The need for cognition and life satisfaction among college students

College Student Journal, June, 2004 by Savia A. Coutinho, Lisa M. Woolery

The relationship between the need for cognition and life satisfaction was explored among college students. The 18-item short Need for Cognition Scale (NCS; Cacioppo, Petty, & Kao, 1984) and the 5-item Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS; Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin, 1985) were administered to 157 undergraduate university students. Results of a correlation and stepwise multiple regression indicated that currently enrolled students high in the need for cognition expressed greater life satisfaction than students low in the need for cognition. This study supports the hypothesis that the need for cognition is a predictor of life satisfaction among college students.

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The notion of individual differences in the inclination to engage in thoughtful activity was proposed early in the history of social psychology and was developed most distinctly through empirical studies on the need for cognition, initially defined by Cohen, Stotland and Wolfe (1955) as a need to understand and make reasonable the experimental world. More recently, Cacioppo and Petty (1982) described the need for cognition as individual differences in the tendency to engage in and enjoy effortful cognitive activity. Individuals high in the need for cognition are highly and intrinsically motivated towards thinking, exhibiting a strong tendency to enjoy complex cognitive tasks. Individuals low in the need for cognition are described as "cognitive misers" (Taylor, 1981) who have to be motivated to expend energy on cognitive activities. Cacioppo and Petty (1982) developed a 34-item Need for Cognition Scale (NCS) which was reduced to an 18-item scale (Cacioppo, Petty, and Kao, 1984) in order to increase its administrative efficiency.

Studies have shown the need for cognition to be positively related to academic performance and course grades (Leon & Dalton, 1988; Sadowski & Gulgoz, 1996). Students high on the need for cognition are able to comprehend material requiring cognitive effort better and thus have better grades (Leone & Dalton, 1988). Students high in the need for cognition are also more effective information processors (Sadowski & Gulgoz, 1996).

Studying, itself, is has been shown to promote life satisfaction among college students (Cheung, 2000). Since both the ability to comprehend effortful material and process information effectively are related to studying, it would be expected that students high in need for cognition would display high life satisfaction since they both enjoy and are more proficient at studying. This study examines the hypothesis that the need for cognition is positively related to life satisfaction among college students.

Method

Participants

Participants in this study were 157 undergraduate university (80 women, 76 men and 1 unspecified) at a Midwestern university aged between 17 to 49 years (M=21.1, SD=5.03). Of those, 41% were freshman, 20% were sophomores, 20% were juniors and 20% were seniors. With respect to ethnicity, 72% were Caucasian, 16% were African American, and the remaining 12% was composed of other ethnicities.

Materials

Participants responded to a questionnaire consisting of three sections. Section one was a demographics section comprising five questions on participants' age, gender, US citizenship, year in school and race. Section two was the 18-item short NCS (Cacioppo et al., 1984). This scale consists of 18 Likert-type items. Half the items on this scale are worded positively and half are worded negatively. Participants indicated their agreement or disagreement with each item on a nine-point Likert scale ranging from very strong disagreement (-4) to very strong agreement ( 4). Items were presented in the same order as presented by Cacioppo et al. (1984). Section three was the five-item Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS; Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin, 1985). Participants indicated their agreement or disagreement with each item on a seven-point Likert scale ranging from (1) strongly disagree to (7) strongly agree.

Procedure

Participants responded to the questionnaire during regular class sessions. They were informed that their participation was entirely voluntary and anonymous. A statement relating to informed consent was attached to each questionnaire and was read aloud to the participants. Students who did not wish to participate were allowed to leave the class. Participants took approximately 15 minutes to complete the questionnaire which was returned immediately to the experimenter following the class session.

Results

Participants in this study had a mean score of 103.92 on the NCS (SD=20.63) and a mean score of 24.54 on the SWLS (SD=5.74). Scores on the NCS correlated significantly with scores on the SWLS (r=.620, p.<.001). High scores on the NCS indicated greater motivation to seek out intellectually challenging activities while high scores on the SWLS are indicative of greater overall life satisfaction. Thus, according to these results, as the need for cognition among college students increased, scores on life satisfaction increased as well.