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Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and
Practice
Person-Group Fit on the Need for Cognitive Closure as a
Predictor of Job Performance, and the Mediating Role of
Group Identification
Antonio Pierro, Anna Sheveland, Stefano Livi, and Arie W. Kruglanski
Online First Publication, January 19, 2015. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/gdn0000022

CITATION
Pierro, A., Sheveland, A., Livi, S., & Kruglanski, A. W. (2015, January 19). Person-Group Fit on
the Need for Cognitive Closure as a Predictor of Job Performance, and the Mediating Role of
Group Identification. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice. Advance online
publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/gdn0000022
 Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice © 2015 American Psychological Association
2015, Vol. 19, No. 1, 000 1089-2699/15/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/gdn0000022

Person-Group Fit on the Need for Cognitive Closure as a Predictor

of Job Performance, and the Mediating Role of Group Identification

Antonio Pierro Anna Sheveland

University of Rome “Sapienza” International Alliance for Responsible Drinking,
Washington, DC

Stefano Livi Arie W. Kruglanski

University of Rome “Sapienza” University of Maryland
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

The present research examined the implications of the objective supplementary person-
group fit on the dimension of need for cognitive closure (NFCC) for employee
performance. More specifically, we investigated the similarity between employees’
levels of the NFCC and the NFCC of their workgroups as a predictor of employee
performance, and we investigated a potential mediator of this relationship— group
identification. We found that NFCC moderated the relationship between individual-
level NFCC and individual-level performance such that high NFCC individuals per-
formed better in workgroups in which the remaining members were also high in the
NFCC and low NFCC individuals performed better in workgroups in which the
remaining members were also low in the NFCC (Hypothesis 1). Furthermore, as
expected, employees’ level of self-reported identification with their workgroups par-
tially mediated this relationship (Hypothesis 2). Implications of these findings for both
organizational research on fit and social psychology research on the NFCC are dis-
cussed, and directions for future research are suggested.

Keywords: person-group fit, need for cognitive closure, person-environment fit, employee
performance

