Understanding the relation between the need and ability to achieve closure: A single paper meta-analysis assessing subscale correlations

The need for closure and the ability to achieve closure are generally thought to be independent from one another. However, previous researchers have found inconsistent relations between these two variables, possibly due to measurement scale modifications that slightly shifted how the underlying constructs were assessed. The present research attempted to address some of these methodological issues with previous research by conducting a single-paper meta-analysis on the correlations between the ability to achieve closure scale and the full need for closure scale and each of its five subscales. Across six university student samples (N = 1983), the full need for closure scale and most of its subscales were significantly negatively correlated with the ability to achieve closure. This finding suggests that the ability to achieve closure affects the costs and benefits of closure and therefore, consistent with lay epistemic theory, the ability to achieve closure predicts individual differences in the need for closure.     

Fahrenheit 9‐11, Need for Closure and the Priming of Affective Ambivalence: An Assessment of Intra‐affective Structures by Party Identification

This study extends priming research in political communication by focusing on an alternative political information source (i.e., Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9‐11), affect rather than cognitions, and the existence of intra‐affective ambivalence. In addition, two moderator variables are analyzed: political party identification and need for closure. There is a statically significant three‐way interaction between the viewing of F 9‐11, political party identification, and need for closure relative to the dependent variable of affective ambivalence toward George W. Bush. High need for closure Republicans who viewed F 9‐11 exhibited pronounced levels of Bush‐affective ambivalence. In addition, high need for closure Independents who viewed F 9‐11 exhibited far lower ambivalence toward Bush relative to their control group peers. The findings are discussed relative to the roles performed by emerging alternative political media and the expansion of the theory of priming within the context of political communication.     

Perceived group variability and dispositional need for closure

Based on the closure motivation theory proposed by Kruglanski and Webster (1996), it was hypothesized that the extent of perceived variability of target group members would be related to dispositional need for closure. Israeli teachers (n = 160) judged their professors by means of two methods and answered the need for cognitive closure questionnaire (NFCS, Webster & Kruglanski, 1994). The findings show that need for closure is related to social judgment. The perception of participants high in need for closure was less differentiated and more extreme, in comparison to participants low in need for closure. Findings also yielded that measures of variability are method dependent.     

Perceived group variability and dispositional need for closure

Based on the closure motivation theory proposed by Kruglanski and Webster (1996), it was hypothesized that the extent of perceived variability of target group members would be related to dispositional need for closure. Israeli teachers (n = 160) judged their professors by means of two methods and answered the need for cognitive closure questionnaire (NFCS, Webster & Kruglanski, 1994). The findings show that need for closure is related to social judgment. The perception of participants high in need for closure was less differentiated and more extreme, in comparison to participants low in need for closure. Findings also yielded that measures of variability are method dependent.     

信息完整性与应聘者数量对不同认知闭合需要者招聘决策的影响

结合问卷和信息板技术,探讨了信息完整性和应聘者数量对不同认知闭合需要个体招聘决策过程发挥的潜在影响。结果显示：（1）高认知闭合需要招聘者平均决策时间更短,探索深度更浅,信息了解的更少;（2）信息完整条件下,招聘者平均决策时间更短,探索深度更浅;信息不完整条件下,低认知闭合需要招聘者的平均搜索时间增幅较大;（3）随着应聘者人数的增加,招聘者平均决策时间变长,低认知闭合需要招聘者平均搜索时间增幅较大,且两者探索模式都趋于属性加工。这意味着信息完整性与应聘者数量对不同认知闭合需要招聘者的决策影响不同,应注意培训招聘者的决策能力,提高员工招聘质量。     

