Study of relations between cognitive closure and locus of control

Abstract

The need for cognitive closure is a natural mental process leading to obtaining the most unambiguous information and cutting off incorrect, ambiguous, debatable, and uncertain data. The study poses the question whether the aspiration for the most specific information can be associated with locus of control, as a person’s subjective idea of the reasons for the situations happening to him. To test the assumption, we used: the test questionnaire “Diagnostics of partial positions of personal internality-externality” developed by E.F. Bazhin and colleagues based on the scale “Study of Subjective Control” by J. Rotter and the full version of the questionnaire “The Need for Cognitive Closure” by A. Kruglyansky, in Russian adaptation (M.I. Yasin, O.E. Khukhlaev). The sample consisted of 80 subjects aged from 19 to 26 years, university students. It was found that the “Decision” scale of the cognitive closedness questionnaire is positively related to “Internality” with values of r = 0.266, with p < 0.018, and with an average degree of reliability (1-β) = 0.514. However, decisiveness is considered a separate construct that does not contribute to cognitive closure as such. The remaining four scales of the test of cognitive closure (“Striving for order”, “Striving for predictability”, “Avoiding duality” and “Striving for closed thinking” did not show significant connections with the locus of control (internality), that is, cognitive closure is not associated with the locus of control.