Imagine participating in a group in which you
feel utterly out of sync with your fellow group
members. You share a common mission, but it
is obvious that your thoughts and opinions on
how to best fulfill that mission are not shared by
the other group members; moreover, you cannot
even begin to understand how your peers might
have reached their conclusions in the first place.
Most of us have experienced this “fish-out-of-
Antonio Pierro, Department of Social and Developmental
Psychology, University of Rome “Sapienza”; Anna Sheve-
land, International Alliance for Responsible Drinking,
Washington, DC; Stefano Livi, Department of Social and
Developmental Psychology, University of Rome “Sapi-
enza”; Arie W. Kruglanski, Department of Psychology,
University of Maryland.
Correspondence concerning this article should be ad-
dressed to Stefano Livi, Department of Social and Devel-
opmental Psychology, University of Rome “Sapienza”, Via
dei Marsi, 78, I-00185 Rome, Italy. E-mail: stefano.livi@
uniroma1.it
1
water” feeling and were likely acutely aware at
the time of the influence of this “misfit” status
on our thoughts, feelings, and behavior.
Paralleling this lay recognition of the impor-
tance of the social environment for individuals’
outcomes, the empirical explorations of social
and organizational psychologists have long
been premised upon the idea that individuals do
not live their lives within a vacuum; rather, their
behaviors are shaped by characteristics of the
person, the environment he or she finds himself
in, and the interaction of these factors (e.g.,
Lewin, 1935, 1952; Parsons, 1909). Out of this
person-environment interactionist legacy has
emerged a rich tradition of organizational re-
search on fit, or the match between employees’
characteristics and the characteristics of the or-
ganizational context within which they are em-
bedded. It is within this framework that the
present research examined the implications for
employee performance of fit on the need for
cognitive closure (NFCC), an epistemic moti-
 2 PIERRO, SHEVELAND, LIVI, AND KRUGLANSKI
vation capturing the desire to reduce uncertainty
and ambiguity and to reach certainty on judg-
ments and decisions (Kruglanski, 2004). More
specifically, we investigated the degree of sim-
ilarity between employees’ levels of the NFCC
and the NFCC of their workgroups as a predic-
tor of employee performance, and we investi-
gated a potential mediator of this relationship—
namely, individual-level group identification.
Although the NFCC has garnered consider-
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
able empirical attention over the past few de-
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
cades, investigations of its cross-level operation
and implications have been rare to date. How-
ever, because the NFCC has been shown to
influence decision-making processes and out-
comes at the individual and group levels (for a
review, see Kruglanski & Fishman, 2009), ex-
amined independently of each other, there is
ample reason to expect that an individual’s de-
gree of match on the NFCC with those they
closely interact with—and, particularly, those
with whom they engage in joint decision-
making—will have noteworthy consequences
for the individual’s functioning and outcomes
within that group context.
A central function of groups is epistemic in
nature insofar as they bestow a shared reality
upon their group members. The firmer this
shared reality, the more attractive groups should
be to individuals high in the NFCC, and groups
higher on the NFCC at the aggregate level
should project a firmer reality. Conversely, we
would expect groups lower on the NFCC at the
aggregate level to project a more flexible, open
reality, which should be more appealing to in-
dividuals lower in the NFCC. Building upon
this, we predicted that individuals whose NFCC
levels are similar to those of their fellow group
members would function better and have better
outcomes than individuals embedded in groups
in which they are mismatched on the NFCC.
There are several mechanisms that might under-
lie a relationship between fit on the NFCC and
individual-level performance, including re-
duced task conflict and cognitive load due to
well-synced cognitive styles and increased in-
tragroup relational satisfaction, group liking,
and identification with a group arising from the
individual’s experienced sense of fit. In the
present research, we chose to examine the latter
phenomenon, group identification, as a potential
mediator of our hypothesized fit-performance
relationship. Because people are more likely to
identify with a group the more similar that
group is to themselves, we predicted that indi-
viduals whose NFCC levels are similar to those
of their fellow group members should identify
more closely with their (work)group (see
Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell,
1987). In turn, we expect that the individuals
more identified with their workgroup should
perform better. Supporting this last hypothesis,
several studies of the relationship of team or
workgroup identification with performance
yield converging evidence that identification is
positively related to task and contextual perfor-
mance as well as to a broader range of work
motivation, attitudes, and behavior (for reviews,
see Cicero & Pierro, 2007; Haslam, 2004; Van
Knippenberg, 2000).
We expect cross-level match on the NFCC
holds implications for individuals’ outcomes in
many different kinds of groups, such as family
units, friendship circles, and so forth. However,
the research presented here examined the impli-
cations of individuals’ fit specifically within the
workgroup context, where we expected the ef-
fects of match/mismatch to be particularly pro-
nounced because of the typically cognitive em-
phasis of, and importance often bestowed upon,
work-related outcomes.
Thus, the present study explored the relation-