认知闭合需要研究评述

认知闭合需要是个体稳定的认知特征,描述了个体在面对模糊情境时是否愿意系统处理信息的动机。已有研究表明,认知闭合需要对个体的信息处理过程和决策结果有显著的预测能力。总体上说,高认知闭合需要的个体更容易利用启发式进行思考,因此此类个体更容易受到过度归因、首因效应等的影响。虽然大多数的研究表明认知闭合需要是个体稳定的认知特质,但也有研究者发现环境因素如噪音等可以在一定程度上、在短时期内改变个体的认知闭合需要的水平。因此,在相关研究中,认知闭合需要既可以通过量表测量,也可以通过在实验中改变环境噪音和时间压力等方法来操纵。已有的关于认知闭合需要的研究也有不足之处。首先,如何引导高认知闭合者克服匆忙做出决策的动机并采用分析式的方式处理信息和进行决策,目前的相关研究还很少;其次,已有的关于认知闭合的研究大都为实验室研究,因此这些研究的外部效度较低;第三,认知闭合需要在冲突研究领域的应用被忽略了。未来有必要针对这些不足之处进行相应研究     

Epistemic Motivation and the Structure of Moral Intuition: Dispositional Need for Closure as a Predictor of Individualizing and Binding Morality

Moral foundations theory argues that morality encompasses both group‐preserving binding concerns about in‐group loyalty, authority and purity and individualizing concerns about harm avoidance and fairness. Although studies have examined the relationship between sociopolitical attitudes and the moral foundations, the relationship between individual differences in epistemic motivation—as indexed by need for cognitive closure—and moral intuition remains unexplored. Given the role of groups in providing epistemic security, we hypothesized that the need for closure would be most strongly related to support for the foundations most central to the regulation of group ties, that is, the binding foundations as opposed to the individualizing ones. Data from three samples provided evidence for this. Unpacking this pattern, we also found that those high in need for closure endorsed all foundations, whereas those low in need for closure emphasized only the individualizing ones. Finally, we found that the relationship between need for closure and the binding foundations was mediated by right‐wing authoritarianism, an orientation closely linked to a desire for the preservation of conventional in‐group morality. Copyright © 2016 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Need for Closure and the Social Response to Terrorism

It has been long contended that terrorism is a form of psychological warfare with the aim of advancing political objectives through the spreading of fear. The present set of five studies explored the relation between need for closure and the social response to terrorism. We found support for the notion that reminders of terrorist attacks elevate the need for closure and that the need for closure may enhance ingroup identification; interdependence with others; outgroup derogation; and support for tough and decisive counterterrorism policies and for leaders likely to carry out such policies. The implications of this research for the claims of terrorist ideologues regarding the efficacy of terrorism are discussed.     

Person–Job Fit and Work-Related Attitudes Among Chinese Employees: Need for Cognitive Closure as Moderator

The current research examined the moderating role of employees' need for cognitive closure in the relationship between their perceived person–job fit and their work-related attitudes. In Study 1, a survey was conducted among 176 Chinese employees from various organizations, and the results confirmed that both demand–ability fit and need–supply fit were positively related to employees' job satisfaction; moreover, these relations were stronger among people with higher need for closure than those scoring lower in need for closure. In Study 2, a survey was conducted among 242 employees from a Chinese city government, and the results replicated the findings of Study 1, but also found that need for closure moderated the relation between demand–ability fit and turnover intention. These results have important implications for research in organizational psychology and human resource management.     

The Role of Cognitive Style in the Link Between Genes and Political Ideology

There is growing interest in how genes affect political beliefs. To better understand the role of genes in politics, we examine the relationship between cognitive style (the need for cognition, the need for cognitive closure) and various measures of political attitudes (issue‐based ideology, identity‐based ideology, social ideology, economic ideology, authoritarianism, and egalitarianism). We show, for the first time, that the need for cognition and the need for cognitive closure are heritable and are linked to political ideology primarily, perhaps solely, because of shared genetic influences; these links are stronger for social than economic ideology. Although prior research demonstrated that Openness to Experience shares genetic variance with political ideology, we find that these measures of cognitive style account for distinct genetic variance in political ideology. Moreover, the genetic Openness‐ideology link is fully accounted for by the need for cognition. This combination of findings provides a clearer understanding of the role of genes in political beliefs and suggests new directions for research on Big Five personality traits and ideology.     

