Chess and Individual Differences

312 Pages·2020·4.496 MB·English

by  Angel Blanch

CHESS AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES
Researchfromtheneurosciencesandbehaviouralscienceshighlightsthe
importance of individual differences in explaining human behaviour.
Individual differences in core psychological constructs, such as intelli-
genceorpersonality,accountformeaningfulvariationsinavastrangeof
responsesandbehaviours.Aspectsofchesshavebeenincreasinglyusedin
thepasttoevaluateamyriadofpsychologicaltheories,andseveralofthese
studies consider individual differences to be key constructs in their
respective fields. This book summarizes the research surrounding the
psychology of chess from an individual- differences perspective. The
findings accumulated from nearly forty years’ worth of research about
chess and individual differences are brought together to show what is
known – and still unknown – about the psychology of chess, with an
emphasisonhowpeopledifferfromoneanother.
AngelBlanchworksintheDepartmentofPsychologyattheUniversityof
Lleida,Catalonia,Spain.Hisresearchfocusesonindividualdifferences,
intellectualperformanceanddataanalysesinbehaviouralscience.Angel
alsoservesasanassociateeditoratPersonalityandIndividualDifferences,
aswellasadvisingontheeditorialboardforPsychologicalAssessmentand
StressandHealth.

CHESS AND INDIVIDUAL
DIFFERENCES
ANGEL BLANCH
UniversitatdeLleida
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www.cambridge.org
Informationonthistitle:www.cambridge.org/9781108476041
DOI:10.1017/9781108567732
©AngelBlanch2021
Thispublicationisincopyright.Subjecttostatutoryexception
andtotheprovisionsofrelevantcollectivelicensingagreements,
noreproductionofanypartmaytakeplacewithoutthewritten
permissionofCambridgeUniversityPress.
Firstpublished2021
AcataloguerecordforthispublicationisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary.
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Names:Blanch,Angel,1967–author.
Title:Chessandindividualdifferences/AngelBlanch,UniversitatdeLleida.
Description:NewYork,NY:CambridgeUniversityPress,2021.|Includesbibliographical
referencesandindex.
Identifiers:LCCN2020031750|ISBN9781108476041(hardback)|ISBN9781108567732(ebook)
Subjects:LCSH:Chess–Psychologicalaspects.|Chess–Socialaspects.|
Patternperception.|Individualdifferences.
Classification:LCCGV1448.B532021|DDC794.1–dc23
LCrecordavailableathttps://lccn.loc.gov/2020031750
ISBN978-1-108-47604-1Hardback
CambridgeUniversityPresshasnoresponsibilityforthepersistenceoraccuracyof
URLsforexternalorthird-partyinternetwebsitesreferredtointhispublication
anddoesnotguaranteethatanycontentonsuchwebsitesis,orwillremain,
accurateorappropriate.
CONTENTS
ListofFigures pagevii
ListofTables x
Preface xii
Acknowledgements xiii
1 Introduction 1
1.1 AVeryBriefOpeningtotheGameofChess 1
1.2 OverviewofThisBook 4
2 QuantifyingChessSkill 9
2.1 EloRatingLists 10
2.2 UpdatingMechanismandBasicStatisticsoftheEloRating 11
2.3 AlternativestotheEloRatingofChessPlayers 15
2.4 OverviewofStudiesUsingtheEloRating 17
3 Cognition 19
3.1 Perception 20
3.2 Memory 25
3.3 Thinking 30
4 IndividualDifferences 38
4.1 CharacterizationandAppraisalofIndividualDifferences 39
4.2 IndividualDifferencesinChess 45
4.3 HeredityversusEnvironment 51
5 PsychophysiologyandBrainFunctioning 57
5.1 PsychophysiologyandChess 58
5.2 BrainBasics 60
5.3 Electroencephalography(EEG) 62
5.4 OverviewofBrain-ImagingStudies 65
5.5 CerebralCortexAreas 81
5.6 HemisphericSpecialization 83
5.7 OtherBrainAreasandAnatomicalChanges 85
5.8 SummarizingFindingsaboutBrainFunctioningandChess 87
v
vi contents
6 Intelligence 89
6.1 ApproachestotheStudyofIntelligence 93
6.2 IndividualDifferencesinIntelligenceandChess 97
6.3 IntelligenceandChessinChildren 102
6.4 IntelligenceandChessinAdults 107
6.5 SummarizingFindingsaboutIntelligenceinChess 110
6.6 ChessSkillversusChessMotivationinPredictingChess
Performance 112
7 Personality 118
7.1 ApproachestotheStudyofPersonality 120
7.2 PersonalityandChess-PlayingStyle 124
7.3 PersonalityFactorsStudiedwithChessPlayers 126
7.4 Personality,Motivation,EmotionalRegulation,andChess
Knowledge 130
8 Expertise 135
8.1 TheRoleofPractice 138
8.2 TalentversusPractice 146
8.3 CognitiveDeclineinChess 151
9 SexDifferences 157
9.1 SexDifferencesinIntelligenceandPersonality 159
9.2 SexDifferencesinScience,Technology,Engineering,
andMathematics(STEM) 162
9.3 SexDifferencesinParticipationRatesinChess 164
