Need and Ability to Achieve Closure: Relationships with symptoms of psychopathology

Abstract

Recent literature has asserted that excessive choice in everyday life may pose a burden on mental health. The present research further qualifies this claim by focusing on the role of stable individual differences in Need for (cognitive) Closure (NFC) and Ability to Achieve Closure (AAC), which tap into the cognitive-motivational aspects of decision making and choice. The effects of these two distinct components of cognitive closure on mental health and symptoms of psychopathology were investigated in a non-clinical sample (N = 304). Results from regression analyses showed strong opposite effects of NFC (positive) and AAC (negative), which independently predicted scores on the Symptom Checklist-90 and its various facet scales, together explaining up to 29% of the variance. These results attest to the idea that individual differences in the need and ability to achieve cognitive closure play a pivotal role in the potentially detrimental effects of excessive choice on mental health. Moreover, the opposite effects of NFC and AAC clarify the ambivalent findings from previous clinical studies on psychopathology that confounded these two components of cognitive closure and suggest promising directions for clinical research and therapy.

Examination of Psychometric Properties of the Need for Closure Scale- Short Form among Turkish College Students

“…Similarly, the correlation between the need for closure and intolerance to uncertainty in this study also seems to support this conclusion. There are studies in the literature that show that as the need for closure increases, the intolerance to uncertainty also increases (5,6,11,(18)(19). The result obtained in this study is also consistent with the literature, and this conformity seems to refer to the criterion-based validity of the scale.…”

“…Decision-making is defined as a complex set of steps in which the individual chooses, evaluates, and enforces one of these alternatives, and this is directly related to the need for cognitive closure (19). According to Bar-Tal (13), decision-making can be defined as an orientation to eliminate the distress that is experienced when there is more than one way to lead to a result that is thought to meet a need.…”

The Motivated Gatekeeper of Our Minds

“…Yet, interventions based on the reduction of people's AAC in order to curb the use of stereotypes when judging people may be more suitable for specific, acute situations, such as job interviews. Given the potentially negative "side effects" of low AACS on mental well-being mentioned earlier (see Roets & Soetens, 2010), it seems that long-lasting reduction of AAC should be avoided.…”

“…For example, Roets and Soetens (2010) showed that whereas closure needs were positively related to symptoms of psychopathology in a large nonclinical adult sample, the ability to achieve closure (measured by a combination of the original decisiveness scale and the AACS scale) showed strong negative relations with those symptoms. The authors proposed that in today's complex world, high NFC may lead to more distress in everyday life decision making (see , whereas low AAC may lead Roets and Van Hiel (2011b), based on the full revised NFC scale (Roets & Van Hiel, 2007), original scale by Webster and Kruglanski (1994).…”

Item selection and validation of a brief, 15-item version of the Need for Closure Scale

“…This aggregated sample comprised new samples as well as data from Dhont, Roets, and Van Hiel (in revision); Onraet, Van Hiel, Roets, and Cornelis (in press); Roets and Soetens (2010); and Roets and Van Hiel (2008;in press). The total sample consisted of 1142 adults and 442 students of which 36% were men.…”