Cognitive styles and environmental problem‐solving

Abstract

Although professionals and experts receive training that is thought to be appropriate for the tasks awaiting them, recent research has shown that their problem solving behaviour is greatly influenced by the cognitive styles that they have learned prior to university education. The latter may only reinforce, or exacerbate, pre‐existing tendencies. As a result of this, professionals may use their preferred styles indiscriminately, applying them in situations where they are quite inappropriate. This mismatching of style and problem commonly occurs in the environmental area where problems are complex and solutions would seem to require an approach based on an integration of styles. The way in which cognitive styles are mismatched to inadequately defined problems and the need for an integrated approach to environmental problems are discussed in this paper.