Strategies for Solving Analytical and Holistic Problems

Abstract

Studies of the contribution of institutional identity to the formation of psychological structures suggest that such identity imposes restrictions on the formation of new experience. The aim of this work was to describe strategies for solving analytical and holistic problems that are characteristic for individuals with analytical and holistic types of mentality. Participants (N = 105) were solving analytical (a) and holistic (h) word problems (a-problems: “Knights and Knaves” and “Grid-logic”; h-problems: “Anagrams” and “Moral dilemmas”). The results have shown that “normativity” was the principle characteristic of the problem-solving strategy accounting for the observed differences between individuals with analytical and holistic types of mentality.