Aqualung

Hey everyone!

Do you enjoy thinking? Do you like to figure out why things work? Do you enjoy finding alternative solutions to problems? If so, you’re probably high in a personality trait called need for cognition.

Cacioppo and Petty (1982) coined this personality trait, defining it as the extent to which a person likes to engage in cognitively effortful tasks. If you’re high in this trait, you’ll enjoy solving puzzles, thinking about fine details, or understanding complex situations.

I am high on this trait, according to a six item sample from the initial survey created by Cacioppo and Petty. Every response I gave indicated that I have that personality trait. This did not surprise me much, because I’ve always enjoyed those things.

For example, a few years back, a friend of mine showed me a computer game called SpaceChem. It looks like this.

SpaceChem!

Does it look complicated? It’s actually simple to describe. Ignore all the chemistry-looking stuff; the gameplay doesn’t use any actual chemistry beyond “bonds are a thing.” Your goal is simply to take the inputs given on the left and use the instructions represented by the red and blue circles to manipulate them into the desired output on the right.

Actually making that happen, though, can be a frustrating, maddening, soul-deadening experience. I’m still on the first half of the puzzles, and I’m completely stuck. My friend has been attempting to solve one of the final levels of the game off and on for months.

But the feeling of accomplishment when you finally do solve the puzzle goes far beyond that of mindless entertainment. Every time I come back to the game after a break, I can solve a few more levels than I could before. It's almost like charting my logical reasoning ability throughout the past two years.

Some people can’t stand games like this. And for good reason. SpaceChem is an infuriating game and you hardly get any immediate satisfaction. But people who are high in the need for cognition might learn to love the puzzles.

Speaking of puzzles, that brings me to my song for the week. I picked a song called “Anagram (for Mongo)” by Rush. As you may have guessed from the title, it uses a fair amount of anagrams in its lyrics. In fact, every line of the song uses words that are anagrams of another word in the line. For example, “he and she are in the house, but there’s only me at home.” When I first heard this song, I had a great time trying to solve the puzzle. If you’ve got a high need for cognition, I’ll bet you will, too.

Here’s a link to the lyrics if you want to play, and here’s the song:

Cacioppo, J. T., & Petty, R. E. (1982). The need for cognition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 42, 116–131.

(n = 424 words)