Spatial Distance and Mental Construal of Social Events

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 experim...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychological science 2006-04, Vol.17 (4), p.278-282
Main Authors: Fujita, Kentaro, Henderson, Marlone D., Eng, Juliana, Trope, Yaacov, Liberman, Nira
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adjectives
Cognition
College students
Distance Perception
Experimental psychology
Female
Human behaviour
Humans
Judgment
Linguistics
Male
Mental objects
Personality psychology
Psychology
Research Reports
Social Environment
Social events
Social psychology
Space Perception
Verbs
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Summary: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.
ISSN:0956-7976
1467-9280
DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01698.x