{"id":{"repo_id":"aachen","oai_identifier":"oai:publications.rwth-aachen.de:62364"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/aachen/oai:publications.rwth-aachen.de:62364","repository":{"repo_id":"aachen","name":"RWTH Aachen University","base_url":"https://publications.rwth-aachen.de/oai2d"},"display":{"title":"General mental ability and two types of adaptation to unforeseen change","abstract":"In recent years, the globalization and the rapid emergence of new technologies have increased the complexity and dynamic of work life. Organizations, teams, and individuals face changes in the nature of their markets, as well as fundamental revolutions in technology, at a much higher rate than ever before. In the literature, there is a consensus that for individuals, teams, and organizations to exhibit high performance in this new work environment, the ability to adapt to unforeseen changes is a key factor. Considering today's importance of adaptation in the occupational world, a growing stream of research has focused on identifying individual differences predicting successful adaptation. The majority of this research is based on the task-change paradigm. The task-change paradigm is an experimental or pseudo-experimental design, where individuals (or teams and organizations) are confronted with a novel and complex task until they achieve some mastery of the task. However, at some point during the skill acquisition process something changes, requiring adaptive behavior. Typically, this change happens unexpectedly for individuals (or teams and organizations). In order to investigate adaptability within the task-change paradigm, researchers are facing two major methodological and conceptual issues. The first issue is how to clearly differentiate adaptive performance from non-adaptive performance. The second issue is how to account for the temporal or process nature of adaptability. Recently, researchers made progress towards resolving each issue separately using modern methods to study change processes. Building on this previous research, the aims of the present dissertation were twofold. The first aim of the dissertation was to propose a framework, which integrates and extends previous approaches to address these two issues in adaptability research. Methodologically, this framework is based on discontinuous mixed-effects growth modeling techniques. Conceptually, the framework distinguishes between two conceptual types of adaptation (i.e., transition adaptation and reacquisition adaptation), while at the same time controlling for other types of performance in the task not unique to adaptive situations (i.e., basal task performance and skill acquisition). Transition adaptation refers to an immediate loss of performance following a change, whereas reacquisition refers to the ability to relearn a changed task over time. Performance types not unique to adaptive situations include basal task performance – the general level of task performance not changing across time – and skill acquisition – an individual's capability to improve task performance across time. The second aim of the dissertation was to apply the proposed framework to provide new insights on the relationship between general mental ability (GMA) and adaptive performance at the individual level of analysis. Importantly, competing hypotheses predicting either a positive or a negative relationship between GMA and adaptability can be derived from the literature. To test the competing theoretical ideas, an empirical study (N=184) was conducted, which used a complex decision-making task. Adaptation was required because of an unforeseen task-change manipulation increasing task complexity following the task-change. Results revealed that GMA was negatively related to transition adaptation (standardized coefficient=.12, p=.006) but not related to reacquisition adaptation. The finding contradicts previously dominating theoretical ideas in adaptability research and has important implications. For example, in occupational decision-making settings, individuals with a high GMA should show stronger performance losses when markets undergo a rapid transformation process, the attitudes of customers shift or technological development leaps. From a more general perspective, the study demonstrates that the conceptual distinctions and the proposed discontinuous growth modeling framework offer a promising new way to gain deeper insights into how individuals adapt to changes.","abstract_html":"In recent years, the globalization and the rapid emergence of new technologies have increased the complexity and dynamic of work life. Organizations, teams, and individuals face changes in the nature of their markets, as well as fundamental revolutions in technology, at a much higher rate than ever before. In the literature, there is a consensus that for individuals, teams, and organizations to exhibit high performance in this new work environment, the ability to adapt to unforeseen changes is a key factor. Considering today&#x27;s importance of adaptation in the occupational world, a growing stream of research has focused on identifying individual differences predicting successful adaptation. The majority of this research is based on the task-change paradigm. The task-change paradigm