Need for closure and reactions to innovation

Although prior research on need for closure (NFC) has shown that it can lead individuals to dislike change, the mechanisms underlying that dislike were unclear. The current studies extend previous findings by investigating a mediating mechanism that may explain high NFC individuals’ dislike of change. In two studies using Italian (N = 852) and American (N = 94) samples, we hypothesized that high NFC individuals would have lower intentions to use new technological developments, and that this relationship would be mediated by anxiety about the new technology. We found partial support for our hypotheses. This research advances the literature on NFC by demonstrating that it can have an influence in domains in which it has not previously been tested.