Spatial Distance and Mental Construal of Social Events

Kentaro Fujita · Marlone D. Henderson · Juliana Eng · Yaacov Trope B · Nira Liberman

667 citations0/0 files storedPsychological Science

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Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics Social and Intergroup Psychology Language, Metaphor, and Cognition

Abstract

Construal-level theory proposes that increasing the reported spatial distance of events leads individuals to represent the events by their central, abstract, global features (high-level construal) rather than by their peripheral, concrete, local features (low-level construal). Results of two experiments indicated that participants preferred to identify actions as ends rather than as means to a greater extent when these actions occurred at a spatially distant, as opposed to near, location (Study 1), and that they used more abstract language to recall spatially distant events, compared with near events (Study 2). These findings suggest that spatially distant events are associated with high-level construals, and that spatial distance can be conceptualized as a dimension of psychological distance.

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References

2003Temporal construal.1998The role of feasibility and desirability considerations in near and distant future decisions: A test of temporal construal theory.1995The experience of regret: What, when, and why.2002The effect of temporal distance on level of mental construal

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