The relevance of logical thinking and cognitive style to everyday problem solving among older adults

Adults are effective day-to-day problem solvers throughout their lifespan but the specific mechanism on how they solve everyday problems is not fully understood. The goal was to investigate the effects of logical thinking and cognitive style on the ability to solve everyday problems among older adults. What we test is the intuition that the person's cognitive style is related to solve day-to-day problems. However, we argued also that one needs a good dose of pragmatism, as measured by logical thinking. We administered an everyday problem-solving test alongside measures of cognitive styles and logical thinking to a sample of 210 community-dwelling older adults of Southeastern Italy. The results, by structural equation modeling, indicated that logical thinking mediates the relationship between cognitive style and everyday problem solving. We discuss the possibility that older adults who have preserved intact logical thinking abilities are more likely to see the multifaceted reality of everyday problems.