Need for Closure and individual tendency for design fixation and functional fixedness

Abstract

Past work explored the use of Kruglanski’s Need for Closure scale to separately predict individual tendency for design fixation and functional fixedness. The Need for Closure scale is a social-psychological individual difference variable that has five subscales: (1) order, (2) predictability, (3) decisiveness, (4) ambiguity, and (5) closed-mindedness. In a past study on design fixation, participants were asked to develop concepts for which an example solution was provided, and correlations were found between participants’ score on the Need for Closure scale and the degree of fixation in their concepts. In a separate study on functional fixedness, participants were asked to identify alternative uses for everyday objects, and correlations were found between measures of functional fixedness and components of Need for Closure. The current work explored whether individual tendency for design fixation and functional fixedness could be related, combining similar methods used in past work. While no significant relationship was found between measures for design fixation and functional fixedness, significant results are related to, and further elucidate past work.