Differences In Need For Cognition Research Articles

CSR-company fit in the sin industry: addressing negative contributions, NFC, and perceived motives

ABSTRACT Guided by the persuasion knowledge model, this study investigated how the fit between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and a sin company that makes negative societal contributions influences consumers’ responses. Specifically, using a sample of 234 Koreans, it examined whether individual differences in need for cognition (NFC) moderate CSR-company fit and how such NFC-moderated fit affects consumers’ responses through two distinct perceived motives (i.e. public-serving motive, self-serving motive). The analysis showed that NFC moderated the fit’s influence on perceived public-serving motives, perceived self-serving motives, and attitudes toward CSR. It also indicated that the NFC-moderated fit indirectly impacted attitudes toward CSR and positive word-of-mouth intentions via perceived public-serving motives.

Taking the path of least resistance now, but not later: Pushing cognitive effort into the future reduces effort discounting

Effort discounting describes the devaluation of rewards that require effort to obtain. The present study investigated whether discounting of cognitive effort depends on how near the effort is in time. The present study also investigated whether effort discounting, and its modulation by temporal distance to the effort, might depend on need for cognition, a personality trait that describes how much one enjoys cognitively demanding tasks. Participants performed a validated effort discounting task that measured the extent to which they subjectively devalued a $20 reward when effort was required to receive it. Immediacy of the effort was manipulated by having participants imagine exerting varying levels of effort either immediately, in a day, or in a month. Results revealed linear increases in discounting of rewards as a function of both how much effort was involved and how imminent the effort was. The extent to which both these variables influenced discounting correlated with need for cognition. Individuals low in need for cognition exhibited more effort discounting overall and a linear increase in effort discounting as the effort grew imminent. Individuals high in need for cognition engaged in less effort discounting, which was not modulated by how imminent the effort was. These results indicate that people exhibit dynamic inconsistency in effort-related decisions, such that the degree to which they discount effort depends on how soon the effort is. Additionally, this tendency is linked with systematic individual differences in need for cognition. Lastly, this study demonstrates that these tendencies can be quantitatively operationalized.

Retrieval Practice Is Effective Regardless of Self-Reported Need for Cognition - Behavioral and Brain Imaging Evidence.

There is an emerging consensus that retrieval practice is a powerful way to enhance long-term retention and to reduce achievement gaps in school settings. Less is known whether retrieval practice benefits performance in individuals with low intrinsic motivation to spend time and effort on a given task, as measured by self-reported need for cognition (NFC). Here, we examined retrieval practice in relation to individual differences in NFC by combining behavioral and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data. Using a within-subject design, upper-secondary school students (N = 274) learned a language-based material (Swahili-Swedish word-pairs), with half of the items by means of retrieval practice with feedback and half by study only. One week later, the students were tested on the word-pairs either in the classroom (n = 204), or in a fMRI scanner (n = 70). In both settings, a retrieval practice effect was observed across different levels of NFC (high or low). Relatedly, comparable fMRI effects were seen in both NFC subgroups. Taken together, our findings provide behavioral and brain-imaging evidence that retrieval practice is effective also for individuals with lower levels of NFC, which is of direct relevance for educational practice.

A Concussion Education Programme for Motorsport Drivers: A Field-Based Exploratory Pilot Study

ABSTRACT Objective Concussion education strategies that improve knowledge and attitudes long term are needed. This exploratory study piloted an interactive concussion education program, adopting concepts from the learning sciences and attitude change literature, for the underserved and high-risk population of motorsports. Method Forty UK motorsport drivers (ages 16–20 years) participated. The workshop group received a two-phased workshop-based program. The comparison group received a concussion leaflet. Participants completed an adapted version of the Rosenbaum Concussion Knowledge and Attitudes Survey (RoCKAS-ST) at pre-, post- and 2-month follow-up. Within-group analysis for the workshop group explored the differential effect of the individual difference variable, Need for Cognition (NfC), and effectiveness was explored through post-workshop questionnaires and interviews. Results Unlike the comparison group, the workshop group showed a significant improvement in knowledge over time (F(2,58) = 45.49, p < .001, η2p = .61). Qualitative data indicated workshop-program participants developed safer attitudes toward concussion following programming. Preliminary evidence suggested individuals’ responses to concussion education aligned with differences in NfC. Conclusion This study piloted the first concussion education program for motorsport drivers and explored whether aligning educational provision with the NfC construct may help to improve program effectiveness. Findings are relevant to addressing the public health issue of concussion through educational approaches.

