Between a Rock and a Hard Place

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Matthias Hofer ◽  
Ron Tamborini ◽  
Fabian A. Ryffel
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Social Distance ◽  
Moral Dilemma ◽  
Moral Intuition ◽  
Construal Level Theory ◽  
Construal Level ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Hard Place ◽  
As If

Abstract. Applying logic from both the model of intuitive morality and exemplars and construal level theory, we examined the impact of baseline moral intuition salience and social distance on the moral judgment of a narrative character confronted with a moral dilemma. After completing a measure of baseline intuition salience, participants in an experiment first read an article about a fighter pilot who shot down a plane and then judged the pilot’s actions as morally right or wrong. The article indicated that the plane had been hijacked by a terrorist who wanted to let it crash into a nearby stadium, and that the pilot shot down the plane to save the spectators in the stadium. Participants were randomly assigned to read the article either as if they were the pilot (social distance low) or as objectively as possible (social distance high). Results showed that baseline intuition salience and social distance interacted in determining moral judgment. Finally, moral judgment predicted whether participants would find the pilot guilty or not. In a second study using the same design as in the first study, we ensured that readers focused on different aspects of the dilemma depending on social distance.

Replication of Experiments Evaluating Impact of Psychological Distance on Moral Judgment

2014 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 223-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iris L. Žeželj ◽  
Biljana R. Jokić
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Social Distance ◽  
Psychological Distance ◽  
Temporal Distance ◽  
Construal Level ◽  
Systematic Effect ◽  
Replication Studies ◽  
Opposite Conclusion ◽  
Moral Transgressions ◽  
Replication Of Experiments

Eyal, Liberman, and Trope (2008) established that people judged moral transgressions more harshly and virtuous acts more positively when the acts were psychologically distant than close. In a series of conceptual and direct replications, Gong and Medin (2012) came to the opposite conclusion. Attempting to resolve these inconsistencies, we conducted four high-powered replication studies in which we varied temporal distance (Studies 1 and 3), social distance (Study 2) or construal level (Study 4), and registered their impact on moral judgment. We found no systematic effect of temporal distance, the effect of social distance consistent with Eyal et al., and the reversed effect of direct construal level manipulation, consistent with Gong and Medin. Possible explanations for the incompatible results are discussed.

Psychological Distance Promotes Exploration in Search of a Global Maximum

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Yudkin
Keyword(s):  
Exploratory Behavior ◽  
Social Distance ◽  
Local Maximum ◽  
Psychological Distance ◽  
Construal Level Theory ◽  
Global Maximum ◽  
Construal Level ◽  
Direct Association ◽  
Decision Structure

Agents must sometimes decide whether to exploit a known resource or search for potentially more profitable options. Here, we investigate the role of psychological distancing in promoting exploratory behavior. We argue that exploration dilemmas pit the value of a reward (“desirability”) against the difficulty or uncertainty of obtaining it (“feasibility”). Based on construal level theory, which suggests that psychological distance increases the importance of rewards’ desirability (versus feasibility), we expect that psychological distance will increase exploration. Two pretests and three experiments support this prediction. Pretests A and B confirm that exploration dilemmas conform to the feasibility/desirability decision structure. In Experiment 1, participants who were prompted to consider an exploration game from a physically distanced perspective were more likely to leave a local maximum in search of a global maximum. Experiments 2 and 3 show that social distance has similar results. Experiment 4 finds evidence of a direct association between construal mindset and exploration. Overall, this research highlights how psychological distancing strategies can promote exploration.

The Impact of Hedonic and Meaningful Messages on Sport Consumers’ Responses to Athlete Foundations: A Focus on Fan Identification Level

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 346-363
Author(s):  
Wonseok (Eric) Jang ◽  
Daehwan Kim ◽  
Joon Sung Lee ◽  
Daniel L. Wann
Keyword(s):  
Construal Level Theory ◽  
Construal Level ◽  
Philanthropic Foundations ◽  
Fan Identification ◽  
Supportive Behaviors ◽  
Supportive Behavior ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Low Levels ◽  
The Impact

Athletes oftentimes own and direct their own philanthropic foundations to make positive prosocial impacts at every level, from global down to local. A key challenge for these foundations is to communicate effectively with their target audiences to obtain support from them. By drawing from the construal-level theory and athlete identification literature, the current study examines the effects of different types of messages (hedonic vs. meaningful) on sport consumers’ supportive behaviors toward an athlete’s charitable foundation as a function of fans’ level of athlete identification. Results indicated that the use of a meaningful message lead to greater degrees of supportive behavior from sport consumers with low levels of athlete identification than on- and off-field hedonic messages. In contrast, among highly identified sport consumers, both hedonic and meaningful messages elicited greater support for an athlete-owned foundation.

Hypotheticality and Level of Construal

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guy Grinfeld ◽  
Cheryl Jan Wakslak ◽  
Yaacov Trope ◽  
Nira Liberman
Keyword(s):  
Social Distance ◽  
Text Analysis ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Psychological Distance ◽  
Construal Level Theory ◽  
Construal Level ◽  
Time Space ◽  
Detailed Text

Construal level theory suggests that less likely, more distant counterfactual events and actions will be represented more abstractly. However, the effect of hypotheticality on level of construal has been studied less than the effect of other dimensions of psychological distance (time, space, social distance) and recently did not replicate in two experiments (Calderon et al. 2020). Two sets of pre-registered studies attempted to close this empirical gap. In the first set, participants described more and less likely events in their life. Participants rated the mental representations of the less likely, more distant counterfactual events as being less clear and detailed. Text analysis revealed also that the descriptions of those events were less concrete. In the second set of studies, participants completed the Behavioral Identification Form, in which they chose between abstract and concrete descriptions of actions. Participants preferred to describe actions that were only a hypothetical possibility by their abstract means and actions that were actually performed by their concrete means, whether hypotheticality was manipulated within- or between-participants. We discuss potential difficulties of manipulating hypotheticality and suggest how to overcome them. We address, more generally, the nature of hypotheticality and how it is both similar to and different from other psychological distances.