9.4 SexDifferencesinChessPlaying 169
9.5 SexDifferencesinChessPerformanceatDifferentLevelsof
Practice 171
10 Applications 181
10.1 Business 181
10.2 Health 184
10.3 EducationandSchool 187
10.4 Transfer 194
10.5 StatisticalPower 196
11 ConcludingRemarks 201
Appendices 207
Glossary 249
References 254
Index 291
FIGURES
1.1 Achessgamewithallinterveningpiecesinaction
(leftdiagram);achessproblemwithwhitetoplayandwin
(rightdiagram;takenfromagamebetweenVelmirovic
andCsominAmsterdam,1974) page2
2.1 EloratinglistsoftheWorld(a),Spanish(b),andCatalanChess
Federations(c),andEloratinglistoftoptwenty-eightcomputer
chessenginesoutofalistof353engines(d) 11
2.2 DensityplotoftheEloratingwithnormal(continuousline)
andlogistic(dottedline)distributions 14
2.3 DensityplotsforthedistributionoftheEloratings
intheageofparticipants(a),numberofgames(b),tournament
outcome(c),andElorating(d)offourchesstournaments 15
3.1 Therepresentationofachesstreewith86nodesbegins
intheblackcentralnode,whichsplitsintothreemain
variants(dottedlines);eachsuccessivenodesplitsinto
threelower-levelnodes,representingthealternativechoices
arisingateachmainvariant 20
4.1 Astructureofpersonalityimpressionsfromamultidimensional
scalingapproach(Rosenberg,Nelson,&Vivekananthan,1968) 42
4.2 Asimpleclassificationofpsychologicaltraitsintotwobroad
dimensions:intelligenceandpersonality 42
4.3 Therearedifferentlevelsofanalysisandmeasurementindifferential
psychology;thelevelsofanalyses(traits,processes,andbiological)
canbecombinedtoanalysethevariabilityinagiventargetbehaviour 43
4.4 Cross-sectional,longitudinal,andsequentialresearchdesigns
toevaluateinter-individualvariability 44
4.5 ThePPIKtheoryappliedtothechessdomain(intelligence
asprocess,personality,interests,intelligenceasknowledge:
Ackerman,1996);Gf=fluidintelligence;Gc=crystallized
intelligence;TIE=typicalintellectualengagement 47
vii
viii list of figures
4.6 SampleitemsfromtheAmsterdamChessTestinthe
choose-a-move,predict-a-move,andrecallsubtasks(vanderMaas
&Wagenmakers,2005) 49
5.1 Diagram(a):thefourmainlobesofthehumancerebralcortex:frontal,
parietal,temporal,andoccipital.Themainfunctionsofthecerebralcortex
are(frontallobes):motorskills,voluntarymovement,speech,problem
solvingandjudgement;(parietallobes):sensoryawareness,symbolic
communication,andabstractreasoning;(occipitallobes):visualprocessing;
(temporallobes):visualmemory,recognitionofobjectsandfaces,and
verbalmemoryfortheuseoflanguage(reproducedwithpermissionfrom
theAmericanPsychologicalAssociation).Diagram(b):the10–20system
fortherecordingofelectroencephalograms(EEGs)inhumans,showing
thereferenceelectrodesnasion(NZ)andinion(IZ),andelectrodes
correspondingtothecerebralcortexlobes,frontal(F),temporal(T),
parietal(P),andoccipital(O);theamountofelectrodescanvary
dependingontheresearchaimsandkindofequipment 61
6.1 ThenormaldistributionwithIQscorescomparedwiththeapproximate
percentageofcasesunderthecurve,andotherscoringsystems 93
6.2 Hierarchical(Carroll’smodel)andnon-hierarchical(Thurstone’smodel)
psychometricmodelsofhumanintelligence;thesquaresinbothmodels
representthespecifictestsusedtomeasureeachbroadfactor 96
6.3 Structuralequationmodelevaluatingtheimpactofchessskill(Elorating)
andmotivation,ontactical(T),positional(P),andendgame(E)chess
performance;observedvariablesarerepresentedwithsquares,latent
(unobserved)variablesarerepresentedwithellipses;one-headedarrows
representcausallinks,thetwo-headedarrowacorrelation;therewere
twelvedegreesoffreedomforModel1,andfifteendegreesoffreedomfor
Models2and3(CFI=comparativefitindex;TLI=Tucker–Lewisindex;
RMSEA=rootmeansquarederrorofapproximation;AIC=Akaike
informationcriterion) 115
7.1 Eysenck’sPEN(psychoticism–extraversion–neuroticism)andGray’sRST
(reinforcementsensitivitytheoryofpersonality)modelsofpersonality 122
7.2 StructuralequationmodelwithobservedvariablestopredicttheElo
rating,fromage,verbalchessknowledge(openings,positional,endgame,
visualization),personalityfactors(extraversion,neuroticism,psychoticism),
chessmotivation,andemotionalregulation(cognitivereappraisal,
expressivesuppression);allcorrelationcoefficients(double-headedarrows)
weresignificantatthep<0.05level.Theexogenousvariablee represents
1
anerrorterm 133
8.1 Thepowerlawinactioninsixinformation-processingtasks:mirror
tracing,readinginvertedtext,scanningvisualtargets,sentencerecognition,
anonlineeditingroutine,andgeometryproofjustification.TheYaxis
showsthetime(seconds)investedincompletingthetask,theXaxis