A diffusion model analysis of belief bias: Different cognitive mechanisms explain how cognitive abilities and thinking styles contribute to conflict resolution in reasoning

Recent results have challenged the widespread assumption of dual process models of belief bias that sound reasoning relies on slow, careful reflection, whereas biased reasoning is based on fast intuition. Instead, parallel process models of reasoning suggest that rule- and belief-based problem features are processed in parallel and that reasoning problems that elicit a conflict between rule- and belief-based problem features may also elicit more than one Type 1 response. This has important implications for individual-differences research on reasoning, because rule-based responses by certain individuals may reflect that these individuals were either more likely to give a rule-based default response or that they successfully inhibited and overrode a belief-based default response. In two studies, we used the diffusion model to describe decision making in a transitive reasoning task. In Study 1, 41 participants were asked to evaluate conclusions based on their validity. In Study 2, 133 participants evaluated conclusions based on their validity or believability. We tested which diffusion model parameters reflected conflict resolution and related those model parameters to individual differences in cognitive abilities and thinking styles. Individual differences in need for cognition predicted successful conflict resolution under logic instruction, which suggests that a disposition to engage in reflective thinking facilitates the inhibition and override of Type 1 responses. Intelligence, however, was negatively related to successful conflict resolution under belief instruction, which suggests that individuals with high cognitive abilities quickly generated a higher-level logical response that interfered with their ability to evaluate lower-level intrinsic problem features. Taken together, this double dissociation indicates that cognitive abilities and thinking styles affect the processing of conflict information through different mechanisms and at different stages: Greater cognitive abilities facilitate the efficient creation of decoupled problem representations, whereas a greater disposition to engage in critical thinking facilitates the detection and override of Type 1 responses.

Individual differences in adolescents’ willingness to invest cognitive effort: Relation to need for cognition, motivation and cognitive capacity

There exist large individual differences in students’ willingness to invest cognitive effort within the academic domain. In a preregistered study, we investigated whether individual differences in adolescents’ willingness to invest cognitive effort, as assessed by an experimental effort discounting task, were related to need for cognition, academic motivation and cognitive capacity. We found that adolescents’ willingness to invest cognitive effort was related to need for cognition and cognitive capacity as indexed by task-performance. Our results demonstrate that individual differences in need for cognition and cognitive capacity contribute to differences in adolescents’ cognitive effort-investment, but academic motivation does not.

Cognitive effort investment and opportunity costs in strategic decision-making: An individual differences examination

People are often more likely to persist with a strategy when more resources have been invested in this course of action, a phenomenon known as the ‘sunk cost’ effect. This effect has been difficult to demonstrate in the domain of real (non-hypothetical) effort investment, and this may be due in part to individual differences in the decision processes. We designed a decision-making task, where a cognitive effort investment is required to enact a strategy, to examine the extent to which individual differences in Need for Cognition (NFC), Lack of Premeditation, and subjective effort perception bear upon decisions to persist with a suboptimal strategy under varying levels of effort investment and opportunity cost—i.e. the difference in utility between persisting with versus switching strategies. We found that NFC and (Lack of) Premeditation predicted the extent to which strategy switch decisions were driven by opportunity costs. While we did not find an overall effect of past behavioral investment effect, self-reported effort (Temporal Demand) appeared to predict susceptibility to sunk cost. We also found a decrease in decision times with increasing sunk costs, but this effect did not appear to differ as a function of the individual differences examined.

Changing attitudes and intentions related to doping: An analysis of individual differences in need for cognition

ABSTRACTResearch has shown that athletes’ attitudes towards the use of banned performance-enhancing substances are reliable predictors of their intentions to use these substances, which in turn can be relevant predictors of their actual doping behaviours. Despite the important role played by attitudes and intentions in doping, research analysing how to change those attitudes and intentions is relatively scarce. The present study examined how individual differences in Need for Cognition (NC, Cacioppo & Petty, 1982) influenced doping-related attitude change and subsequent behavioural intentions. Participants were randomly assigned to read a persuasive message either against or in favour of legalising the use of several banned substances, including anabolic androgenic steroids (AAS) and Erythropoietin (EPO). In addition, participants completed the NC scale, and finally reported their attitudes and behavioural intentions regarding the legalisation proposal. As hypothesised, results showed that participants who received an anti-legalisation message had significantly more unfavourable attitudes towards the proposal than participants who received a pro-legalisation message, regardless of NC. However, as predicted, NC moderated the relationship between individuals’ attitudes and their intentions. That is, high-NC participants showed greater attitude-intention correspondence than low-NC participants.

The reciprocal impact of both visual and verbal metaphors in advertisements: the moderating role of need for cognition

Metaphors, one of the attractive strategies in communication, can have a significant impact visually and verbally on the persuasion of targeted consumers. The current study investigates the interaction effects when using pictorial and verbal metaphors in ads on consumers’ attitude toward the ad, the brand, and purchase intention while considering the moderating effect of individuals’ differences in need for cognition (NFC). Experimental results indicate the reciprocal impact of metaphor in both image and copy in ads under different combination-conditions considering the individual differences in information processing (i.e. NFC) with low-involvement products. Furthermore, the results highlight a significant three-way interaction effect on the consumers’ attitudes toward the ad and the brand with the individuals’ differences in the NFC. The findings illustrate the effective combination and the optimisation of visual and verbal metaphors in order to enhance the ad effects with metaphors. The implications and limitations are discussed.

