The Psychology of Closed Mindedness by Arie W Kruglanski

The Psychology of Closed Mindedness by Arie W Kruglanski

The fundamental phenomenon of human closed-mindedness is treated in this volume. Prior psychological treatments of closed-mindedness have typically approached it from a psychodynamic perspective and have viewed it in terms of individual pathology. By contrast, the present approach stresses the epistemic functionality of closed-mindedness and its essential role in judgement and decision-making. Far from being restricted to a select group of individuals suffering from an improper socialization, closed-mindedness is something we all experience on a daily basis. Such mundane situational conditions as time pressure, noise, fatigue, or alcoholic intoxication, for example, are all known to increase the difficulty of information processing, and may contribute to one's experienced need for nonspecific closure. Whether constituting a dimension of stable individual differences, or being engendered situationally - the need for closure, once aroused, is shown to produce the very same consequences. These fundamentally include the tendency to 'seize' on early, closure-affording 'evidence', and to 'freeze' upon it thus becoming impervious to subsequent, potentially important, information. Though such consequences form a part of the individual's personal experience, they have significant implications for interpersonal, group and inter-group phenomena as well. The present volume describes these in detail and grounds them in numerous research findings of theoretical and 'real world' relevance to a wide range of topics including stereotyping, empathy, communication, in-group favouritism and political conservatism. Throughout, a distinction is maintained between the need for a nonspecific closure (i.e., any closure as long as it is firm and definite) and needs for specific closures (i.e., for judgments whose particular contents are desired by an individual). Theory and research discussed in this book should be of interest to upper level undergraduates, graduate students and faculty in social, cognitive, and personality psychology as well as in sociology, political science and business administration.

This book is testimony to the creativity and scientific commitment of its authorArie Kruglanski has used the key concepts of his theory of lay epistemology to build a remarkably cumulative research program that bridges social and personality psychology as well as the laboratory and the real world. - Philip E. Tetlock, University of California at Berkeley

This is one of the most impressive research programs in social psychology from one of the most dynamic researchers in the field, addressing one of the most timely topics in the field: the need for closure and its motivational bases. This work has profound implications for why individuals, groups, and nations succeed or fail as they try to grapple with information and make sounds decisions. - Carol S. Dweck, Columbia University

Arie W. Kruglanski is Distinguished University Professor of Psychology at the University of Maryland. He is the recipient of several awards including the National Institute of Mental Health Research Scientist Award, the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the Society of Experimental
Social Psychology, and the Donald Campbell Award for Outstanding Contributions to Social Psychology from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. He is Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Society, and was a co-founder and presently is a senior
investigator at the National Center for the Study of Terrorism and the Response to Terrorism, START. His research interests are in the domains of human judgment and decision making, the motivation-cognition interface, group and intergroup processes, the psychology of human goals, and the social
psychological aspects of terrorism.

David Webber is Assistant Professor at the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University. His research examines the social psychological factors involved in the radicalization and deradicalization processes, and he has worked in the field on CVE
program assessment, and the training of CVE practitioners within prisons.

Daniel Koehler is co-founder of the first peer reviewed open access journal on deradicalization, JD Journal for Deradicalization, which he created together with the German Institute on Radicalization and De-Radicalization Studies (GIRDS). His work on terrorism, radicalization, and deradicalization
is regularly covered by leading international news outlets such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, Rolling Stone Magazine, the Associated Press, and the London Sunday Times. He is also a Fellow of George Washington University's Program
on Extremism at the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security and a member of the Editorial Board of the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism in The Hague.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780863775802
ISBN 10	0863775802
Title	The Psychology of Closed Mindedness
Author	Arie W Kruglanski
Series	Essays In Social Psychology
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Psychology Press
Year published	2004-06-28
Number of pages	208
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.