Competing roles for the subfactors of need for closure in moderating dissonance-produced attitude change

Stalder and Baron (1998) found no relation between need for closure (NFC) and dissonance, despite a prediction by Kruglanski and Webster (1996) for a positive relation. However, Stalder and Baron did not consider the two orthogonal subfactors of NFC, decisiveness and need for structure (Neuberg, Judice, & West, 1997). A reanalysis of the original data showed that need for structure predicted dissonance-produced attitude change whereas decisiveness attenuated it. In addition, only decisiveness related to two other modes of dissonance reduction (trivialization and external justification). Results underscore the importance of considering both NFC subfactors and support further investigation of dissonance-NFC connections.