A scale that assesses the extent to which people tend to engage in and enjoy greater, amounts of effortful cognitive activities.

a personality variable reflecting the extent to which people desire to seek out and think about information in their social worlds

An individual preference for and tendency to engage in effortful cognitive activities.

A personality variable that distinguishes people on the basis of how much they enjoy effortful cognitive activities.

A trait that describes how much people like to think.

The Need for Cognition, in psychology, is a personality variable reflecting the extent to which people engage in and enjoy effortful cognitive activities. People high in the Need for Cognition are more likely to form their attitudes by paying close attention to relevant arguments (i.e., via the central route to persuasion), whereas people low in the need for cognition are more likely to rely on peripheral cues, such as how attractive or credible a speaker is. Psychological research on the Need for Cognition has been conducted using self-report tests, where research participants answered a series of statements such as "I enjoy solving puzzles" and were scored on how much they felt the statements represented them.