title: Need for Closure Moderates the Break in the Message Effect.
abstract: Cutting the message into smaller portions is a common practice in the media. Typically such messages consist of a headline followed by a story elaboration. In a series of studies Dolinski and Kofta (2001) have shown that such a break in the message increases the effect of the information provided in the headline over that of a story which actually contained information inconsistent with that headline. A possible explanation of this effect, based on the concept of the need for cognitive closure, is presented in the article. The experiment shows that break-in-the-message effect is found mainly for participants with high need for closure but not for those with low such need.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Psychology in Wroclaw, SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities Wroclaw, Poland.
authors.forename: Dariusz
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Dolinski
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Social Sciences, Opole University Opole, Poland.
authors.forename: Barbara
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Dolinska
authors.affiliation: Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University Tel Aviv, Israel.
authors.forename: Yoram
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Bar-Tal
keywords: cognitive structuring; mass-media; moral judgments; social influence