Raw research dump on thinking styles. Everything found - academic papers, books, frameworks, popular media, key thinkers. Organized by source/framework. No editorial or competitive angle. Pure information.
Robert Sternberg — Theory of Mental Self-Government
Harrison & Bramson — The Art of Thinking / InQ
Edward de Bono — Lateral Thinking & Six Thinking Hats
Peter Senge — Systems Thinking & The Fifth Discipline
Shane Parrish & Farnam Street — Mental Models Framework
Jerome Bruner — Narrative Thinking & Two Modes of Cognition
Dedre Gentner — Analogical Reasoning
Academic History — Cognitive Style Research Overview
Everything below is extracted directly from the research above and filtered for relevance to three areas: algorithm design, question design, and broader product/positioning decisions. This is the applied layer of the research dump.
Source: Sternberg (1997), Zhang & Sternberg (2005)
The single most important theoretical insight from the entire research body: thinking styles are preferences in the use of abilities, not abilities themselves. A person can be highly intelligent and still underperform because their style conflicts with what their environment demands. Failure is often a mismatch, not a deficit.
Algorithm implication: Think[!] must be built to measure how someone prefers to approach problems, not how well they perform. Every question must present a choice between equally valid approaches, never between a correct and incorrect one. No answer in the bank should feel like a "smart" answer vs. a "dumb" answer. If a user can detect which answer scores higher, the question is broken.