ship between employee performance and fit be-
tween individual-level and (work)group-level
NFCC. Specifically, we explored, in an interac-
tionist study, the effect of a cross-level interac-
tion between the commensurate measurement
(describing both the person and group on the
same content dimension; Edwards, 1991) of in-
dividual-level and (work) group-level NFCC on
individual employee performance. We hypoth-
esized that individual-group congruence on the
NFCC would be associated with higher individ-
ual-level performance as assessed via supervi-
sor ratings. That is, we predicted that group-
level NFCC would moderate the relationship
between individual-level NFCC and individual-
level performance such that high NFCC indi-
viduals would perform better in workgroups in
which the remaining members were also high in
the NFCC and low NFCC individuals would
perform better in workgroups in which the re-
maining members were also low in the NFCC.
Furthermore, we expected employees’ level of
self-reported identification with their work-
groups to mediate this relationship. By elucidat-
 PERSON-GROUP FIT ON NFCC AND JOB PERFORMANCE
ing the cross-level interactive effect of the
NFCC, as well as identifying a mechanism (in-
dividual-level group identification) through
which fit appears to influence work outcomes,
our findings contribute to the NFCC and fit
literatures, which we review briefly next.
The NFCC
The NFCC describes a desire for a definitive
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(i.e., closure-providing) answer to an epistemic
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
question over the alternative of prolonged un-
certainty or ambiguity (Kruglanski, 1989). The
decision-making strategies and outcomes of in-
dividuals in whom the NFCC is situationally or
dispositionally heightened differ from those of
their low NFCC counterparts in several ways
reviewed briefly in the following subsections.
The NFCC at the Intra- and
Interindividual Levels
Individuals high (vs. low) in the NFCC are
more dogmatic (Webster & Kruglanski, 1994);
exhibit more pronounced primacy, recency, and
transference effects (Pierro & Kruglanski, 2008;
Webster, Richter, & Kruglanski, 1996); are
more prone to the fundamental attribution error
(Webster, 1993); and seek out less information
before rendering decisions (Choi, Koo, Choi, &
Auh, 2008; Mayseless & Kruglanski, 1987; Van
Hiel & Mervielde, 2002; Webster et al., 1996).
They also stereotype more (Dijksterhuis, Van
Knippenberg, Kruglanski, & Schaper, 1996;
Kruglanski & Freund, 1983); are more preju-
diced (Roets & van Hiel, 2006, 2011); are more
hostile toward outgroups (Golec de Zavala, Cis-
lak, & Wesolowska, 2010; Kosic, Mannetti, &
Livi, 2014); and exhibit greater ingroup favor-
itism/outgroup derogation (Shah, Kruglanski, &
Thompson, 1998), political conservatism (Chi-
rumbolo, 2002; Golec, 2002; Kossowska & Van
Hiel, 2003), nationalism, and patriotism (Fed-
erico, Golec, & Dial, 2005; Golec, Federico,
Cislak, & Dial, 2005).
A handful of studies have investigated work-
place outcomes associated with the NFCC.
High (vs. low) NFCC is associated with a
greater preference for hard social influence tac-
tics among supervisors and subordinates
(Pierro, Kruglanski, & Raven, 2012) and greater
difficulty coping with organizational change
(Kruglanski, Pierro, Higgins, & Capozza,
3
2007). The NFCC has also been shown to aug-
ment the relationships between leader proto-
typicality and employees’ perceptions of leader
effectiveness (Pierro, Cicero, Bonaiuto, van
Knippenberg, & Kruglanski, 2005).
The NFCC at the Group Level
Much of the extant empirical work on the
NFCC has focused on its operation at the indi-
vidual level; however, there is also evidence
that group-level NFCC (operationalized as ei-
ther aggregated dispositional NFCC levels of
group members or through situational induc-
tions) also has noteworthy consequences. In ad-
dition, such outcomes of group-level NFCC
have become increasingly germane to organiza-
tional research as the popularity of workgroups
in organizations has grown.
Group-level NFCC is positively associated
with the rejection of opinion deviates (Kruglan-
ski & Webster, 1991), conformity pressures (De
Grada, Kruglanski, Mannetti, & Pierro, 1999),
and the stability of group norms (Livi et al.,
2007; Livi, Kruglanski, Pierro, Mannetti, &
Kenny, 2014), presumably in the service of
preserving a “shared reality” that facilitates clo-
sure (Kruglanski, Pierro, Mannetti, & De Grada,
2006). High NFCC groups are also more likely
to engender autocratic leadership structures and,
in turn, dampen egalitarian participation by
group members (De Grada et al., 1999; Pierro,
Mannetti, De Grada, Livi, & Kruglanski, 2003).
Moreover, high group-level NFCC is also in-
versely related to group-level creativity (Chi-
rumbolo, Livi, Mannetti, Pierro, & Kruglanski,
2004).
Cross-Level Effects of the NFCC
Although previous empirical work has inves-
tigated the operation of the NFCC at the indi-
vidual and group levels of analysis, to our
knowledge no one has examined cross-level
effects of the NFCC. Given the litany of impli-
cations that the NFCC holds for each level of
analysis examined independently, and our pre-
vious discussion regarding why individuals
should be more attracted to, and function better
within, groups matching their NFCC levels, we
believe this lack of multilevel work represents a
noteworthy gap in the existing literature. Given
this, and the increasing popularity of work-
groups in contemporary organizations (De
 4 PIERRO, SHEVELAND, LIVI, AND KRUGLANSKI
Sanctis & Poole, 1997; Kozlowski & Bell,
2003), in the present research we examined the
performance implications of individual–work-
group congruence (i.e., fit) on the NFCC.
Person-Environment Fit
Conceptualizing Fit
Broadly defined, person-environment fit is
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
