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). (shrink)

It has been argued that affordances are not meaningful and are thus not useful to be applied in contexts where specifically meaningfulness of experience is at stake (e.g. clinical contexts or discussions of autonomous agency). This paper aims to reconceptualize affordances such as to make them relevant and applicable in such contexts. It starts by investigating the ‘ambiguity’ of (possibilities for) action. In both philosophy of action and affordance research, this ambiguity is typically resolved by adhering to the agents intentions (...) and concerns. I discuss some recent accounts of affordances that highlight these concerns but argue that they tend to adopt an ‘atomistic’ approach where there is no acknowledgement of how these concerns are embedded in the agents wider concerns, values, projects and commitments. An holistic approach that does acknowledge this can be found in psychological research on agents having a sense of what they’re doing. I will discuss this research in the second part of the paper and argue that agents can analogously have a sense of what is afforded. This is deemed the entry point for understanding the meaningfulness of affordances. In the final part of the paper I apply this analysis to recent attempts which seek to make sense of authentic and autonomous agency in terms of affordances. (shrink)

This research examines how and why reactions to other consumers’ unethical behavior differ among consumers and vary in different situations. Drawing on construal level theory, the authors propose that the relationship between other consumers’ unethical behavior and focal consumers’ unethical behavior is moderated by focal consumers’ construal level, and self-expressiveness mediates this moderating effect. Specifically, consumers at higher construal levels tend to view their behavior as more self-expressive and are thus less likely to imitate other consumers’ unethical behavior. Study 1 (...) indicates that focal consumers who have a chronic tendency to construe information at high levels are less likely to replicate other consumers’ unethical behavior than those who have a chronic tendency to construe information at low levels. Studies 2, 3a and 3b show that when primed with higher-level construals, consumers are less likely to follow other consumers’ unethical behavior than when primed with lower-level construals. The mediating effect of self-expressiveness was tested and supported in Study 1 and Study 3b. These findings help to better understand consumers’ reactions to other consumers’ unethical behavior. (shrink)

The purpose of the study is to investigate the relationships between agentic and communal values, job related affective well-being, and political deviance. An empirical study was performed in Turkey among the health care staff working in five health care organizations. The findings supported the reasoning of the study: Positive associations of communal values with job related affective well-being and agentic values with political deviance were found. In addition, negative association between communal values and political deviance was reported. In contrast to (...) the suggestions of this study, a positive association between agentic values and affective wellbeing was found. The research results were evaluated with their conceptual implications. (shrink)

Research on self-agency emphasizes the importance of a comparing mechanism, which scans for a match between anticipated and actual outcomes, in the subjective experience of doing.This study explored the “feeling of doing” in individuals with checking symptoms by examining the mechanism involved in the experienced agency for outcomes that matched expectations. This mechanism was explored using a task in which the subliminal priming of potential action-effects generally enhances people’s feeling of causing these effects when they occur, due to the unconscious (...) perception of a match between primed and observed outcomes. The main result revealed a negative relationship between checking and self-agency for observed outcomes that were primed prior to actions. This suggests that checking individuals fail to grasp the correspondence between actual outcomes of their actions and expected ones. We discuss the possible role of undermined self-agency in checking phenomena and its relationship with cognitive dysfunction. (shrink)

Episodic memories can no longer be seen as the re-activation of stored experiences but are the product of an intense construction process based on a memory trace. Episodic recall is a result of a process of scenario construction. If one accepts this generative framework of episodic memory, there is still a be big gap in understanding the role of the narrative self in shaping scenario construction. Some philosophers are in principle sceptic by claiming that a narrative self cannot be more (...) than a causally inefficacious attributed entity anyway. Thus, we first characterize a narrative self in detail and second we clarify its influential causal role in shaping our episodic memories by influencing the process of scenario construction. This happens at three stages, namely at the level of the input, the output and the process of scenario construction. (shrink)