Effectiveness of Self-Generation During Learning is Dependent on Individual Differences in Need for Cognition.

Self-generated information is better recognized and recalled than read information. This so-called generation effecthas been replicated several times for different types of stimulus material, different generation tasks, and retention intervals. The present study investigated the impact of individual differences in learners’ disposition to engage in effortful cognitive activities (need for cognition, NFC) on the effectiveness of self-generation during learning. Learners low in NFC usually avoid getting engaged in cognitively demanding activities. However, if these learners are explicitly instructed to use elaborate learning strategies such as self-generation, they should benefit more from such strategies than learners high in NFC, because self-generation stimulates cognitive processes that learners low in NFC usually tend not to engage in spontaneously. Using a classical word-generation paradigm, we not only replicated the generation effect in free and cued recall but showed that the magnitude of the generation effect increased with decreasing NFC in cued recall. Results are consistent with our assumption that learners higher in NFC engage in elaborate processing even without explicit instruction, whereas learners lower in NFC usually avoid cognitively demanding activities. These learners need cognitively demanding tasks that require them to switch from shallow to elaborate processing to improve learning. We conclude that self-generation is beneficial regardless of the NFC level, but our study extends the existing literature on the generation effect and on NFC by showing that self-generation can be particularly useful for balancing the learning disadvantage of students lower in NFC.

Conceptual change with refutational maps

ABSTRACTThis study investigated how studying a refutational map, a type of argument map, affected conceptual change. Refutational maps visually display both correct and alternative conceptions. Participants (N = 120) were randomly assigned to (1) a refutational map condition, (2) a refutational text condition, and (3) a non-refutational text condition. The post-test results showed that studying the refutational map led to better performance on free recall and learning transfer measures. Specifically, participants who studied the refutational map performed significantly better than others on a free recall test, and they significantly outperformed the non-refutational text group on a short-answer transfer test. The multiple-choice test, another transfer measure, failed to detect any differences among the three groups. The research also found that individual differences in need for cognition and logical thinking ability interacted with the type of study materials. Participants scoring lower on logical thinking ability gained more from studying the refutational map.

Prompting Deliberation about Nanotechnology: Information, Instruction, and Discussion Effects on Individual Engagement and Knowledge

Deliberative (and educational) theories typically predict knowledge gains will be enhanced by information structure and discussion. In two studies, we experimentally manipulated key features of deliberative public engagement (information, instructions, and discussion) and measured impacts on cognitive-affective engagement and knowledge about nanotechnology. We also examined the direct and moderating impacts of individual differences in need for cognition and gender. Findings indicated little impact of information (organized by topic or by pro-con relevance). Instructions (prompts to think critically) decreased engagement in Study 1, and increased it in Study 2, but did not impact post-knowledge. Group discussion had strong positive benefits for self-reported cognitive-affective engagement across studies. Also, for some types of engagement, effects were more positive for women than men. When predicting knowledge, there also was some evidence that discussion was more positive for women than men. Finally, need for cognition positively predicted engagement and knowledge gains, but rarely moderated the experimental effects. Given these mixed results, future research should continue to test theoretical assumptions about the effects of specific deliberative design features.

Verbal Ability, Argument Order, and Attitude Formation.

The current study explored the interaction of verbal ability and presentation order on readers’ attitude formation when presented with two-sided arguments. Participants read arguments for and against compulsory voting and genetic engineering, and attitudes were assessed before and after reading the passages. Participants’ verbal ability was measured, combining vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension skill. Results suggested that low verbal-ability participants were more persuaded by the most recent set of arguments whereas high verbal-ability participants formed attitudes independent of presentation order. Contrary to previous literature, individual differences in the personality trait need for cognition did not interact with presentation order. The results suggest that verbal ability is an important moderator of the effect of presentation order when formulating opinions from complex prose.

Brand placement repetition in a fictional text

This paper investigates the effect of brand name repetition on brand attitude in the context of a fictional text. Furthermore, it tests the moderating impact of brand familiarity, narrative transportation, and individual differences in need for cognition (NFC). Participants in an experiment read the full text of a real short-story, which featured the target brand. Brand name repetition and brand familiarity were systematically manipulated. The results show that brand name repetition affects attitude towards an unfamiliar brand and readers’ narrative transportation and NFC moderate this effect: Attitude towards the brand improves with repetition only when both transportation and NFC are relatively high. No effects were found for the familiar brand.