“the compatibility between an individual and a
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
work environment that occurs when their char-
acteristics are well matched.” (Kristof-Brown,
Zimmerman, & Johnson, 2005, p. 281). Fit can
arise from similarity, or congruence, between
the individual and his or her environment (i.e.,
supplementary fit), but also from “mutually off-
setting” patterns of dissimilarity (i.e., comple-
mentary fit) (Muchinsky & Monahan, 1987, p.
272). Moreover, fit can be operationalized via
direct self-report (i.e., the extent to which the
individual perceives himself or herself to be
well-matched with his or her work environ-
ment), by comparing person and environment
variables as reported by the same individual, or
by comparing person and environment variables
as reported by different individuals/sources,
termed “perceived fit,” “subjective fit,” and “ob-
jective fit,” respectively (Kristof-Brown, Bar-
rick, & Stevens, 2005). The present research
investigated the relationship between objective
supplementary fit on the NFCC and individual-
level performance.
Levels of Fit
When examining employees’ fit within their
larger organizational environments, we need to
consider the fact that fit can be assessed at
different levels of analysis—namely, individual
(i.e., dyadic relationships, such as those be-
tween employees and their supervisors), orga-
nization, group, and job levels (Ostroff &
Schulte, 2007). The present research centers on
person-group fit, which has thus far received the
least amount of empirical and theoretical atten-
tion (Kristof-Brown et al., 2005). Despite its
relative infancy as a line of research (as com-
pared with person-job fit, person-organization
fit, and person-individual fit), several studies
show that person-group fit exerts influence on
important work-related outcomes. Specifically,
researchers have linked person-group fit to per-
formance (Adkins, Ravlin, & Meglino, 1996;
Witt, 1998), job satisfaction (Adkins et al.,
1996; Kristof-Brown & Stevens, 2001), organi-
zational commitment (Greguras & Diefendorff,
2009; Witt, 1998), attendance (Adkins et al.,
1996), and workgroup involvement (Hobman,
Bordia, & Gallois, 2004) and attraction
(Kristof-Brown et al., 2005).
Person-group fit is typically operationalized
as fit with respect to goals (e.g., Kristof-Brown
& Stevens, 2001; Witt, 1998), values (e.g., Ad-
kins et al., 1996; Hobman, Bordia, & Gallois,
2003; Jehn, Northcraft, & Neale, 1999; Kim,
Kim, & Shin, 2011), or personality traits (e.g.,
Barsade, Ward, Turner, & Sonnenfeld, 2000;
Kristof-Brown et al., 2005). The present re-
search concerns the latter—trait operationaliza-
tion of person-group fit. There are a handful of
findings in this vein concerning person-group
fit. For instance, person-group fit on positive
trait predicts individual-level outcomes (satis-
faction with group interpersonal relations, per-
ceptions of influence within the group) and
group-level outcomes (task/emotional conflict,
cooperation) (Barsade et al., 2000). Person-
group fit on polychronicity preferences (i.e., the
degree to which individuals desire to tackle
many tasks at the same time as opposed to
sequentially) is associated with greater organi-
zational commitment and higher expectations
regarding, and perceived fairness of, others’
(peers’, supervisors’) evaluations of their per-
formance (Slocombe & Bluedorn, 1999). Per-
son-group fit on extraversion is associated with
greater attraction to the group (Kristof-Brown et
al., 2005). Person-group fit on extraversion,
anxiety, corteria (i.e., “tough poise”), and inde-
pendence has also been shown to moderate the
relationship between employee attendance and
performance (Ferris, Youngblood, & Yates,
1985).
However, to our knowledge, no research has
examined person-group fit on the NFCC. In
fact, the only previous fit research (person-
group, or otherwise) involving the NFCC that
we are aware of is that of Guan, Deng, Bond,
Chen, and Chan (2010). In two studies con-
ducted with Chinese government employees,
Guan et al. found that the NFCC moderated—
and, more specifically, augmented—the posi-
tive relationship between complementary per-
son-job fit and job satisfaction and the negative
relationship between complementary person-
 PERSON-GROUP FIT ON NFCC AND JOB PERFORMANCE
job fit and turnover intention. However, it is
important to note that Guan et al.’s research did
not examine fit on the need for closure; rather, it
examined the NFCC as a moderator. Given the
distinctly different cognitive strategies em-
ployed by individuals high versus low in the
NFCC reviewed earlier, we tested the fit on the
NFCC. As mentioned above, a central function
of groups is epistemic in nature. As proposed by
Kruglanski et al. (2006), self-similar groups
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
serve as effective epistemic providers, validat-
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
ing individuals’ personal characteristics and
preserving a shared reality that facilitates clo-
sure. In working environments, supplementary
person-environment fit in general and person-
group fit in particular also provides information
about the degree of shared social reality and
about the extent to which employees’ self-views
are validated by their groups (e.g., Guan et al.,
2010). As briefly reviewed above, the findings
of several studies examining NFCC effects in
group contexts are consistent with the theoreti-
cal link between the need for closure and the
search for consensus and social shared reality in
groups (for more extensive review, see Krug-
lanski et al., 2006). Therefore, a focus on fit on
a major epistemic motive, the NFCC, is highly
relevant to research on the person-group fit.
Far more attention has been paid to the work-
related outcomes associated with person-
environment fit than to mediational processes