Psychological Distance Promotes Exploration in Search of a Global Maximum

2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (6) ◽  
pp. 893-906 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel A. Yudkin ◽  
Rotem Pick ◽  
Elina Yewon Hur ◽  
Nira Liberman ◽  
Yaacov Trope
Keyword(s):  
Exploratory Behavior ◽  
Social Distance ◽  
Local Maximum ◽  
Psychological Distance ◽  
Construal Level Theory ◽  
Global Maximum ◽  
Construal Level ◽  
Direct Association ◽  
Mind Set

Agents must sometimes decide whether to exploit a known resource or search for potentially more profitable options. Here, we investigate the role of psychological distancing in promoting exploratory behavior. We argue that exploration dilemmas pit the value of a reward (“desirability”) against the difficulty or uncertainty of obtaining it (“feasibility”). Based on construal level theory, which suggests that psychological distance increases the importance of rewards’ desirability (vs. feasibility), we expect that psychological distance will increase exploration. Four experiments support this prediction. In Experiment 1, participants who were prompted to consider an exploration game from a physically distanced perspective were more likely to leave a local maximum in search of a global maximum. Experiments 2 and 3 show that social distance has similar results. Experiment 4 finds evidence of a direct association between construal mind-set and exploration. Overall, this research highlights how psychological distancing strategies can promote exploration.

The Role of Ego Depletion in Goal Pursuit: A Construal-level Perspective

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (7) ◽  
pp. 1143-1156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Wenjing Lyu ◽  
Changqing Lai ◽  
Jin Liu
Keyword(s):  
Control Theory ◽  
Social Distance ◽  
Goal Pursuit ◽  
Ego Depletion ◽  
Construal Level Theory ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Construal Level ◽  
Subject Design ◽  
Preference Experiment

We conducted 2 experiments to explore whether or not ego depletion from exerting prior self-control lowers an individual's construal level and thus, in turn, affects the individual's goal preference. Experiment 1 (N = 132) involved a 2 (ego depletion: present vs. absent) × 2 (priming-focus feature: temporality vs. probability) between-subject design. The results showed that people whose ego was depleted from exerting prior self-control would be more motivated to pursue a temporally proximal uncertain goal than were those whose ego was not depleted. In Experiment 2 (N = 138) we used a 2 (ego depletion: present vs. absent) × 2 (social distance of the goal being pursued: for self vs. for others) between-subject design to test the generalizability of the finding in Experiment 1. The results showed that people whose ego was depleted would be motivated to pursue a goal that was certain with a lower end value, especially when setting a goal for others. Our finding that ego depletion lowered individuals' construal level and, thus, made them focus more on subordinate features of a goal supports both self-control theory and construal-level theory.

Self–other risk perception bias: Functions of event abstractness and social distance

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (11) ◽  
pp. 1865-1877 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lin Wu ◽  
Jing Lin
Keyword(s):  
Risk Perception ◽  
Social Distance ◽  
Interactive Effect ◽  
Construal Level Theory ◽  
Construal Level ◽  
Optimism Bias ◽  
Risk Characteristics ◽  
Perception Bias ◽  
Concrete Event ◽  
Abstract Event

We developed a platform to consider both optimism and pessimism biases in the same context using construal level theory as a basis, and gained the following key results: An increase in event abstractness increased differences in self–other risk perception (Experiment 1). Perceived level of social distance determined whether optimism or pessimism bias occurred (Experiment 2). Compared with their closest other, people displayed more pessimism bias when estimating the risk of a concrete, compared to an abstract, event. In contrast, when comparing themselves with their most distant other, people displayed less optimism bias when estimating the risk of a concrete event relative to an abstract event, illustrating that the occurrence and extent of optimism or pessimism depends on an interactive effect between social distance and event abstractness (Experiment 3). Our results suggest that people should consider both risk target and risk characteristics when estimating risk.

scholarly journals Moral thinking across the world: Exploring the influence of personal force and intention in moral dilemma judgments

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bence Bago ◽  
Balazs Aczel ◽  
Zoltan Kekecs ◽  
John Protzko ◽  
Marton Kovacs ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Moral Dilemma ◽  
Moral Dilemmas ◽  
Situational Factors ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Physical Contact ◽  
Moral Decisions ◽  
Large N ◽  
The World ◽  
The Impact

Much research on moral judgment is centered on moral dilemmas in which deontological perspectives (i.e., emphasizing rules, individual rights and duties) are in conflict with utilitarian judgements (i.e., following the greater good defined through consequences). A central finding of this field Greene et al. showed that psychological and situational factors (e.g., the intent of the agent, or physical contact between the agent and the victim) play an important role in people’s use of deontological versus utilitarian considerations when making moral decisions. As their study was conducted with US samples, our knowledge is limited concerning the universality of this effect, in general, and the impact of culture on the situational and psychological factors of moral judgments, in particular. Here, we empirically test the universality of deontological and utilitarian judgments by replicating Greene et al.’s experiments on a large (N = X,XXX) and diverse (WEIRD and non-WEIRD) sample across the world to explore the influence of culture on moral judgment. The relevance of this exploration to a broad range of policy-making problems is discussed.

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