Context matters: Need for Cognition moderates immediate story recall but not other types of memory tests

Need for Cognition (NFC) is a personality trait that reflects motivation to engage in effortful thinking. While NFC has been linked to various domains of cognitive functioning, its relation with memory has not been investigated. We examined whether NFC moderates the relation between verbal episodic memory and intelligence. Participants (n = 174, M_age = 20.10, SD_age = 1.50) completed the NFC Questionnaire, Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-III, and Wechsler Memory Scale-III. At the bivariate level, NFC was positively correlated with general intelligence (r = 0.41) and story memory (r = 0.26). Multiple regression models evaluated whether NFC moderated the relation between contextual memory and intelligence. NFC moderated the relation between Logical Memory I and FSIQ (β = 0.19) but was not significant for Logical Memory II and FSIQ (β = 0.13). Individuals high in NFC may encode more information when initially learning a story due to higher interest in the story's context, thereby leading to greater task engagement. This improves initial learning of the story but not later recall. NFC may affect learning through increased test engagement and/or enhanced learning motivation but only for contextually rich memory tests, such as memory for stories.