Why do some people seem to thrive on uncertainty and ambiguity whereas other people seem to jump to conclusions and seek quick answers? The answer to this question may lie in people's need for closure. Need for closure (also known as need for cognitive closure) refers to an individual's desire to have any answer on a given topic rather than to have confusion and ambiguity. This can be contrasted with need for specific closure, which refers to an individual's desire to have a particular answer on a given topic.

Need for closure has been found to influence many aspects of our behavior, from information processing to group behavior, and it has been studied in many diverse fields, including political attitudes, organizational change, judgments in criminal investigations, ...