is an experimental or pseudo-experimental design, where individuals (or teams and organizations) are confronted with a novel and complex task until they achieve some mastery of the task. However, at some point during the skill acquisition process something changes, requiring adaptive behavior. Typically, this change happens unexpectedly for individuals (or teams and organizations). In order to investigate adaptability within the task-change paradigm, researchers are facing two major methodological and conceptual issues. The first issue is how to clearly differentiate adaptive performance from non-adaptive performance. The second issue is how to account for the temporal or process nature of adaptability. Recently, researchers made progress towards resolving each issue separately using modern methods to study change processes. Building on this previous research, the aims of the present dissertation were twofold. The first aim of the dissertation was to propose a framework, which integrates and extends previous approaches to address these two issues in adaptability research. Methodologically, this framework is based on discontinuous mixed-effects growth modeling techniques. Conceptually, the framework distinguishes between two conceptual types of adaptation (i.e., transition adaptation and reacquisition adaptation), while at the same time controlling for other types of performance in the task not unique to adaptive situations (i.e., basal task performance and skill acquisition). Transition adaptation refers to an immediate loss of performance following a change, whereas reacquisition refers to the ability to relearn a changed task over time. Performance types not unique to adaptive situations include basal task performance – the general level of task performance not changing across time – and skill acquisition – an individual&#x27;s capability to improve task performance across time. The second aim of the dissertation was to apply the proposed framework to provide new insights on the relationship between general mental ability (GMA) and adaptive performance at the individual level of analysis. Importantly, competing hypotheses predicting either a positive or a negative relationship between GMA and adaptability can be derived from the literature. To test the competing theoretical ideas, an empirical study (N=184) was conducted, which used a complex decision-making task. Adaptation was required because of an unforeseen task-change manipulation increasing task complexity following the task-change. Results revealed that GMA was negatively related to transition adaptation (standardized coefficient=.12, p=.006) but not related to reacquisition adaptation. The finding contradicts previously dominating theoretical ideas in adaptability research and has important implications. For example, in occupational decision-making settings, individuals with a high GMA should show stronger performance losses when markets undergo a rapid transformation process, the attitudes of customers shift or technological development leaps. From a more general perspective, the study demonstrates that the conceptual distinctions and the proposed discontinuous growth modeling framework offer a promising new way to gain deeper insights into how individuals adapt to changes.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Lang, Jonas W. B."],"institution":"Publikationsserver der RWTH Aachen University","degree_name":null,"degree_level":null,"degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Hornke, Lutz F."],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2007,"date_issued":"2007","date_published":"2007","updated_at":"2026-07-30T19:43:28Z","subjects":["info:eu-repo/classification/ddc/150","g-Faktor <Psychologie>","Verhaltensanpassung","Veränderungsmessung","Arbeitspsychologie","Organisationspsychologie","Intelligenz","Transfer","Psychologie","Adaptionsfähigkeit","generelle mentale Fähigkeit","unvorhergesehene Veränderungen","diskontinuierliche Mischeffektmodelle","adaptability","general mental ability","intelligence","unforeseen change","discontinuous mixed-effect models"],"languages":["eng"],"rights":["info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://publications.rwth-aachen.de/search?p=id:%22RWTH-CONV-123935%22"],"render_values":[{"text":"https://publications.rwth-aachen.de/search?p=id:%22RWTH-CONV-123935%22","href":"https://publications.rwth-aachen.de/search?p=id:%22RWTH-CONV-123935%22","code":true}]}]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://publications.rwth-aachen.de/record/62364","outbound_label":"Repository record","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Hornke, Lutz F."]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Lang, Jonas W. B."]