Elaborative Processing Mediates the Relationship Between Need for Cognition and Academic Performance

The short Need for Cognition Scale (NFCS; Cacioppo, Petty, & Kao, 1984) was administered to 51 students enrolled in two sections of a social psychology class at the beginning of the course. During the quarter the students completed three projects, in which they explained the social-psychological principles they thought were illustrated in self-selected materials. The projects were scored on elaborative processing, i.e., the use of relevant, cogent, and detailed explanations. NFCS and elaboration orientation scores were then correlated with the summated scores from three multiple-choice tests. Results indicate that students high in need for cognition achieved more academically than those low in need for cognition, because the former were more effective information processors.