Information Utilization and Personality

Abstract

The amount‐of‐information variable, central to the process of communication and decision making, was subjected to experimental study. Results confirm the common belief that people fail to utilize most of the information to which they have access, and suggest that certain kinds of people—as measured by their personality profiles‐are exceptionally efficient in the use of available informaton. For communicators, this suggests the advisability of either reducing persuasive appeals to highly succinct forms or rendering messages with sufficient ambiguity to arouse receivers'curiosity, hence their likelihood of ingesting additional, ambiguity‐reducing information. Copyright © 1973, Wiley Blackwell. All rights reserved