Cognitive Flexibility

8Context, Content Effects and Flexibility

Hippolyte GROS¹ and Katarina GVOZDIC²

¹ Paragraphe, CY Cergy Paris University, Gennevilliers, France² IDEA, University of Geneva, Switzerland

8.1. Introduction

Can cognitive flexibility be considered independently of the context in which it is applied, and of the contents upon which it operates? Although many studies lead us to believe that there are general mechanisms of cognitive flexibility which account for an individual’s inclination to adopt a new perspective of a situation, this does not mean that this flexibility can be conceived of as an absolute and decontextualized ability whose effectiveness remains constant in any situation. On the contrary, in this chapter we explore the major impact that the content upon which reasoning operates and the context in which reasoning occurs have on the ability of an individual to flexibly approach a situation. We thus propose to study cognitive flexibility in its interaction with the environment, by describing how the latter can, in turn, hinder or favor the adoption of a new perspective on a given concept, situation or problem.

This idea that human reasoning is not exclusively driven by logic and may also be influenced by context is a relatively recent assumption in the history of thought. In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle stated that the main characteristic distinguishing animals from humans consists of the latter’s ability to carry out logically valid reasoning, which gives humans ...