Construction is operating.
A direction of cognition shapes what is noticed and how it is interpreted.
IAD Knowledge · CDT Framework
Cognitive Intentions
CIs · Directions of cognition.
How attention, meaning and response are constructed—and how awareness can make another direction available.
Construction and awareness
Notice the direction beneath the content.
A person may be attending to possible problems, seeking external confirmation, generating options or organising a procedure. CIs offer a vocabulary for examining these directions and what each makes visible or leaves out.
A cognitive direction can be useful in one context and constraining in another. The developmental concern is awareness of its use and access to a relevant alternative, rather than the elimination of a tendency.
Intention is broader than a conscious goal.
The term does not imply that every movement of cognition is chosen deliberately. A direction may operate outside awareness, shaping what seems obvious, necessary or credible before a goal is articulated.
A stated intention such as “make a good decision” can be constructed through different combinations of attention, evidence, perspective and motivation.
Its use becomes apparent.
The person notices something of how they are constructing the situation.
Another direction can be considered.
An alternative must become usable, not merely nameable.
A response can be constructed differently.
The person may retain, adapt or change the direction in light of the context.
Conceptual developmental relationship, not a validated sequence or a guarantee of change.
Selected directions
A vocabulary for inquiry, not labels for people.
The examples below introduce selected distinctions from the Vade Mecum. They are an overview, not the full CI catalogue, an assessment or a prescription to balance every pair equally. [1]
Internal / External reference
Consider where authority for a judgement is being located: in one’s own evaluation or in information, feedback and criteria outside oneself. Either direction may support sound judgement or narrow it when its use remains unquestioned.
Towards / Away From
Consider whether attention is organised around an outcome to approach or a problem to prevent. Both pursuing possibilities and noticing risks may be useful; what matters is their contextual use and what remains unavailable.
Options / Procedures
Consider whether cognition is opening alternatives or organising a sequence. Generating possibilities and following a workable procedure serve different functions; neither is inherently the more developed direction.
Global / Detail
Consider whether attention moves towards an overall pattern or specific components. The developmental question includes whether the person can notice the direction and access the other when the situation requires it.
Own / Partner / Observer perspective
Consider the perspective through which an encounter is being constructed: one’s own, another person’s, or an observing position. Naming another perspective does not establish that it is understood accurately.
Combinations across domains
CIs also concern time, relationship, evidence, information processing and motivation. A response can involve several directions at once. No single contrast exhausts how the situation is being constructed.
Thinking Styles and context
A pattern is more than a single direction.
Combinations shape construction.
Attention to potential problems may interact with detail, future orientation and external reference. The resulting construction depends on the situation and on awareness of how those directions are being used.
In CDT, a Thinking Style is a patterned combination of CIs used in a context. Habituation does not make it a fixed identity or establish the cause of a behaviour.
Behaviour does not uniquely identify a CI.
Requesting more evidence could reflect careful evaluation, uncertainty, a procedural requirement or concern about approval. A phrase or action gives grounds for inquiry, not a definitive reading of someone’s cognition.
Interpretations should be checked with the person and against the context. The observer’s own directions of attention and assumptions are part of the inquiry.
The developmental question
What does this direction make visible—and what does it make unavailable here?
Use contextual language: someone appears to be constructing through External reference in this encounter. Avoid turning that observation into a statement about who the person is.
Illustrative applications
The same direction can constrain or help.
These examples illustrate possible constructions. They are not case findings, diagnostic rules or validated behavioural predictions.
Seeking another person’s view.
Potential constraint: Approval becomes the only available basis for deciding, even when relevant evidence or one’s own judgement points elsewhere.
Potential resource: Feedback is used as information while the person retains responsibility for evaluating it.
Inquiry: What role is this feedback playing in my judgement, and what can I decide without it?
Noticing what could go wrong.
Potential constraint: Avoiding every possible problem narrows the available response to delay or withdrawal.
Potential resource: Risk awareness informs proportionate prevention while a useful objective remains available.
