Need for closure and compensatory rule‐based perception : the role of information consistency

When making comparisons, people tend to use routinized standards, rules, and knowledge structures. Compensatory rules (e.g., "if competent, then cold", "if incompetent, then warm") allow for the quick and easy evaluation of groups when they are compared. We claim that the application of these rules is especially attractive for people who are motivated to seek quick and firm answers (people high in the need for closure - NFC). However, we assume that when people are confronted with expectancy‐inconsistent information, higher levels of NFC lead to a lower reliance on these rules. This is because the inconsistency may serve as a signal that the rules no longer provide guidance on how to act. We demonstrated these effects in three studies set in different group contexts, where we manipulated expectancy‐consistent and expectancy‐inconsistent information. These findings allow for a more comprehensive view of the dynamic and diverse effects of NFC

Motherland under attack! : nationalism, terrorist threat, and support for the restriction of civil liberties

The paper addresses the role which national attitudes play in terrorist threat perception and in the choice of specific counterterrorism strategies. Study 1 shows that participants higher on nationalism tend to perceive the threat of terrorism as more serious than participants lower on nationalism. Moreover, we found that nationalism mediated the relationship between the perceived terrorist threat and the support for tough domestic policies, even at the expense of considerable limitation of civil liberties. Study 2 confirms the link between the perceived terrorism threat and the support for suspension of civil liberties. Nevertheless, when terrorism was seen in terms of crime rather than in terms of war, the mediating role of nationalism disappeared. The results contribute to a better understanding of the process whereby the perception of one’s own national group and the perception of one’s own nation-state translate into specific reactions triggered by external threats

Religious fundamentalism modulates neural responses to error-related words : the role of motivation toward closure

Examining the relationship between brain activity and religious fundamentalism, this study explores whether fundamentalist religious beliefs increase responses to error-related words among participants intolerant to uncertainty (i.e., high in the need for closure) in comparison to those who have a high degree of toleration for uncertainty (i.e., those who are low in the need for closure). We examine a negative-going event-related brain potentials occurring 400 ms after stimulus onset (the N400) due to its well-understood association with the reactions to emotional conflict. Religious fundamentalism and tolerance of uncertainty were measured on self-report measures, and electroencephalographic neural reactivity was recorded as participants were performing an emotional Stroop task. In this task, participants read neutral words and words related to uncertainty, errors, and pondering, while being asked to name the color of the ink with which the word is written. The results confirm that among people who are intolerant of uncertainty (i.e., those high in the need for closure), religious fundamentalism is associated with an increased N400 on error-related words compared with people who tolerate uncertainty well (i.e., those low in the need for closure)

When need for closure leads to positive attitudes towards a negatively stereotyped outgroup

The study examined the relationship between epistemic motivation, which is the need for closure (NFC), and positive attitudes towards a negatively stereotyped outgroup (i.e., Gypsies). Although extensive research has revealed that NFC is related to derogatory behavioural tendencies and negative emotions towards stereotyped groups, it is proposed that NFC may also be linked to positive attitudes towards outgroups. It is predicted, however, that this would be true only when NFC is accompanied by a low ability to achieve closure (AAC). It is argued that low AAC impairs the construction of schema and their effective application. Therefore, NFC in individuals with low AAC may lead them to correct their initial tendency to use stereotypes and, as a consequence, to evaluate a negatively stereotyped outgroup in a positive way. In this research, low AAC was assessed by a scale (Study 1) and experimentally induced (Study 2). In both studies, we measured positive attitudes towards Gypsies. The results of the studies supported our prediction that NFC is positively related to positive attitudes towards Gypsies when AAC is low

The impact of incidental fear and anger on in- and outgroup attitudes

The aim of this research was to examine the impact of two specific negative emotions of anger and fear on intergroup attitudes. In Study 1 we measured emotions of anger and fear and in Study 2 we evoked these emotions incidentally, that is independently of any intergroup context. In both studies we measured attitudes towards the ingroup (Polish) and the outgroup (Gypsies).We expected that fear would lead to more positive ingroup attitudes and anger to more negative outgroup attitudes. The results of the correlational study (Study 1) confirmed the predictions regarding anger and decreased outgroup evaluations, and the experimental study (Study 2) revealed that fear enhanced positivity towards the ingroup, but anger increased negativity towards the outgroup. The impact of fear and anger on social attitudes in the specific context of a negatively self-stereotyped ingroup is discussed

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

Search for expectancy-inconsistent information reduces uncertainty better : the role of cognitive capacity

Motivation and cognitive capacity are key factors in people’s everyday struggle withuncertainty. However, the exact nature of their interplay in various contexts still needsto be revealed. The presented paper reports on two experimental studies whichaimed to examine the joint consequences of motivational and cognitive factors forpreferences regarding incomplete information expansion. In Study 1 we demonstratethe interactional effect of motivation and cognitive capacity on information preference.High need for closure resulted in a stronger relative preference for expectancy-inconsistent information among non-depleted individuals, but the opposite amongcognitively depleted ones. This effect was explained by the different informative valueof questions in comparison to affirmative sentences and the potential possibility ofassimilation of new information if it contradicts prior knowledge. In Study 2 we furtherinvestigated the obtained effect, showing that not only questions but also other kindsof incomplete information are subject to the same dependency. Our results support theexpectation that, in face of incomplete information, motivation toward closure may befulfilled efficiently by focusing on expectancy-inconsistent pieces of data. We discussthe obtained effect in the context of previous assumptions that high need for closureresults in a simple processing style, advocating a more complex approach based on thecharacter of the provided information

When the need for closure promotes complex cognition

Lay epistemic theory is one of the most popular theoretical frameworks describing the knowledge formation process. According to it, the central variable determining the epistemic process is the need for cognitive closure. In most cases, high levels of this motivation are associated with simplified and accelerated processing of information. This can lead to an overly simplified understanding of this variable. In fact, there are reasons to believe that the typical relationship is reversed under certain circumstances. The paper is a review of the research supporting this prediction. Results were analyzed with particular emphasis on two postulates of the theory: the two phases of the epistemic process and the dual nature of the need for cognitive closure

Two routes to closure : time pressure and goal activation effects on executive control

In the present study the impact of need for cognitive closure (NFC) manipulations via time pressure and explicit closure goal activation on executive control was investigated. Although there is some evidence that NFC, measured as an individual variable, is related to better performing in attentional tasks involving executive control, these results have never been validated across different manipulations of NFC. Thus, in the present study we induced NFC via internal and external time pressure and tested the impact of these manipulations on the performance in tasks that measure executive control, i.e., the Stroop and switching tasks. The results revealed that induced high (vs. low) NFC, indeed boosted performance in executive control tasks. Moreover, there was no difference in the effect of both NFC manipulations on task performance. The implications regarding the role of executive control and specific NFC manipulations in social cognition are discussed

"When the going gets tough, the tough get going" : motivation towards closure and effort investment in the performance of cognitive tasks

Previous studies have demonstrated that the need for closure (NFC), which refers to an individual's aversion toward uncertainty and the desire to quickly reduce it, leads to reluctance to invest effort in judgments and decision making. However, we argue that NFC may lead to either an increase or a decrease in effort depending on the availability of easy vs. difficult means to achieve closure and perceived importance of the task goal. We found that when closure could be achieved via both less and more demanding means, NFC was associated with decreased effort unless the task was perceived as important (Study 1). However, when attaining closure was possible via demanding means only, NFC was associated with increased effort, regardless of the task importance (Study 2). Moreover, NFC was related to choosing a more instrumental strategy for the goal of closure, even if this strategy required effort (Study 3). The results are discussed in the light of cognitive energetics theory