Rising up to the 'challenge'? The interactive role of need for closure and situational appraisals on information processing

Person-task fit: Emotional consequences of performing divergent versus convergent thinking tasks depend on need for cognitive closure

“…We firstly propose that the fit or misfit between NFC and task type (convergent vs. divergent) will influence the extent to which individuals feel competent while completing the task. In fact, people high (vs. low) in NFC have been shown to perform worse on divergent thinking tasks at both the group (Chirumbolo, Livi, Mannetti, Pierro, & Kruglanski, 2004;Chirumbolo, Mannetti, Pierro, Areni, & Kruglanski, 2005) and individual level (Sankaran, Grzymala-Moszczynska, Strojny, Strojny, & Kossowska, 2017). This seems at least partly the result of a personality-task misfit.…”

“…Since high NFC individuals want to reach closure, they pressure fellow group members into conforming to others, and this behavior is incompatible PERSON-TASK FIT with the goal of generating many options (as opposed to one correct option; Chirumbolo et al, 2005). Similarly, high NFC individuals tend to feel threatened by creative tasks (Sankaran, Grzymala-Moszczynska, et al, 2017), which may result from a person-task misfit, and which ultimately undermines their performance. Thus, because of a person-task misfit, high NFC individuals tend to underperform in divergent thinking tasks, and will therefore feel lower levels of competence during these tasks as compared to low NFC individuals.…”