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Motivated Search for Common Ground: Need for Closure Effects on Audience Design in Interpersonal Communication

University of Maryland

Arie W. Kruglanski

University of Maryland, arie{at}bss3.umd.edu

A key assumption of communication theory is that successful communicators tailor their messages to the knowledge of their audience. This study examined the extent to which such adjustments depend on a communicator’s need for cognitive closure. Participants high or low in the need for closure created descriptions of abstract figures either for themselves or for another student. After several weeks, participants tried to match their own and others’ descriptions to the correct figures. Descriptions written by participants high (vs. low) in the need for closure were shorter, more figurative, and less likely to be successfully identified by others. Furthermore, the differences in length, content, and identifiability between descriptions written for oneself and for others were generally smaller for high (vs. low) need for closure participants. These results suggest that audience design is not a fixed aspect of interpersonal communication but depends on variables affecting the knowledge construction process at large.

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