that explain these relationships. However, elu-
cidating the processes that underpin specific
outcomes is equally as important as identifying
the outcomes themselves. There is some evi-
dence that interpersonal liking and fulfillment
of certain psychological needs—such as those
for autonomy, relatedness, and competence—
mediate the association between various types
of fit and positive work-related outcomes (Ca-
ble & Edwards, 2004; Greguras & Diefendorff,
2009; Strauss, Barrick, & Connerley, 2001).
With respect to person-group fit, specifically,
Greguras and Diefendorff (2009) found that ful-
fillment of the relatedness need mediated the
relationship between subjective person-group
value fit and affective organizational commit-
ment. The present research was also conducted
with an eye toward process in that we investi-
gated the mediating role of group identification
(associated with the need for relatedness) in the
relationship between fit on the NFCC and per-
formance.
5
The Present Research
Thus, our aim in conducting the present re-
search was to contribute to the existing fit and
NFCC literatures by testing the cross-level in-
teraction effect of (a) individual-level NFCC
and (b) group-level NFCC on individual-level
performance. Specifically, we hypothesized that
individuals high (or low) on the NFCC would
perform best within workgroups in which the
remaining members of the group were also high
(or low) on the NFCC (Hypothesis 1). More-
over, we expected group identification would at
least partially explain this link between person-
group fit and performance. That is, we hypoth-
esized that the relationship between person-
group fit on the NFCC and individual-level
performance would be mediated by group iden-
tification (Hypothesis 2).
Method
Participants
Two hundred and thirty-four employees (120
men, 114 women), comprising 30 workgroups
from two Italian organizations (a bank [n ⫽
118] and an international home products com-
pany [n ⫽ 116]) participated in this research
on a voluntary basis. Employees’ mean age
was 37.21 years (SD ⫽ 9.60), and the mean
group size was 11 (SD ⫽ 8.16; Median ⫽ 8;
Mode ⫽ 7).
Procedure
The questionnaires administered to partici-
pants included an introductory letter in which
the purpose of the study was explained. Ano-
nymity was guaranteed.
Participants first filled out a self-report mea-
sure of the NFCC, followed by several filler
questionnaires intended to obscure the purpose
of the study. Subordinates’ group identification
was then assessed via self-report. Our second
dependent variable of interest, individual-level
performance, was assessed via supervisor rat-
ings.
Individual-level NFCC. All participants
responded to the Italian version of the Revised
Need for Closure Scale (Rev NfCS, Pierro &
Kruglanski, 2005), a brief 14-item self-report
instrument designed to assess stable individual
 6 PIERRO, SHEVELAND, LIVI, AND KRUGLANSKI
differences in the NFCC (e.g., “Any solution to
a problem is better than remaining in a state of
uncertainty”). Participants responded to these
items on a 6-point Likert scale ranging from 1
(strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). A
composite NFCC score was computed by aver-
aging across responses to each item. Previous
studies (Pierro & Kruglanski, 2005) have dem-
onstrated that the revised version of NfCS has
nomological validity (the disattenuated correla-
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
tions between Rev NfCS and original NfCS in
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
U.S. and Italian samples are .92 and .93, respec-
tively) and satisfactory reliability (␣ ⫽ .80 and
␣ ⫽ .79 in U.S. and Italian samples, respec-
tively). In the present sample, reliability of the
Rev NfCS was also satisfactory (␣ ⫽ .76).
Group-level NFCC. Although the NFCC
was measured at the individual level, for the
purposes of this study we also aggregated this
variable to the team level. Typically, research-
ers compute group-level variables by using the
within-group average for each group as a whole
(i.e., the group mean of the construct) and rec-
ommend to support this aggregation by appro-
priate sharedness statistics (e.g., intraclass cor-
relation coefficient [ICC]). It is informative to
note that in the present research, the ICC for
Group NFCC was .13, a value comparable to
values of others aggregate constructs reported in
the literature (e.g., Edmondson, 1999). How-
ever, a major problem this aggregation method
posed for our cross-level research question was
circularity, or dependence, of the data because
the individual is also a member of the group (for
a discussion of this problem, see Kenny, Man-
netti, Pierro, Livi, & Kashy, 2002). To model
group effects differently than the traditional ap-
proach, Kenny et al. (2002) have suggested that
researchers incorporate in their multilevel mod-
eling the Actor–Partner Interdependence Model
(APIM, Kashy & Kenny, 2000; Kenny & Cook,
1999). Originally proposed for the analysis of
dyadic data, when the APIM is applied to the
study of groups, it is referred to as the Group
Actor–Partner Interdependence Model, or
GAPIM (Kenny & Garcia, 2010, 2012). Hence,
the group effect is viewed as the mean of the
other members of the group (i.e., the group
mean, but excluding the focal individual). We
believe this method provides a more appropriate
way of modeling the group effects in our cross-
level interaction model, in which we hypothe-
sized a positive interaction effect between indi-
vidual- and group-level (i.e., the remaining
group members) NFCC on individual-level per-
formance. Accordingly, in this study, the group-
level NFCC was computed as the within-group
average, excluding the focal individual for each
team (for a similar approach to person-group fit
studies, see also Kristof-Brown et al., 2005).
Following Kenny and Garcia’s (2012) sugges-
tion, to reduce confusion with the terminology
