Definition
A validated trait measuring how much a person enjoys and seeks effortful thinking. The only person-level trait in this glossary.
What is at stake
Designed friction does not land the same on everyone. In Buçinca's study the benefit ran at d = 0.57 for high need for cognition against 0.15 for low. If the trait does the work, an augmentation programme is selecting rather than teaching.
Where the word came from
- First useCohen, Stotland and Wolfe, 1955
- The validated scaleJohn Cacioppo and Richard Petty, 1982, who together built the Elaboration Likelihood Model
- Reaches episcope by three independent routesBuçinca on who benefits from designed friction, Yu on who misjudges what AI saved them and an Atlantic essay by Brooks
How episcope came to it
Cacioppo and Petty, 1982.
Papers behind it
Cacioppo, J. T., & Petty, R. E. (1982). The need for cognition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 42(1), 116-131.
Buçinca, Z., Malaya, M. B., & Gajos, K. Z. (2021). To Trust or to Think: Cognitive Forcing Interventions Can Reduce Overreliance on AI in AI-assisted Decision-making. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 5(CSCW1), article 188.
Yu, S., Jurafsky, D., Hawkins, R. D., et al. (2026). The efficiency-gain illusion: People underestimate the rate of AI use and overestimate its benefits on simple tasks. arXiv:2605.22687.