Episodic memories can no longer be seen as the re-activation of stored experiences but are the product of an intense construction process based on a memory trace. Episodic recall is a result of a process of scenario construction. If one accepts this generative framework of episodic memory, there is still a be big gap in understanding the role of the narrative self in shaping scenario construction. Some philosophers are in principle sceptic by claiming that a narrative self cannot be more (...) than a causally inefficacious attributed entity anyway. Thus, we first characterize a narrative self in detail and second we clarify its influential causal role in shaping our episodic memories by influencing the process of scenario construction. This happens at three stages, namely at the level of the input, the output and the process of scenario construction. (shrink)

Dialogue has its origins in joint activities, which it serves to coordinate. Joint activities, in turn, usually emerge in hierarchically nested projects and subprojects. We propose that participants use dialogue to coordinate two kinds of transitions in these joint projects: vertical transitions, or entering and exiting joint projects; and horizontal transitions, or continuing within joint projects. The participants help signal these transitions with project markers, words such as uh-huh, m-hm, yeah, okay, or all right. These words have been studied mainly (...) as signals of listener feedback (back-channel signals) or turn-taking devices (acknowledgment tokens). We present evidence from several types of well-defined tasks that they are also part of a system of contrasts specialized for navigating joint projects. Uh-huh, m-hm and yeah are used for horizontal transitions, and okay and all right for vertical transitions. (shrink)

Recent research suggests that one can have the feeling of being the cause of an action’s outcome, even in the absence of a prior intention to act. That is, experienced self-agency over behavior increases when outcome representations are primed outside of awareness, prior to executing the action and observing the resulting outcome. Based on the notion that behavior can be represented at different levels, we propose that priming outcome representations is more likely to augment self-agency experiences when the primed representation (...) corresponds with a person’s behavior representation level. Three experiments, using different priming and self-agency tasks, both measuring and manipulating the level of behavior representation, confirmed this idea. Priming high level outcome representations enhanced experienced self-agency over behavior more strongly when behavior was represented at a higher level, rather than a lower level. Thus, priming effects on self-agency experiences critically depend on behavior representation level. (shrink)

Two components of lay observers’ calculus of moral judgment are proximal intent (the actor’s mind is focused on performing the action) and distal intent (the actor’s mind is focused on the broader goal). What causes observers to prioritize one form of intent over the other? The authors observed whether construal level (Studies 1-2) and beliefs about free will (Studies 3-4) would influence participants’ sensitivity to the actor’s proximal versus distal intent. In four studies, participants read scenarios in which the actor’s (...) proximal and distal intent were independently manipulated. In Study 1, when only distal intent was present in the actor’s mind, participants rated the psychologically distant actor more responsible than the psychologically near actor. In Study 2, when only distal intent was in the actor’s mind, participants with a chronic high level of action identification rated the actor more responsible than did those with a low level of action identification. In both studies, when only proximal intent was in the actor’s mind, construal level did not predict judgments of responsibility. In Study 3, when only proximal intent was present in the actor’s mind, the more participants believed in free will, the more they rated the actor responsible. When only distal intent was in the actor’s mind, free will belief did not influence ratings of responsibility. In Study 4, the same pattern emerged when free will / determinism beliefs were manipulated and the actor performed a positive (life-saving) act. The authors discuss how these results shed new light on the literatures on moral reasoning and psycho-legal theory. (shrink)

This study examined cognitive representations of routine action, through the assessment of level of agency, in individuals with sub-clinical checking. The level of agency stems from Action Identification Theory [Vallacher, R. R., Wegner, D. M. . Levels of personal agency: Individual variation in action identification. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 57, 660–671], which states that how actions are usually identified reflects the predominant accessibility of internal representation . Furthermore, this framework proposed that altered action regulation is related to low-level (...) of agency . In the current study, the main result indicated that checking symptoms were related to a low-level of agency, that is, individuals with sub-clinical checking identified habitual actions on the basis of instrumental aspects. This seems to indicate that checkers may act with a lack of goal representations. The results are discussed in terms of the role of low-level of agency in checking phenomena and related cognitive dysfunction. (shrink)