used in the dyadic version of the APIM (in
which there is a term called “partner”), from
here on we use the term “others” to refer to the
group-level NFCC (i.e., the averaged NFCC
scores of the remaining members of the team).
Finally, to control for the nonlack of indepen-
dence between pairs of group members, the
compound symmetry assumption was imposed
on the variance-covariance matrix of random
effects (Kenny et al., 2002).
Workgroup identification. Participants re-
sponded to the following five items adapted
from Mael and Ashforth (1992) and previously
used in other Italian studies (Cicero & Pierro,
2007): (a) “When someone criticizes my work
team, It feels like a personal insult”; (b) “I’m
very interested in what others think about my
work team”; (c) “When I talk about my work
team, I usually say ‘we’ rather than ‘they’; (d)
“My work team successes are my successes”;
and (e) “When someone praises my work team,
it feels like a personal compliment.” Partici-
pants’ responses were recorded on a 6-point
scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6
(strongly agree). A composite group identifica-
tion score was computed by averaging across
the responses to each item. The reliability of the
measure was satisfactory (␣ ⫽ .87).
Supervisors’ ratings of subordinates’
performance. Participants’ performance was
measured via supervisors’ ratings on a two-item
instrument. Specifically, we asked supervisors
to appraise the performance of each individual
employee (i.e., our research participants) over
the last year1 by responding to the following
items: (a) “In terms of percentage, to what ex-
tent were the employee’s objectives reached
during the last year?” (1 ⫽ 10%, 10 ⫽ 100%)
and (b) “How do you evaluate the employee’s
performance in the last year?” (1 ⫽ extremely
1
Note that, as previously mentioned, the minimum job
tenure of participants was 1 year.
 PERSON-GROUP FIT ON NFCC AND JOB PERFORMANCE
negative, 10 ⫽ extremely positive). We com-
puted a composite performance score by aver-
aging across responses to each item (␣ ⫽ .89).
Results
Table 1 contains a summary of descriptive
statistics and zero-order correlations between
individual-level variables. We used multilevel
modeling to test our cross-level interaction hy-
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pothesis (i.e., the presence of an interaction
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
between individual and other group members’
NFCC). In the analysis, we entered as fixed (a)
the main effect of the NFCC at the individual
level, (b) the main effect of the NFCC of the
other members of the group, and (c) the inter-
action between individual and others’ NFCC.
To reduce multicollinearity and facilitate the
interpretability of the effects, following Kenny
and Garcia’s (2010) suggestions, we grand
mean centered the individual and others’ NFCC
scores; the interaction term was based on these
centered scores. In addition, we included gen-
der, age, organization, and workgroup size
(group-level variable) as control variables. Fi-
nally, the intercept was entered as a random
effect at the group level. We analyzed this mul-
tilevel model for each dependent variable (per-
formance, group identification) using restricted
maximum likelihood (REML) estimation (see
Table 2).
As can be seen in Table 2, no statistically
significant main effects of individual or others’
NFCC emerged for either performance or group
identification. Of greater interest, the interaction
between individual and others’ NFCC was sig-
nificant and positive for both performance (b ⫽
.34, p ⬍ .001) and group identification (b ⫽ .27,
p ⬍ .001).
To probe the obtained interaction effects, fol-
lowing Aiken and West’s (1991) recommenda-
tions, we performed simple slopes analyses.
Table 1
Descriptive Statistics and Variable Intercorrelations at the Individual Level
Variable
1. Individual need for closure
2. Individual team identification
3. Individual performance
Note. N ⫽ 234. Alpha coefficients are in diagonal.
ⴱⴱⴱ
p ⬍ .001.
7
These analyses revealed that the relationships
between individual-level NFCC and (a) individ-
ual-level group identification and (b) perfor-
mance ratings were significant and positive
when others’ NFCC was high (i.e., 1 SD above
the mean) (group identification, b ⫽ .21, p ⬍
.05; performance, b ⫽ .28, p ⬍ .05) whereas
these relationships were significant and nega-
tive when others’ NFCC was low (i.e., 1 SD
below the mean) (group identification, b ⫽
⫺.33, p ⬍ .001; performance, b ⫽ ⫺.40, p ⬍
.01). Figures 1 and 2 illustrate the patterns of
predicted mean values for these cross-level in-
teraction effects at 1 SD above and below the
means of the relevant variables in the regression
equation (Aiken & West, 1991).
These patterns suggest that individual group
identification and performance ratings were
maximized for individuals with a similar level
of NFCC as the remaining members of the
group—that is, for (a) individuals high in NFCC
embedded in high NFCC groups and (b) indi-
viduals low in NFCC embedded in low NFCC
groups.
Mediational Analysis
In addition to testing our main hypothesis con-
cerning the cross-level interaction effect of indi-
vidual- and group-level NFCC on individual-level
group identification and performance (Hypothesis
1), we also intended to assess the mediating role of
individual-level group identification in explaining
the dependence of individual performance on this
cross-level interaction (Hypothesis 2).
Mediation analysis was tested using a Monte
Carlo method that allows parametric bootstrap-
ping, also called the Monte Carlo Method for
Assessing Mediation (MCMAM) (Bauer,
Preacher, & Gil, 2006; Kenny, Korchmaros, &
Bolger, 2003; Preacher & Selig, 2012). In the
present study, the 95% confidence interval (CI) of
M (SD) 1 2 3
3.68 (1.06) (.76)
4.85 (.95) ⫺.08 (.87)
6.89 (1.45) ⫺.06 .21ⴱⴱⴱ (.89)
 8 PIERRO, SHEVELAND, LIVI, AND KRUGLANSKI

