Better Off and Far Away: Reactions to Others’ Outcomes Depends on Their Distance

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Yudkin
Keyword(s):  
Relative Deprivation ◽  
Psychological Distance ◽  
Construal Level Theory ◽  
Construal Level ◽  
Low Level ◽  
Level Information ◽  
High Level ◽  
Comparison Target

Research shows that people’s satisfaction with outcomes they receive (e.g., a prize) is influenced by their standing relative to targets of comparison. Here we asked whether the similarity of the comparison target impacts which features of outcomes people pay attention to. This is particularly important in situations in which more than one outcome feature may drive people’s sense of relative deprivation. Drawing on Construal Level Theory, which contends that people use high level construals to transcend psychological distance, we show that comparing to more dissimilar targets increases the salience of high- versus low-level features of outcomes. Experiment 1 demonstrates that people seek out high-level information when they believe they are comparing to psychologically distant others. Experiments 2-4 show that high-level information, relative to low-level information, exerts greater weight on satisfaction when the comparison target is far versus near. Experiment 5 shows these effects can be explained by variations in construal level. Overall, this research highlights the importance of distant others in influencing people’s sense of relative deprivation.

Artificial Intelligence and Persuasion: A Construal-Level Account

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 363-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tae Woo Kim ◽  
Adam Duhachek
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Construal Level Theory ◽  
Construal Level ◽  
Artificial Agents ◽  
Artificial Agent ◽  
Persuasive Messages ◽  
Total N ◽  
Low Level ◽  
High Level ◽  
Do So

Although more individuals are relying on information provided by nonhuman agents, such as artificial intelligence and robots, little research has examined how persuasion attempts made by nonhuman agents might differ from persuasion attempts made by human agents. Drawing on construal-level theory, we posited that individuals would perceive artificial agents at a low level of construal because of the agents’ lack of autonomous goals and intentions, which directs individuals’ focus toward how these agents implement actions to serve humans rather than why they do so. Across multiple studies (total N = 1,668), we showed that these construal-based differences affect compliance with persuasive messages made by artificial agents. These messages are more appropriate and effective when the message represents low-level as opposed to high-level construal features. These effects were moderated by the extent to which an artificial agent could independently learn from its environment, given that learning defies people’s lay theories about artificial agents.

Regulatory Scope and Its Mental and Social Supports

2020 ◽  
pp. 174569162095069
Author(s):  
Yaacov Trope ◽  
Alison Ledgerwood ◽  
Nira Liberman ◽  
Kentaro Fujita
Keyword(s):  
Adaptive Functioning ◽  
Social Supports ◽  
Construal Level Theory ◽  
Construal Level ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Empirical Results ◽  
Low Level ◽  
High Level ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Current Experience

Adaptive functioning requires the ability to both immerse oneself in the here and now as well as to move beyond current experience. We leverage and expand construal-level theory to understand how individuals and groups regulate thoughts, feelings, and behavior to address both proximal and distal ends. To connect to distant versus proximal events in a way that meaningfully informs and guides responses in the immediate here and now, people must expand versus contract their regulatory scope. We propose that humans have evolved a number of mental and social tools that enable the modulation of regulatory scope and address the epistemic, emotive, and executive demands of regulation. Critically, across these tools, it is possible to distinguish a hierarchy that varies in abstractness. Whereas low-level tools enable contractive scope, high-level tools enable expansion. We review empirical results that support these assertions and highlight the novel insights that a regulatory-scope framework provides for understanding diverse phenomena.

scholarly journals Influence of Psychological Distance on People’s Willingness to Help Accident Victims: Discrepancies Between Implicit and Explicit Inferences

SAGE Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 215824402110332
Author(s):  
Yuri Taniguchi ◽  
Tomoko Ikegami
Keyword(s):  
Causal Attribution ◽  
Psychological Distance ◽  
Construal Level Theory ◽  
Situational Factors ◽  
Construal Level ◽  
Cognitive Elaboration ◽  
Willingness To Help ◽  
Helping Behaviors ◽  
Implicit And Explicit

Drawing on construal-level theory, this study explored how a sense of psychological distance from an accident influences people’s willingness to help victims. We conducted a scenario experiment with a sample of 81 Japanese undergraduates. Participants were presented with a short scenario describing an accident that happened on either a distant or a nearby mountain. The results show that the greater the distance perceived by participants from the accident, the more likely they were to infer negative traits about the victim at an implicit level. However, the more they inferred negative traits at an implicit level, the more likely they were to attribute the cause of the accident to external situational factors, at an explicit level. Finally, explicit external causal attribution aroused greater sympathy for the victim, resulting in an increased willingness to help. This discrepancy between implicit and explicit inferences was discussed in terms of cognitive elaboration, in which people engage in helping behaviors when they feel responsible for the fate of the victim.

