Another source of individual differences: strategy adaptivity to changing rates of success

This article explores an alternative approach to the study of individual differences of cognitive function-- that people may have the same strategies but differential ability to adaptively select among them in response to success and failure feedback from the environment. Three studies involving the complex and dynamic Kanfer-Ackerman Air Traffic Control Task (P. L. Ackerman & R. Kanfer, 1994) demonstrate (a) that individuals do differ systematically along this strategy adaptivity dimension, (b) that those differences have important consequences for overall task performance, and (c) that the differences are primarily associated with reasoning ability and working-memory capacity.