken language comprehension at early stages of language development requires information processing skills that may form the foundation for later…

An enduring challenge in visual-spatial research has been to identify the factors contributing to individual differences in ability. This research investigated the overall, verbal, and nonverbal visual-spatial ability of 61 (34 boys) three- to five-year-olds (M[subscript age] = 57.3 months; SD = 7.9) and the following factors known to be related…

Cognitive assessment in natural group settings facilitates data collection but poses threats to the validity. In this study, tablet-based working memory (WM) tasks, the counting span, and reading span were used in predicting 12-year-old children's (N = 837) scholastic skills and fluid intelligence in a classroom with environmental noise. WM tasks…

This study aims to investigate whether emotional and behavioral difficulties (EBD) differ between children with cochlear implants (CIs) or hearing aids (HAs), according to multi-informant ratings. Methods: A battery of psychological measures (e.g., Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities (ITPA),…

Studies investigating evolutionary theories on the origins of national differences in intelligence have been criticized on the basis that both national cognitive ability measures and supposedly evolutionarily informative proxies (such as latitude and climate) are confounded with general developmental status. In this study 14 Y chromosomal…

Although statistical learning and language have been assumed to be intertwined, this theoretical presupposition has rarely been tested empirically. The present study investigates the relationship between statistical learning and language using a within-subject design embedded in an individual-differences framework. Participants were administered…

The purpose of this study was to identify sources of individual differences in knowledge acquired under natural conditions. Through its direct influence on background knowledge, crystallized intelligence (Gc) had a major impact on political knowledge, acquired over a period of more than 2 months, but there were independent influences of…

The experience of interest is central to intrinsic motivation for learning, so it is important to understand the nature of interest and its sources. Individual differences in fluid intelligence (Gf) predict finding things more interesting, but it is possible that this effect is merely due to the overlap of Gf with openness to experience, a strong…

Multitasking performance is relevant in everyday life and job analyses highlight the influence of multitasking over several diverse occupations. Intelligence is the best single predictor of overall job performance and it is also related to individual differences in multitasking. However, it has been shown that working memory capacity (WMC) is…

This study investigates the relationships of domain-general cognitive abilities and domain-specific verbal and mathematical abilities to students' educational characteristics when two theoretically grounded, but competing structural models are applied. In the standard model, a single latent ability causes interindividual differences in the…