Table 2
Multilevel Analyses of Individual- and Group-Level Effect of NFCC and Their Interactions on Individual-
Level Team Identification and Performance
Team Identification Performance
Parameter b SE b SE
Fixed effects
Intercept 4.40ⴱⴱⴱ 0.41 7.31ⴱⴱⴱ 0.60
Control variables
Gender 0.08 0.13 0.01 0.20
Age ⫺0.07 0.08 ⫺0.16 0.13
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Organization 0.18 0.24 ⫺0.34 0.35

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Team size 0.09 0.16 0.02 0.22

Model variables
Individual need for closure ⫺0.05 0.06 ⫺0.04 0.09
Others’ need for closure ⫺0.05 0.09 ⫺0.22 0.14
Individual NFCC ⫻ Other NFCC 0.27ⴱⴱⴱ 0.07 0.34ⴱⴱⴱ 0.10
Random effects: group level
Intercept 0.23ⴱ 0.10 0.43ⴱ 0.19
Error variance 0.68ⴱⴱⴱ 0.07 1.72ⴱⴱⴱ 0.17
Note. N ⫽ 234, Team N ⫽ 30. For fixed-effects parameters, a two-tailed t test was computed whereas for the random effect
a one-tailed Wald z test was performed.
ⴱ
p ⬍ .05. ⴱⴱⴱ p ⬍ .001.

