Construal-Level Theory of Psychological Distance

• Published in: Psychological review Vol. 117; no. 2; pp. 440 - 463
• Main Authors: Trope, Yaacov, Liberman, Nira
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC American Psychological Association 01-04-2010
• Subjects: Abstraction; Affective Behavior; Behavior; Biological and medical sciences; Brain; Classification; Cognition; Cognition & reasoning; Cognition. Intelligence; Cognitive Processes; Decision Making; Distance Perception; Early Intervention; Egocentrism; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Generalization; Human; Humans; Ideology; Inferences; Knowledge Level; Mind; Miscellaneous; Neuropsychology; Novelty (Stimulus Dimension); Pictorial Stimuli; Planning; Prediction; Psychological aspects; Psychological Distance; Psychological Patterns; Psychological Studies; Psychological Theories; Psychological Theory; Psychology; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Psychophysics; Self; Self Control; Social action; Social distance; Social Influences; Space Perception; Spatial Ability; Stimuli; Theory; Thinking; Thinking Skills; Time; Visual Perception; Vocabulary; psychological distance; mental construal; abstraction; mental travel; Human; Social perception; Theory; Cognition; Space perception; Time; Abstraction; Time perception
• ISSN: 0033-295X; 1939-1471
• DOI: 10.1037/a0018963

People are capable of thinking about the future, the past, remote locations, another person's perspective, and counterfactual alternatives. Without denying the uniqueness of each process, it is proposed that they constitute different forms of traversing psychological distance. Psychological distance is egocentric: Its reference point is the self in the here and now, and the different ways in which an object might be removed from that point-in time, in space, in social distance, and in hypotheticality-constitute different distance dimensions. Transcending the self in the here and now entails mental construal, and the farther removed an object is from direct experience, the higher (more abstract) the level of construal of that object. Supporting this analysis, research shows (a) that the various distances are cognitively related to each other, (b) that they similarly influence and are influenced by level of mental construal, and (c) that they similarly affect prediction, preference, and action.