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Abstract

A study tested the hypothesis that individual differences in people's concern, for information or in their information-seeking tendencies should exert a systematic influence on how they unitize ongoing behavior into meaningful actions. Subjects high and low in the need for cognition were instructed to unitize a videotaped behavior sequence into whatever actions seemed natural and meaningful to them. Following the videotape presentation, a measure of free recall for the action-related details of the sequence was administered. As expected, individuals who were presumably inclined to want to understand and to deliberate about their environment (i.e., were high in need for cognition) unitized the behavior sequence into more actions and subsequently recalled more action-related details from the sequence than individuals who were not so inclined (i. e., were low in need for cognition). This pattern of results provides further support for the assumption that the unitization process funclions to regulate information gain from ongoing behavior Some situational factors that could possibly attenuate or enhance the observed difference in unitization rate between individuals high and low in the need for cognition are discussed

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Need for Cognition and the Perception of Ongoing Behavior

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