Inquiry: Which concern needs action, and what outcome am I trying to make possible?
Examining the particulars.
Potential constraint: Component-level attention obscures the purpose or wider pattern, making it difficult to know when enough has been examined.
Potential resource: Precision serves the wider task and can be adjusted when a broader view is needed.
Inquiry: What larger question do these details help me answer?
Moving from possibilities to a workable sequence.
Potential constraint: Generating alternatives repeatedly postpones commitment, or following a sequence continues after its assumptions have changed.
Potential resource: Alternatives are explored and a suitable procedure is enacted, with awareness of when revision is needed.
Inquiry: Does this moment call for another possibility, a next step or a revision of the frame?
Related CDT Knowledge
Directions, awareness and developmental conditions.
IACR →
CIs help describe construction between intention and response. IACR asks whether that construction becomes visible to awareness and opens genuinely usable choice.
Awareness Quotient →
AQ concerns contextual awareness and developmental availability. A CI preference is not an AQ level; sophisticated descriptions of a tendency do not establish awareness of its use in the moment.
Developmental Environment →
The environment can encourage certain directions and make alternatives more or less accessible. A habit should be examined alongside the conditions that sustain it.
More Complex Other →
A person, question, system or encounter may make an unexamined direction or alternative visible. Exposure to another way of thinking does not guarantee that it can be used.
Zone of Dynamic Development →
Work with the next usable distinction rather than an exhaustive explanation of someone’s cognition. The developmental distance, support and timing matter.
Thinking Quotient · TQ →
Current TQ concerns structural cognitive complexity. The earlier thesis used a profile-derived TQ construct with a different relationship to awareness; its findings should not be silently transferred to the current framework.
Practice implications
Listen, check and support choice.
Coaching, teaching and leadership
Use CI distinctions to explore how a problem is being constructed, what evidence counts and which alternatives can be used. Check interpretations with the person; avoid treating language as direct access to cognition.
The aim is more available choice, including deliberate continued use of a direction when appropriate. There is no requirement to maximise the opposite pole.
Keep the interpretation provisional.
CI combinations are not diagnoses, measures of worth or sufficient grounds for consequential judgements about a person. Work with consent and within professional scope.
In institutional settings, distinguish a direction someone can choose from one required by a role, procedure or material constraint. Include the practitioner’s own construction in the account.
Theory & evidence status
Original research and later development remain distinct.
Current theoretical account
CIs as constructional movements.
The Vade Mecum presents CIs as contextual directions of cognition, their combinations as Thinking Styles and development as increased awareness and available choice. This page explains that authorial account. [1]
The worked examples are illustrative hypotheses. They do not establish that a combination uniquely predicts a behaviour, that a phrase identifies a CI or that a CI intervention causes lasting change.
Original empirical foundation
Initial support with important limits.
The 2020 thesis examined profiles, CI combinations, earlier TQ and participants’ accounts of awareness. Exploratory and non-significant findings sit alongside stronger associations in a larger organisational dataset. [2]
CI-derived factors and TQ drew on the same broader profiling system. Those associations do not alone establish independent construct validity or causal effects. The present AQ/TQ distinction and later behavioural interpretations require separate validation.
Measurement and interpretation
Test whether observers can identify contextual CI use reliably, whether distinct interpretations can be discriminated and whether results hold against independent external criteria. Examine alternatives to the proposed explanation.
Prediction and development
Evaluate predictions prospectively rather than relying on retrospective fit. Test whether interventions change live awareness, usable alternatives and response over time, including transfer across contexts.
Provenance & citation
Referencing Cognitive Intentions.
- Stevens, D. (2026). Constructed Development Theory: A Vade Mecum — The Portable Field Guide to Awareness, Choice, and Deliberate Construction.
Authorial manuscript. Current account of Cognitive Intentions, constructional movements and the CI field guide.
- Stevens, D. (2020). Does Constructed Development Exist as a Conceptual Measure of Self-Awareness in the Moment?
PhD thesis, Coventry University. Academic and initial empirical foundation using the earlier construct system.