Do attitudes toward thinking influence the benefit of memory strategies? Exploring the relationships between Need for Cognition, the drawing effect, the generation effect, and the production effect in free recall

Three experiments explored whether Need for Cognition (NFC) affects the memory benefits associated with drawing, generating, and producing while studying. In three experiments, undergraduate students studied a list of words while implementing a designated encoding strategy, followed by a free recall test. Experiment 1 had participants study half of the words by drawing and the other half by writing. In Experiment 2, participants generated half of the words from a definition and typed the other half. Finally, in Experiment 3, participants read half of the words aloud while studying, and read the remaining words silently. The three experiments replicated the memory benefits associated with the drawing effect, generation effect, and production effect (i.e., better recall from the more elaborative strategy), but NFC did not significantly predict the magnitude of these memory benefits or overall recall performance. These findings suggest that these encoding strategies may aid memory regardless of NFC level.