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:coverage","label":"Dc Coverage","values":["DE"]},{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2007"]},{"key":"dc:publisher","label":"Institution","values":["Publikationsserver der RWTH Aachen University"]},{"key":"dc:relation","label":"Dc Relation","values":["info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/urn/urn:nbn:de:hbz:82-opus-19641"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["info:eu-repo/semantics/doctoralThesis","info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["info:eu-repo/classification/ddc/150","g-Faktor <Psychologie>","Verhaltensanpassung","Veränderungsmessung","Arbeitspsychologie","Organisationspsychologie","Intelligenz","Transfer","Psychologie","Adaptionsfähigkeit","generelle mentale Fähigkeit","unvorhergesehene Veränderungen","diskontinuierliche Mischeffektmodelle","adaptability","general mental ability","intelligence","unforeseen change","discontinuous mixed-effect models"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["eng"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://publications.rwth-aachen.de/record/62364","https://publications.rwth-aachen.de/search?p=id:%22RWTH-CONV-123935%22"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["In recent years, the globalization and the rapid emergence of new technologies have increased the complexity and dynamic of work life. Organizations, teams, and individuals face changes in the nature of their markets, as well as fundamental revolutions in technology, at a much higher rate than ever before. In the literature, there is a consensus that for individuals, teams, and organizations to exhibit high performance in this new work environment, the ability to adapt to unforeseen changes is a key factor. Considering today's importance of adaptation in the occupational world, a growing stream of research has focused on identifying individual differences predicting successful adaptation. The majority of this research is based on the task-change paradigm. The task-change paradigm is an experimental or pseudo-experimental design, where individuals (or teams and organizations) are confronted with a novel and complex task until they achieve some mastery of the task. However, at some point during the skill acquisition process something changes, requiring adaptive behavior. Typically, this change happens unexpectedly for individuals (or teams and organizations). In order to investigate adaptability within the task-change paradigm, researchers are facing two major methodological and conceptual issues. The first issue is how to clearly differentiate adaptive performance from non-adaptive performance. The second issue is how to account for the temporal or process nature of adaptability. Recently, researchers made progress towards resolving each issue separately using modern methods to study change processes. Building on this previous research, the aims of the present dissertation were twofold. The first aim of the dissertation was to propose a framework, which integrates and extends previous approaches to address these two issues in adaptability research. Methodologically, this framework is based on discontinuous mixed-effects growth modeling techniques. Conceptually, the framework distinguishes between two conceptual types of adaptation (i.e., transition adaptation and reacquisition adaptation), while at the same time controlling for other types of performance in the task not unique to adaptive situations (i.e., basal task performance and skill acquisition). Transition adaptation refers to an immediate loss of performance following a change, whereas reacquisition refers to the ability to relearn a changed task over time. Performance types not unique to adaptive situations include basal task performance – the general level of task performance not changing across time – and skill acquisition – an individual's capability to improve task performance across time. The second aim of the dissertation was to apply the proposed framework to provide new insights on the relationship between general mental ability (GMA) and adaptive performance at the individual level of analysis. Importantly, competing hypotheses predicting either a positive or a negative relationship between GMA and adaptability can be derived from the literature. To test the competing theoretical ideas, an empirical study (N=184) was conducted, which used a complex decision-making task. Adaptation was required because of an unforeseen task-change manipulation increasing task complexity following the task-change. Results revealed that GMA was negatively related to transition adaptation (standardized coefficient=.12, p=.006) but not related to reacquisition adaptation. The finding contradicts previously dominating theoretical ideas in adaptability research and has important implications. For example, in occupational decision-making settings, individuals with a high GMA should show stronger performance losses when markets undergo a rapid transformation process, the attitudes of customers shift or technological development leaps. From a more general perspective, the study demonstrates that the conceptual distinctions and the proposed discontinuous growth modeling framework offer a promising new way to gain deeper insights into how individuals adapt to changes."]