Regulatory focus and construal level theory on low-income consumer indebtedness: Evidence from an emerging market

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrícia de Oliveira Campos ◽  
Marconi Freitas da Costa
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Regulatory Focus ◽  
Task Complexity ◽  
Emerging Market ◽  
Psychological Distance ◽  
Construal Level Theory ◽  
Construal Level ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Low Income Consumers

PurposeThis study aims to further analyse the decision-making process of low-income consumer from an emerging market by verifying the influence of regulatory focus and construal level theory on indebtedness.Design/methodology/approachAn experimental study was carried out with a design 2 (regulatory focus: promotion vs prevention) × 2 (psychological distance: high vs low) between subjects, with 140 low-income consumers.FindingsOur study points out that the propensity towards indebtedness of low-income consumer is higher in a distal psychological distance. We found that promotion and prevention groups have the same propensity to indebtedness. Moreover, we highlight that low-income consumers are prone to propensity to indebtedness due to taking decisions focused on the present with an abstract mindset.Social implicationsFinancial awareness advertisements should focus on providing more concrete strategies in order to reduce decision-making complexity and provide ways to reduce competing situations that could deplete self-regulation resources. Also, public policy should organize educational programs to increase the low-income consumer's ability to deal with personal finances and reduce this task complexity. Finally, educational financial programs should also incorporate psychology professionals to teach mindfulness techniques applied to financial planning.Originality/valueThis study is the first to consider regulatory focus and construal level to explain low-income indebtedness. This paper provides a deeper analysis of the low-income consumers' decision process. Also, it supports and guides future academic and decision-making efforts.

scholarly journals Psychological distance modulates goal-based versus movement-based imitation

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver Genschow ◽  
Jochim Hansen ◽  
Michaela Wänke ◽  
Yaacov Trope
Keyword(s):  
Pilot Study ◽  
Psychological Distance ◽  
Past Research ◽  
Construal Level Theory ◽  
Temporal Distance ◽  
Spatial Distance ◽  
Construal Level ◽  
Direct Mapping

In past research on imitation, some findings suggest that imitation is goal based, whereas other findings suggest that imitation can also be based on a direct mapping of a model’s movements without necessarily adopting the model’s goal. We argue that the two forms of imitation are flexibly deployed in accordance with the psychological distance from the model. We specifically hypothesize that individuals are relatively more likely to imitate the model’s goals when s/he is distant but relatively more likely to imitate the model’s specific movements when s/he is proximal. This hypothesis was tested in four experiments using different imitation paradigms and different distance manipulations. Experiment 1 served as a pilot study and demonstrated that temporal distance (vs. proximity) increased imitation of a goal relative to the imitation of a movement. Experiments 2 and 3 measured goal-based and movement-based imitation independently of each other and found that spatial distance (vs. proximity) decreased the rate of goal errors (indicating more goal imitation) compared to movement errors. Experiment 4 demonstrated that psychological distance operates most likely at the input—that is, perceptual—level. The findings are discussed in relation to construal level theory and extant theories of imitation.

scholarly journals Examining the Effects of Overtime Work on Subjective Social Status and Social Inclusion in the Chinese Context

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (9) ◽  
pp. 3265 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yashuo Chen ◽  
Pengbo Li ◽  
Chunjiang Yang
Keyword(s):  
Social Status ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Social Inclusion ◽  
Relative Deprivation ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Negative Relationship ◽  
Subjective Social Status ◽  
Low Level ◽  
Overtime Work ◽  
High Level

Although researchers have argued that long work hours have been shown to threaten individual health, lead to work-family conflict, and reduce job performance, the effect of overtime work on social-related outcomes has received little attention. Based on the framework of relative deprivation, we attempt to address this important issue by exploring whether, why, and when individuals’ overtime work influences their social attitudes. By using the data of 400 Chinese employees from the China Labor-Force Dynamics Survey (CLD), we found that overtime work was associated with a low level of subjective social status and social inclusion. In addition, we found that the time type of overtime work (work overtime on weekdays or on weekends and holidays) has a moderating effect on the relationship between overtime work and social inclusion. That is, employees who work overtime on weekdays are unlikely to have a sense of social inclusion. Furthermore, the negative relationship between overtime work and subjective social status was stronger at a low level of fairness rather than a high level of fairness. In contrast, the negative relationship between overtime work and social inclusion was stronger at a high level of fairness rather than a low level of fairness. These findings highlight the critical role of overtime work in social life and also provide novel insights into social intervention aimed at the happiness and harmony of a society.

Effects of psychological distance perception and psychological factors on pro-environmental behaviors in Taiwan: Application of construal level theory

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mei-Fang Chen
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Psychological Factors ◽  
Distance Perception ◽  
Psychological Distance ◽  
Construal Level Theory ◽  
Equation Modeling ◽  
Environmental Concerns ◽  
Construal Level ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Environmental Behaviors

This study applied construal level theory (CLT) to the perceived psychological distance of climate change to investigate Taiwanese people’s psychological distance perception of climate change. It also considered how this psychological distance perception of climate change and other crucial psychological factors (i.e., values, ecological worldviews, and environmental concerns) may influence people’s pro-environmental behaviors (PEBs). A national self-administered questionnaire survey was performed in Taiwan and 733 responses were analyzed empirically. Structural equation modeling analysis indicated that an individual’s altruistic values are positively related to his or her ecological worldviews. An individual’s ecological worldviews are positively related to his or her psychological distance perception of climate change and environmental concerns regarding the negative consequences of climate change. Such environmental concerns positively motivate engagement in PEBs. However, an individual’s psychological distance perception of climate change does not positively relate to his or her PEBs.

B-Spline based globally optimal segmentation combining low-level and high-level information

2018 ◽  
Vol 73 ◽  
pp. 144-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shenhai Zheng ◽  
Bin Fang ◽  
Laquan Li ◽  
Mingqi Gao ◽  
Rui Chen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
B Spline ◽  
Low Level ◽  
Level Information ◽  
Optimal Segmentation ◽  
High Level
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