the indirect effects was obtained with 5,000 repe-
titions (Selig & Preacher, 2008). Thus, a multi-
level model, in which individual performance
served as the dependent variable and the hypoth-
esized mediator of individual-level group identifi-
cation was entered along with individual- and
group-level NFCC, was estimated. This analysis
revealed (a) a significant and positive main effect
of individual-level group identification (b ⫽ .21,
p ⬍ .05) and (b) a reduction in the size of the
cross-level interaction effect of individual- and
group-level NFCC, although it still remained sig-
nificant (b ⫽ .28, p ⬍ .01). Most importantly,
results of the analysis using MCMAM confirmed
that the indirect effect of the interaction between
individual and others’ NFCC on performance,
through individual-level group identification, was
significant (b ⫽ .06; CI lower limit ⫽ .003 to CI
upper limit ⫽ .31), thus attesting to the partial
mediating role of group identification.
Discussion
The research we have presented here inves-
tigated the relationship between objective sup-
plementary person-group fit on the NFCC and

Figure 1. Individual-level team identification as a function of individual and other members’

NFCC.
 PERSON-GROUP FIT ON NFCC AND JOB PERFORMANCE
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Figure 2. Individual-level performance as a function of individual and other members’
NFCC.
individual-level performance in a workplace
context. We expected that (a) fit between em-
ployees and their workgroups on the NFCC
would be associated with better employee-level
outcomes and (b) this relationship would be
mediated by employees’ identification with
their workgroups. Both hypotheses were sup-
ported. Our analyses revealed that fit on the
NFCC was positively related to individuals’
performance, and this relationship was partially
mediated by individual-level workgroup identi-
fication. Thus, it appears that, as predicted, the
extent to which individuals’ cognitive style
matches those in their immediate workgroup
exerts influence upon the individuals’ perfor-
mance. This is not unsurprising given (a) the
substantive body of previous research showing
that the cognitive strategies used by high (vs.
low) NFCC individuals differ meaningfully and
(b) we would expect the impact of these differ-
ences to manifest particularly profoundly in
group contexts in which cognitive tasks and
outcomes are emphasized, such as in the work-
place.
Our findings contribute to the existing bodies
of empirical work on both the NFCC and per-
son-environment fit in a few different ways.
With respect to the NFCC, this is the first study
we are aware of to have examined its cross-level
operation. Given that prior research has inves-
tigated the consequences of individual- and
group-level NFCC for various intrapersonal, in-
terpersonal, intragroup, and intergroup phenom-
ena, it seems a natural next step forward to
delve more deeply into how individuals func-
tion within groups composed of members
9
whose levels of NFCC are (dis)similar to their
own. Although the present research investigated
the individual-group interactive effect of the
NFCC for performance in the workplace, we
suspect that such a cross-level approach could
be fruitfully extended to various other depen-
dent variables (e.g., job satisfaction, turnover
intentions, persuasion, interpersonal conflict)
and types of group (e.g., social groups, family
units, friendship circles). Moreover, whereas
the present research focused on outcomes at the
individual level, future research might investi-
gate group-level outcomes, including but not
limited to performance. It would be particularly
interesting to explore whether, at the group
level, groups composed of a mix of high and
low NFCC individuals outperform more homo-
geneous groups on some tasks or dimensions.
That is, although fit on the NFCC appears to
manifest in a supplementary fashion in which
individual-level performance outcomes are con-
cerned, it may be that, for at least some group
outcomes, fit on the NFCC manifests in a com-
plementary manner.
With respect to the existent research on fit,
the present research offers a few contributions.
First, it adds to the relatively lean body of
empirical work examining person-group fit,
thus increasing the breadth of the person-
environment fit literature. Second, it investi-
gates the implications of fit on the NFCC, a
variable that has received negligible attention in
the fit literature, for an important workplace
outcome— employee performance. An interest-
ing question is raised by the way in which we
operationalized employee performance (subjec-
 10 PIERRO, SHEVELAND, LIVI, AND KRUGLANSKI
tive supervisor evaluations) in the present
study: To what extent might supervisors’ per-
ceptions of employees’ performance be influ-
enced by the employees’ fit to the workgroup?
Because of the mediating role of employees’
workgroup identification, it is implausible that
the relationship between person-group fit and
performance obtained in the present study is due
merely to perceived fit (or lack thereof) biasing
supervisors’ perceptions of employees’ perfor-
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mance. However, it may be the case that person-
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
group fit does exert some influence upon super-
visors’ perceptions of employee performance
that does not reflect employees’ objective per-
formance. Future research could attempt to di-
rectly isolate and measure this.
Because there is a relative dearth of empirical
work on the mechanisms through which person-
group fit (and also person-environment fit, more
broadly) affects various work-related outcomes,
the finding that individual-level group identifi-
cation partially mediates the relationship be-
tween person-group fit and performance is also
a noteworthy contribution. Future research
could fruitfully investigate other potential me-
diators of the relationship between person-
group fit on the NFCC and performance. For
instance, as previously discussed, we expect fit
on the NFCC engenders greater liking of the
group by the individual and that this might
contribute to individual-level performance
above and beyond the effect of group identifi-
cation. Conversely, lack of fit on the NFCC
might increase relational and/or task conflict or
lead to chronic cognitive resource depletion be-
cause of the strain of navigating an environment
in which the cognitive strategies used by others
are not well matched to one’s own, which might
worsen individuals’ on-the-job performance.
Each of these possibilities could be investigated
in future research.
Limitations
As with many studies that use performance as
a criterion variable, our measure may contain
reliability and validity issues. We used a simple
two-item questionnaire, and, as just noted, only
the employee’s immediate supervisor provided
performance ratings on our participants. In fu-
ture research, it may be useful to elicit perfor-
mance ratings from more diverse sources (rat-
ers). Future studies could also include
behaviorally anchored rating scales to obtain
more reliable and valid measures of employee
performance (Bernardin & Smith, 1981; Smith
& Kendall, 1963). Likewise, it would be inter-
esting to explore how person-group fit on the
NFCC affects different types of performance.
For example, would the effects be stronger for
task-related performance than on contextual
performance (Borman & Motowidlo, 1993)?
A word of caution is called for because the
present work relies primarily on correlational
data and on the retrospective performance rat-
ings (i.e., supervisors’ rating of subordinates’
performance over the last year), which limits
the use of causal inferences to describe the flow
of relationships between person-group fit on the
need for closure, group identification, and per-
formance. For example, it seems possible that as
groups perform better their members develop a
stronger sense of group identity. It is theoreti-
cally also possible that having a greater sense of
group identity could lead at least some members
of the group to adopt traits or attitudes (such as
NFCC) that are espoused by the majority or the
leaders of the group. Future research should
clarify this flow of causality issue through the
use of longitudinal designs or by manipulating
the need for closure and group composition on
this dimension in a laboratory setting.
Conclusions
In this study, we obtained support for the
hypothesis of the person-group fit on NFCC as
a predictor of employee performance as well as
for the (partial) mediating role of group identi-
fication of this relationship. Our findings con-
tribute to existing bodies of empirical work on
the NFCC and person-environment fit and may
hopefully inspire researchers to investigate this
hypothesis and its implications in new contexts
and across multiple levels of analysis.
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Received June 13, 2014
Revision received November 14, 2014
Accepted December 1, 2014 䡲