},{"key":"dc:source","label":"Dc Source","values":["Aachen : Publikationsserver der RWTH Aachen University XVII, 170 S. : Ill., graph. Darst. (2007). = Aachen, Techn. Hochsch., Diss., 2007"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["General mental ability and two types of adaptation to unforeseen change"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Hornke, Lutz F."],"dc:coverage":["DE"],"dc:creator":["Lang, Jonas W. B."],"dc:date":["2007"],"dc:description":["In recent years, the globalization and the rapid emergence of new technologies have increased the complexity and dynamic of work life. Organizations, teams, and individuals face changes in the nature of their markets, as well as fundamental revolutions in technology, at a much higher rate than ever before. In the literature, there is a consensus that for individuals, teams, and organizations to exhibit high performance in this new work environment, the ability to adapt to unforeseen changes is a key factor. Considering today's importance of adaptation in the occupational world, a growing stream of research has focused on identifying individual differences predicting successful adaptation. The majority of this research is based on the task-change paradigm. The task-change paradigm is an experimental or pseudo-experimental design, where individuals (or teams and organizations) are confronted with a novel and complex task until they achieve some mastery of the task. However, at some point during the skill acquisition process something changes, requiring adaptive behavior. Typically, this change happens unexpectedly for individuals (or teams and organizations). In order to investigate adaptability within the task-change paradigm, researchers are facing two major methodological and conceptual issues. The first issue is how to clearly differentiate adaptive performance from non-adaptive performance. The second issue is how to account for the temporal or process nature of adaptability. Recently, researchers made progress towards resolving each issue separately using modern methods to study change processes. Building on this previous research, the aims of the present dissertation were twofold. The first aim of the dissertation was to propose a framework, which integrates and extends previous approaches to address these two issues in adaptability research. Methodologically, this framework is based on discontinuous mixed-effects growth modeling techniques. Conceptually, the framework distinguishes between two conceptual types of adaptation (i.e., transition adaptation and reacquisition adaptation), while at the same time controlling for other types of performance in the task not unique to adaptive situations (i.e., basal task performance and skill acquisition). Transition adaptation refers to an immediate loss of performance following a change, whereas reacquisition refers to the ability to relearn a changed task over time. Performance types not unique to adaptive situations include basal task performance – the general level of task performance not changing across time – and skill acquisition – an individual's capability to improve task performance across time. The second aim of the dissertation was to apply the proposed framework to provide new insights on the relationship between general mental ability (GMA) and adaptive performance at the individual level of analysis. Importantly, competing hypotheses predicting either a positive or a negative relationship between GMA and adaptability can be derived from the literature. To test the competing theoretical ideas, an empirical study (N=184) was conducted, which used a complex decision-making task. Adaptation was required because of an unforeseen task-change manipulation increasing task complexity following the task-change. Results revealed that GMA was negatively related to transition adaptation (standardized coefficient=.12, p=.006) but not related to reacquisition adaptation. The finding contradicts previously dominating theoretical ideas in adaptability research and has important implications. For example, in occupational decision-making settings, individuals with a high GMA should show stronger performance losses when markets undergo a rapid transformation process, the attitudes of customers shift or technological development leaps. From a more general perspective, the study demonstrates that the conceptual distinctions and the proposed discontinuous growth modeling framework offer a promising new way to gain deeper insights into how individuals adapt to changes."],"dc:identifier":["https://publications.rwth-aachen.de/record/62364","https://publications.rwth-aachen.de/search?p=id:%22RWTH-CONV-123935%22"],"dc:language":["eng"],"dc:publisher":["Publikationsserver der RWTH Aachen University"],"dc:relation":["info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/urn/urn:nbn:de:hbz:82-opus-19641"],"dc:rights":["info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess"],"dc:source":["Aachen : Publikationsserver der RWTH Aachen University XVII, 170 S. : Ill., graph. Darst. (2007). = Aachen, Techn. Hochsch., Diss., 2007"],"dc:subject":["info:eu-repo/classification/ddc/150","g-Faktor <Psychologie>","Verhaltensanpassung","Veränderungsmessung","Arbeitspsychologie","Organisationspsychologie","Intelligenz","Transfer","Psychologie","Adaptionsfähigkeit","generelle mentale Fähigkeit","unvorhergesehene Veränderungen","diskontinuierliche Mischeffektmodelle","adaptability","general mental ability","intelligence","unforeseen change","discontinuous mixed-effect models"],"dc:title":["General mental ability and two types of adaptation to unforeseen change"],"dc:type":["info:eu-repo/semantics/doctoralThesis","info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-30T19:43:28Z"}