Acta Psychologica Sinica

Abstract

Individuals often use heuristics to make decisions. As heuristic-based judgments are likely to create bias, it is useful to investigate who tend to use more heuristics in their judgments. Lay epistemic theory in social cognitive psychology has asserted that, individuals with high dispositional need for cognitive closure (NFCC) prefer to make instant decisions under uncertain situations. Based on this theory and related research findings, we hypothesized that people with high dispositional NFCC would use more heuristics in making decisions and prefer an instant judgment. We also predicted that negative framing would make people process information in a more systematic way, leading individuals to defer their choices instead of making immediate judgments under ambiguous situations.

To investigate the influence of need for cognitive closure and attribute framing on individuals’ decision preference, a 2 (high vs. low NFCC)* 2 (positive vs. negative attribute framing) between-subject design was adopted. Ninety three MBA students were asked to complete the NFCC scale. Four weeks later, they were asked to participate in a decision making experiment. Each participant was presented with two decision scenarios. After reading each scenario, each was required to indicate the extent of their decision preference-making an immediate decision or deferring the decision.

The results showed that, individuals with high NFCC preferred to make decisions immediately whereas those with low NFCC preferred to postpone decisions. Moreover, individuals made immediate decisions when information was positively framed and deferred decisions when information was negatively framed. In addition, NFCC and attribute framing have an interactive effect on decision preference. This study is among the very few studies that investigate the impact of NFCC on decision preference and thus contributes to the framing effect literature by showing that people with high dispositional NFCC are not affected by the framing effect. These findings have significant managerial implications. First, individuals’ chronic NFCC can serve as a useful criterion in selecting decision makers in organizations. Second, negative framing of decision information can help individuals to search more information before they make a decision, which improve decision quality.

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