The Study of Modern Buddhists’ Cognitive Openness
In the (present) article we describe the empirical study results of modern Russian Buddhists’ cognitive openness. Cognitive closure is considered as a mental process which allows making a clear choice, cutting off unnecessary, contradicting and distracting information. Cognitive closure has its opposition – cognitive openness. It is an ability to accept new various information that can be also contradictory; to integrate opposing points of view and to find compromises. We have used The Need for Closure Scale, a method elaborated by A. W. Kruglanski for measuring the cognitive openness. Moreover, we have used the author’s questionnaire and J. D. Kass’ survey Inspirit to discover the level of spiritual involvement into Buddhists practices. We conducted a comparative study collating the results of two groups: modern Russian Buddhists (70 examinees), atheists and people who do not follow spiritual teachings (70 examinees). The outcome results were compared by Student’s t-distribution for samples with unequal variances. The findings have allowed us to conclude that the Buddhists have higher cognitive openness in comparison with the control group. Especially significant differences have been discovered in spontaneity and readiness to face unexpected events and people’s actions.
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