Need for cognitive closure and coping strategies

This study investigated the hypothesis that the process of coping may be motivated by an interaction of directional motivational factors represented by job satisfaction/dissatisfaction and by non‐directional or epistemological motivational factors represented by the level of Need for Cognitive Closure. Need for Cognitive Closure is based on two general tendencies: the urgency tendency (“to seize”) and the permanency tendency (“to freeze”). The urgency tendency reflects the desire to attain closure as quickly as possible (“to seize”) whereas the permanence tendency refers to the inclination to maintain closure for as long as possible along with a desire to preserve or “freeze on” past knowledge and to safeguard future knowledge. The urgency and permanence notions both rest on the assumption that people under a heightened need for closure experience its absence as aversive. In relation with this, we predicted that if job satisfaction is low, the increased need for closure is related to the choice of problem‐oriented coping strategies. Alternatively, we hypothesized that with high job satisfaction an increased need for closure is related to use of avoidance coping. Questionnaires pertaining to need for cognitive closure, to coping strategies and to a measure of job satisfaction were completed by a group of 146 Croatian immigrants living in Italy. Results of the analyses confirmed that when subjects were highly satisfied with their job, their primary concern was to preserve their position. So, here the high need for closure enhanced the tendency to freeze and induced the choice of avoidance coping strategies. On the other hand, our results confirmed that when persons are not satisfied with their job, high need for closure increases the desire for change and improvement. Immigrants increased the tendency to seize manifests itself in extensive and quickened information processing relative to the use of problem‐oriented coping strategies.     

Need for closure effect on collective action intentions and behavior toward immigrants in Italy: The mediation of binding foundations and political conservatism

Why are people (de)motivated to mobilize in favor of immigrants? Addressing this question, we investigated the role of individuals' epistemic motivation (i.e., need for closure) in influencing the process of becoming motivated to participate in collective action in favor of immigrants in Italy. Specifically, the mediational role of binding moral foundations and political conservatism in explaining the relationship between need for closure and collective action in favor of immigrants was examined in three studies. It was hypothesized that a heightened need for closure would be indirectly and negatively associated with collective action in favor of immigrants, sequentially mediated first through binding moral foundations and then political conservatism. We found support for this prediction when either dispositional measure (Study 1 and Study 2) or an experimental induction (Study 3) of need for closure were used, and when both collective action intentions (Study 1 and Study 3) and behavior (Study 2) were assessed. The results suggest that need for closure constitutes a powerful motivational force that leads individuals to engage in uncertainty‐reducing evaluations and actions. We discuss these results regarding how they are related with previous work and their implications for research and practice.     

Contextual Influences on Omission Neglect in the Fault Tree Paradigm

Fault trees are used to organize potential causes of a problem to facilitate better judgments about potential problem solutions. However, fault trees can lead to biased judgments because decision makers tend to overestimate the likelihood of problem causes that are explicitly mentioned in the fault tree and underestimate the likelihood of problem causes that are not. In this research, we examined the impact of context information and need for cognitive closure on these estimates. In 2 experiments, participants with a low need for cognitive closure used the informational content of experimenter provided and self‐generated context information as a basis for making likelihood estimates. In contrast, participants with a high need for closure did not use experimenter provided context information at all but used the ease of producing self‐generated context information (rather than informational content) as a basis for their likelihood estimates.     

Motivational underpinnings of social influence in work settings: Bases of social power and the need for cognitive closure

This research explored the notion that the use and efficacy of influence tactics launched from different social power bases depends on influence agents' and recipients' need for cognitive closure. In three separate studies conducted in diverse organizational contexts, it was found that, while overall participants exhibited a preference for soft over hard social influence tactics, this preference becomes less pronounced for supervisors high (versus low) on need for closure and becomes more pronounced for supervisors low on the need for closure. Overall, soft tactics were more beneficial for subordinates' performance than hard tactics; however, the benefits of soft tactics decreased as a function of subordinates' need for closure. Finally, organizational outcomes were improved when recipients who were high (versus low) on the need for closure were exposed to “hard” power tactics and those low (versus high) in the need for closure were exposed to “soft” tactics. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Understanding responses to political conflict: interactive effects of the need for closure and salient conflict schemas

