Premium
The Effect of Psychological Distance on Perceptual Level of Construal
Author(s) -
Liberman Nira,
Förster Jens
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
cognitive science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.498
H-Index - 114
eISSN - 1551-6709
pISSN - 0364-0213
DOI - 10.1111/j.1551-6709.2009.01061.x
Subject(s) - construal level theory , trope (literature) , perception , psychology , cognitive psychology , social psychology , control (management) , social distance , computer science , artificial intelligence , linguistics , medicine , philosophy , disease , covid-19 , pathology , neuroscience , infectious disease (medical specialty)
Three studies examined the effect of primed psychological distance on level of perceptual construal, using Navon’s paradigm of composite letters (global letters that are made of local letters). Relative to a control group, thinking of the more distant future (Study 1), about more distant spatial locations (Study 2), and about more distant social relations (Study 3) facilitated perception of global letters relative to local letters. Proximal times, spatial locations, and social relations had the opposite effect. The results are discussed within the framework of Construal Level Theory of psychological distance (Liberman & Trope, 2008; Trope & Liberman, 2003).