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Contents
- Abstract
- Study 1
- Method
- Results and Discussion
- Factor structure
- Internal reliability
- Test–retest reliability
- Summary
- Study 2: PNS and Other Relevant Measures
- Method
- Results
- Do alternative operationalizations reliably capture the desire for simple structure?
- Other findings relevant to convergent and discriminant validity
- Summary
- Study 3: PNS and the Structuring of Social and Nonsocial Information
- Method
- Subjects
- Procedure
- Stimuli
- Measure of sort complexity
- Results and Discussion
- Study 4: PNS and Stereotyping
- Method
- Subjects
- Procedure
- Results
- Discussion
- Study 5: PNS and the Completion of Research Participation Requirements
- Method
- Results
- Discussion
- General Discussion
- Discriminant Validity
- Other Implications
- Desire for simple structure and other aspects of social information processing
- Desire for simple structure and social interaction
- Desire for simple structure and affective experience
- Caveats and Comments
- In Closing
- Appendix A
Figures and Tables
Abstract
Individual differences in the desire for simple structure may influence how people understand, experience, and interact with their worlds. Studies 1 and 2 revealed that the Personal Need for Structure (PNS) scale (M. Thompson, M. Naccarato, & K. Parker, 1989, 1992) possesses sufficient reliability and convergent and discriminant validity. In Studies 3–5, Ss high in PNS were especially likely to organize social and nonsocial information in less complex ways, stereotype others, and complete their research requirements on time. These data suggest that people differ in their chronic desire for simple structure and that this difference can have important social–cognitive and behavioral implications. A consideration of chronic information-processing motives may facilitate the theoretical integration of social cognition, affect, motivation, and personality.
It is nearly trite to make the point that, as social beings, people live in an unimaginably complex, information-rich world. Given the vast amount of information impinging on the senses and the well-documented limits in attentional capacity (e.g., Kahneman, 1973; Norman & Bobrow, 1975; Pashler, 1992), the information-processing task is quite formidable. Thus, people look for ways to reduce the information load.
People lessen their cognitive load in two fundamental ways. First, through avoidance strategies, they limit the amount of information to which they are exposed. People may create barriers that restrict the likelihood that social and environmental information will intrude unexpectedly...