Individual differences in Need for Cognition influence the evaluation of circular scientific explanations

Recent advances in neuroscience research have led to increased interest in psychological findings that offer neural or neuropsychological explanations for human behavior. Researchers have found that individuals rate scientific explanations that contain neuroscience information as more satisfying, even when the neuroscience information is irrelevant. Individual differences, such as level of expertise, have been shown to affect an individual's evaluation of an explanation. The current study examined whether the individual differences characteristic Need for Cognition (NFC) had an effect on an individual's ability to adequately evaluate a circular explanation with and without irrelevant neuroscience information with an expectation that NFC would have a moderating influence on the relationship between presence of neuroscience information in circular explanations and satisfaction with these explanations. Results indicated that the presence of neuroscience information influenced evaluations of circular explanations such that the explanations with neuroscience information tended to be rated more favorably. Results also indicated that NFC was negatively correlated with satisfaction ratings; however, no interaction effect between NFC and presence of neuroscience information was observed. These results may have important implications for the way in which researchers convey and disseminate their findings to the general public.

The Role of Affective and Cognitive Individual Differences in Social Perception.

Three studies explored the connection between social perception processes and individual differences in the use of affective and cognitive information in relation to attitudes. Study 1 revealed that individuals high in need for affect (NFA) accentuated differences in evaluations of warm and cold traits, whereas individuals high in need for cognition (NFC) accentuated differences in evaluations of competent and incompetent traits. Study 2 revealed that individual differences in NFA predicted liking of warm or cold targets, whereas individual differences in NFC predicted perceptions of competent or incompetent targets. Furthermore, the effects of NFA and NFC were independent of structural bases and meta-bases of attitudes. Study 3 revealed that differences in the evaluation of warm and cold traits mediated the effects of NFA and NFC on liking of targets. The implications for social perception processes and for individual differences in affect-cognition are discussed.

The Influence of Fiction Versus Nonfiction on Political Attitudes

An experiment was conducted to test the influence of fictional versus real events portrayed in videos (defined by the fiction versus nonfiction labels of the videos) on political attitudes. It found that the labels interacted with individual differences in need for cognition (NC) to influence participants' support for social welfare programs such that introducing the videos as fictional films versus documentaries produced more support among low-NC participants but had little impact among high-NC participants. The interaction effect was explained by the extent to which participants argued against the videos. The findings not only shed light on the relative persuasiveness of fictional and nonfictional media messages but also suggest how people may process these messages.

Effectiveness of Question Trails as Jury Decision Aids: the Jury's Still Out

Despite its importance, research has revealed limitations in jury decision-making and has sought to develop processes for its improvement. Using 92 individual mock jurors, this study examined the use of question trails (QTs) as decision aids, testing a cognitive load explanation of their benefits and investigating individual differences in need for cognition (NFC) and need for cognitive closure (NFCC). Only limited evidence was obtained suggesting significant improvements due to QTs, and results failed to find a mediating role for extrinsic references as cognitive load explanations propose. QTs did not appear to increase decision confidence or significantly reduce perceived difficulty, leading rather, for some offences, to lower confidence. Inconclusive evidence was obtained consistent with a moderating role for individual NFC and NFCC on QT effectiveness. Implications for future research, theoretical understandings of jury decision-making, and the use of QTs in the legal system are discussed.

Missing Ingredients in Metaphor Advertising: The Right Formula of Metaphor Type, Product Type, and Need for Cognition

Metaphors appear frequently in contemporary advertising. The purpose of this study is to distinguish between two types of metaphor (explicit versus implicit) and to further examine potential influences associated with product type and consumer differences in need for cognition (NFC). Experimental results from two studies indicate that, regardless of metaphor type, ads with metaphors are more effective than nonmetaphor ads. An implicit metaphor is more effective than an explicit metaphor in hedonic product advertising. In contrast, an explicit metaphor is more effective than an implicit metaphor in utilitarian product promotion. These results hold only for individuals with high NFC, not for those with low NFC. Hence, in practice, marketers stand to gain not only by matching the metaphor type with their advertised products or brands but also by appropriately framing the products as hedonic or utilitarian.

Individual differences in need for cognition and decision making in the Iowa Gambling Task

Differences in decision making between individuals differing in Need for Cognition (NFC) are examined using the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT). Previous work using normative one time decisions suggests that individual low in NFC process gains and losses differently than those high in NFC and are more susceptible to decision biases. The IGT is a popular laboratory task that involves making risky decisions from experience involving both gains and losses. In the first experiment, low NFC participants performed significantly worse than the high NFC participants. A second experiment designed to examine the nature of these differences provides evidence that low NFC participants place more importance on gains as opposed to losses when performing the IGT. Results are discussed in light of previous work suggesting that low NFC participants place more importance on losses in mixed outcome decisions.