《Construal-Level Theory of Psychological Distance》.pdf

CORRECTED JUNE 7, 2010; SEE LAST PAGE Psychological Review © 2010 American Psychological Association 2010, Vol. 117, No. 2, 440–463 0033-295X/10/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0018963 Construal-Level Theory of Psychological Distance Yaacov Trope Nira Liberman New York University Tel Aviv University 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