Cognitive and Social Consequences of the Need for Cognitive Closure

This paper reviews research on the antecedent conditions and the cognitive and social consequences of the need for cognitive closure (Kruglanski, 1989). This particular need is conceived of as a desire for definite knowledge on some issue and the eschewal of confusion and ambiguity. It is considered proportionate in magnitude to the perceived benefits of closure and the costs of lacking closure. Those benefits and costs, in turn, are assumed to vary situationally and also represent stable individual differences in the tendency to value closure. The consequences of the need for closure are assumed to derive from two general tendencies, those of urgency and permanence, respectively. The urgency tendency refers to the inclination to attain closure without delay, and to “seize” on early information potentially leading to closure. The permanence tendency refers to the inclination to maintain closure for as long as possible, hence to “freeze” on present closure and safeguard future closure. Those dual tendencies are shown to impact a broad variety of social psychological phenomena on intrapersonal, interpersonal and group levels of analysis.