ABSTRACT
Measuring individual differences in social-psychological variables has proved fruitful in consumer psychology.Well-knownmeasures assess cognitive styles and motivations toward having various types of personal and social experiences. For example, the past 20 years of research have produced the development of scales measuring self-monitoring (Snyder, 1987), the need for cognition (Cacioppo & Petty, 1982), dispositional transportation into stories (Green & Brock, 2000; Green, Garst, & Brock, this volume), and the need for affect (Maio & Esses, 2001). Such individual-difference measures have served moderating functions that facilitate explanation in a variety of domains in persuasion and interpersonal relationships.
