Dual-Process Developmental Trajectories in Higher Education: Comparative Neurocognitive Profiles of Rational and Experiential Processing

Abstract

Grounded in dual-process theory (Evans & Stanovich, 2013; Kahneman, 2011) and cognitive-ecological perspectives (Biglan, 1973), this study investigated how academic discipline, gender, birth order, and family system interact to influence rational (Type 2) and experiential (Type 1) processing, their balance, and neurocognitive profiles. Participants were 127 undergraduates (92 males, 35 females) from Computer Science (CS) and non-CS disciplines. Main effects showed that CS students scored significantly higher on rational processing (M = 3.92 vs. 3.57), exhibited greater rational–experiential discrepancy (M = 0.31 vs. –0.27), and outperformed non-CS students on executive control tasks, ps < .01. Non-CS students demonstrated stronger experiential processing (M = 3.88 vs. 3.61) and higher divergent-thinking and associative-fluency scores (Runco & Acar, 2012), ps < .05. Gender moderated several outcomes: female CS students displayed the largest rational advantage (d > 1.20) over female non-CS peers and retained greater flexibility than males, while the experiential gap between CS and non-CS was narrower for women. Birth order patterns indicated that firstborn CS students possessed the highest rational and executive control scores (Sulloway, 1996), whereas lastborn non-CS students excelled in flexibility and ideational fluency. Family system effects revealed that nuclear-family CS students had the strongest rational dominance and largest executive control gap, while joint-family non-CS students recorded the highest experiential orientation and flexibility (Kağıtçıbaşı, 2007; Georgas et al., 2006). Collectively, the findings support a discipline–context fit model, where cognitive specialisation emerges from the interplay of disciplinary demands and socio-familial socialisation. This multidimensional framework has implications for curriculum design, interdisciplinary collaboration, and targeted cognitive-skill development to prepare graduates for analytically demanding and ambiguity-rich problem spaces.