Directly and Indirectly Assessed Need for Cognition Differentially Predict Spontaneous and Reflective Information Processing Behavior

Abstract

Need for Cognition (NFC) refers to individual differences in intrinsic cognitive motivation and has been proven to be an important trait factor modulating the extent of information processing in social and nonsocial contexts. Given that indirect measures may provide an increment in personality assessment, the present research aimed to further examine the psychometric quality of a newly developed indirect measure of NFC, the NFC Implicit Association Test (NFC-IAT). A sample of 108 individuals conducted the NFC-IAT twice with a retest interval of 4–6 weeks. Additionally, the NFC self-report and three tasks providing indicators of spontaneous and reflective NFC-typical behavior were administered. The NFC-IAT showed high internal consistency as well as comparably good temporal stability. Moreover, it explained variance in NFC-typical behavior that was not captured by the NFC self-report demonstrating that assessing both direct and indirect measure allows predicting a much more comprehensive spectrum of NFC-related behavior.