Need for cognitive closure
The desire for a firm answer and aversion to ambiguity. People high in it seize on early information to reach a conclusion and then freeze it against revision.
What drives it
Ends the discomfort of not knowing. It rises with time pressure, fatigue, noise and threat, so anyone becomes more closed-minded under stress.
How it shows
Work
'Just tell me: is she good or not?' Fast decisions that are then defended. Strong preference for clear hierarchies, rules and decisive leaders. Under pressure, teams back the confident early answer and push out dissent, which feeds groupthink. More reliance on stereotypes, because categories close the question.
Relationships
Needs to know where things stand, now; finds 'let's see' intolerable. Labels people quickly and keeps the labels. Arguments are ended rather than resolved.
Self
The urge to settle what someone is like, relief once you have decided, and irritation when new information reopens the question.
What tells it apart
Confirmation bias: Confirmation bias can act on any belief; need for closure is the motivation to reach a belief early, visible in the speed of judgement and the dislike of open questions.
Obsessive-compulsive personality (OCPD): OCPD is pervasive perfectionism and control in which closure is often delayed by the search for the right answer; high need for closure wants any answer fast, even an imperfect one.
Authoritarian personality: Authoritarianism involves submission to authority and hostility to out-groups; need for closure is a cognitive preference that can exist without either, though the two correlate.
A test
Give the person mixed information about someone and see whether they hold off or settle quickly and then resist revision, and whether this sharpens under time pressure.
Questions to carry
- With mixed information about someone, how quickly was a conclusion reached, and what happened when new details came in?
- Under pressure or tired, which open question about someone do I settle too soon, and what was the not knowing like?
How strong the research is
moderate. Well supported as a measurable trait and situational state with consistent effects on judgement, though the structure of the scale has been debated.
Where it comes from
Arie Kruglanski, 1989; Donna Webster and Arie Kruglanski, 1994; Arie Kruglanski and Donna Webster, 1996