Two studies examined the relationship between the need for cognitive closure and preferences for conflict-resolution strategies in 2 different samples of elite political actors. Although research has suggested that high need for closure should be associated with competitiveness, the authors argue that this relationship should be strongest among political actors with a hostile conflict schema, or representation of what a conflict is and how it should be dealt with. The authors provide evidence for this hypothesis using archival survey data on American foreign-policy officials' attitudes toward international conflict at the height of the Cold War (Study 1) and their own data on the relationship between the need for closure and conflict-strategy preferences among samples of activists from 2 political parties in Poland: a centrist party with a reputation for cooperativeness and an extremist party with a reputation for confrontation (Study 2). The broader implications of these findings are discussed.     

Autocracy bias in informal groups under need for closure

Two experiments investigated the tendency of groups with members under high (vs. low) need for cognitive closure to develop an autocratic leadership structure in which some members dominate the discussion, constitute the "hubs" of communication, and influence the group more than other members. The first experiment found that high (vs. low) need for closure groups, as assessed via dispositional measure of the need for closure, manifested greater asymmetry of conversational floor control, such that members with autocratic interactional style were more conversationally dominant and influential than less autocratic members. The second experiment manipulated the need for closure via time pressure and utilized a social network analysis. Consistent with expectation, groups under time pressure (vs. no pressure) showed a greater asymmetry of participation, of centrality, and of prestige among the group members, such that the more focal members were perceived to exert the greater influence over the groups' decisions.     

The social cognition of immigrants' acculturation: effects of the need for closure and the reference group at entry

Three studies found support for the notion that immigrants' acculturation to the host culture is interactively determined by their need for cognitive closure (A. W. Kruglanski & D. M. Webster, 1996) and the reference group they forge on their arrival. If such reference group is fashioned by close social relations with coethnics, the higher the immigrants' need for closure, the weaker their tendency to assimilate to the new culture and the stronger their tendency to adhere to the culture of origin. By contrast, if the reference entry group is fashioned by close relations with members of the host country, the higher their need for closure, the stronger their tendency to adapt to the new culture and the weaker their tendency to maintain the culture of origin. These findings obtained consistently across 3 immigrant samples in Italy, 1 Croatian and 2 Polish, and across multiple different measures of acculturation.     

概率大小、损益结果和认知闭合需要对模糊规避的影响

模糊规避是指在相同奖赏的情况下,决策者会力图规避从主观上判断具有模糊概率的事件而偏好具有相同精确概率的事件。本研究探讨了概率大小、损益结果和认知闭合需要对模糊规避的影响。研究发现,在小概率受益的情况下,个体倾向于模糊寻求;在中概率受益的情况下,个体倾向于模糊规避;在高概率受益的情况下,个体倾向于模糊规避;在小概率损失的情况下,个体倾向于模糊规避;在中概率损失的情况下,个体倾向于模糊规避;在高概率损失的情况下,个体倾向于模糊寻求。但是,研究并未发现认知闭合需要对模糊规避有预测作用。     

Power boosts reliance on preferred processing styles

A significant amount of research has proposed that power leads to heuristic and category based information processing, however, the evidence is often contradictory. We propose the novel idea that power magnifies chronically accessible information processing styles which can contribute to either systematic or heuristic processing. We examine heuristic (vs. systematic) processing in association with the need for closure. The results of three studies and a meta-analysis supported these claims. Power increased heuristic information processing, manifested in the recognition of schema consistent information, in the use of stereotypical information to form impressions and decreased the complexity of categorical representations, but only for those participants who, by default, processed information according to simplified heuristics, i.e., are high in need for closure. For those who prefer this processing style less, i.e., low in need for closure, power led to the opposite effects. These findings suggest that power licenses individuals to rely on their dominant information processing strategies, and that power increases interpersonal variability.