Are you High in Cognitive Complexity or Cognitive Simplicity

I had a WOW in my reading today and wanted to share.

A little bit about the terms first. Cognitive complexity is simply the ability to perceive differences among people so cognitive simplicity would be the inability to do the same.

Ok, so now for what made me laugh...

"Research has confirmed personality differences in terms of cognitive style. People high in cognitive complexity are better able to make predictions about other people's behavior. They more readily recognize differences between themselves and others, are more empathic, and deal better with inconsistent information in constructing others than do people high in cognitive simplicity (Crockett, 1982). Studies of politicians in the United States and England found that conservatives were high in cognitive simplicity, whereas moderates and liberals displayed higher levels of cognitive complexity (Tetlock, 1983, 1984)."

There's just something I find amusing about using a form of "simple" when referring to conservatives. Forgive me, my many many conservative friends. LOL!

Reference

Schultz, D. P., & Schultz, S. E. (2009). Theories of Personality (9th ed.). Belmont: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.