Can Implicit Theory Influence Construal Level?

Abstract

Beliefs about stability and change are captured by individuals’ implicit theories. Incremental‐theorists believe that human traits and world‐dispositions are malleable and can change through effort, whereas entity‐theorists believe that human traits and world‐dispositions are fixed. In this research we find that the implicit theory an individual holds influences an important aspect of the cognitive process, namely, the level of construal at which information is processed. In three studies we demonstrate that, compared to entity‐theorists, incremental‐theorists adopt a more abstract level of information construal, and the increased cognitive flexibility afforded by an incremental‐theory mindset explains this effect.

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