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Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences pp 1–3Cite as

Need for Cognition

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Synonyms

Typical intellectual engagement

Definition

An individual difference variable which describes a person’s desire to engage in cognitively challenging tasks and effortful thinking.

Introduction

The Need for Cognition (NfC) is a psychological construct that concerns an individual’s tendency and enjoyment in seeking, evaluating, and integrating multiple relevant sources of information toward making sense of their surroundings. It captures the extent to which individuals chronically engage in effortful reflection in arriving at an opinion (cognizers; high NfC) or tend to form an opinion based on cursory or superficial aspects (cogmisers; low NfC). This individual differences variable is typically measured with self-report scales. The most commonly used are the long- and short-form Need for Cognition scales (Cacioppo and Petty 1982; Cacioppo et al. 1984), although the Typical Intellectual Engagement scale has been shown to measure a similar construct (Woo et al. 2007; in von Stumm...

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References

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Trent University Durham, Oshawa, ON, Canada

    Ben Bauer & Emily Stiner

Authors
  1. Ben Bauer
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  2. Emily Stiner
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ben Bauer .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Oakland University, Rochester, USA

    Virgil Zeigler-Hill

  2. Oakland University, Rochester, USA

    Todd K. Shackelford

Section Editor information

  1. Lakehead University, Orillia, Canada

    Beth A. Visser

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© 2016 Springer International Publishing AG

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Bauer, B., Stiner, E. (2016). Need for Cognition. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1093-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1093-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8

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