I have some time at work to kill, so I thought I'd make a post
regarding Psychometric Neuroticism and our impressions involving Field
Dependence.

The actual research into Field Dependence tends to return results out
of alignment with what Field Dependence is "supposed to be." For
example, women don't test much more FD than men, and even though
obsessive-compulsives are clearly personality disordered, they score
as Field Independent. Additionally, the results from the GEFT
correlate positively with Extroversion, (probably because the test is
timed, and timed tests favor extroverts) and load at almost 50% on g.
Meanwhile, the RFT seems to be loaded on Openness (and is also
positively loaded on the Intuition subscale of the MBTI, which
correlates with Openness at around 50%), yet high-O thinkers are
described as better with "seeing the big picture" than with detail.

In other words, Field Dependence isn't really "Field Dependence."

But looking through the research, Neuroticism seems to fit quite well
with subjective impressions of what a Field Dependent individual
should look like. Look at what psychometric N is predictive of:

1. Sex, with females scoring consistently higher

2. Drug use, and with those who try to quit and fail scoring higher;
immoderation (addictiveness) is a subscale of Neuroticism

3. Anger/Frustration is also a subscale in N

4. Self consciousness (worrying obsessively about what others think of
you) is also a subscale of N

5. Superstition

6. Uncertainty Avoidance in a culture; high Uncertainty Avoiding
cultures being described as Xenophobic, emotionally expressive, and
highly regulated, with feelings of stress and confusion in ambiguous
situations. Uncertainty Avoidance also correlates strongly with the
percentage of its citizenry which is Catholic; Protestants are less
Uncertainty Avoiding.

7. Success in "people oriented professions" like flight attendant.

8. Divorce

9. Generalized Dysfunctionality (Personality Disorder)

10. Immaturity—N decreases throughout the lifespan


--Mark