AntecedentsPrevious research on citizens’ reactions after terrorist events has shown that positive reactions can also emerge alongside pain and horror. Positive emotions have been widely associated with an abstract style of thinking. In the context of the Paris terrorist attacks in 2015, we explored Spanish citizens’ positive reactions – empathic concern, positive emotional climate, and esteem for humanity – and examined the relationships of these responses with an abstract style of thinking.MethodA longitudinal study was designed involving an online questionnaire that (...) was administered 10 days, 3 weeks, and 2 months after the attacks.ResultsEmpathic concern and personal distress toward Parisians decreased from the weeks following the attacks to 2 months later, with empathic concern always being more intense than personal distress. Emotional climate was perceived as more hostile than positive, although positive feelings persisted. People reported moderately positive esteem for humanity. Individuals with a more abstract style of thinking reported greater empathic concern, a more positive emotional climate, and more esteem for humanity.ConclusionsOur results support and extend previous research showing that abstraction enhances people’s resilience, even under traumatic circumstances such as those surrounding a terrorist attack. (shrink)

The sense of agency – the subjective feeling of being in control of our own actions – is one central aspect of the phenomenology of action. Computational models provided important contributions toward unveiling the mechanisms underlying the sense of agency in individual action. In particular, the sense of agency is believed to be related to the match between the actual and predicted consequences of our own actions (comparator model). In the study of joint action, models are even more necessary to (...) understand the mechanisms underlying the development of coordination strategies and how the subjective experiences of control emerge during the interaction. In a joint action, we not only need to predict the consequences of our own actions; we also need to predict the actions and intentions of our partner, and to integrate these predictions to infer their joint consequences. Understanding our partner and developing mutually satisfactory coordination strategies are key components of joint action and in the development of the sense of joint agency. Here we discuss a computational architecture which addresses the sense of agency during intentional, real-time joint action. We first reformulate previous accounts of the sense of agency in probabilistic terms, as the combination of prior beliefs about the action goals and constraints, and the likelihood of the predicted movement outcomes. To look at the sense of joint agency, we extend classical computational motor control concepts - optimal estimation and optimal control. Regarding estimation, we argue that in joint action the players not only need to predict the consequences of their own actions, but also need to predict partner’s actions and intentions (a ‘partner model’) and to integrate these predictions to infer their joint consequences. As regards action selection, we use differential game theory – in which actions develop in continuous space and time - to formulate the problem of establishing a stable form of coordination and as a natural extension of optimal control to joint action. The resulting model posits two concurrent observer-controller loops, accounting for ‘joint’ and ‘self’ action control. The two observers quantify the likelihoods of being in control alone or jointly. Combined with prior beliefs, they provide weighing signals which are used to modulate the ‘joint’ and ‘self’ motor commands. We argue that these signals can be interpreted as the subjective sense of joint and self agency. We demonstrate the model predictions by simulating a sensorimotor interactive task where two players are mechanically coupled and are instructed to perform planar movements to reach a shared final target by crossing two differently located intermediate targets. In particular, we explore the relation between self and joint agency and the information available to each player about their partner. The proposed model provides a coherent picture of the inter-relation of prediction, control, and the sense of agency in a broader range of joint actions. (shrink)

Recent research in moral psychology has highlighted how the current internal states of observers can influence their moral judgments of others’ actions. In this article, we argue that an important internal state that serves such a function is the sense of control one has over one’s own actions. Across four studies, we show that an individual’s own current sense of control is positively associated with the intensity of moral judgments of the actions of others. We also show that this effect (...) extends not only to judgments of rightness and wrongness (Study 1), but also to assignments of reward and punishment (Study 2). Finally, we demonstrate that this effect is based on the current experience of control by showing a moderation of the effect via motivational states (promotion; prevention) that either lead one to incorporate or disregard internal states when making judgments (Study 3) and by subtly manipulating participants’ sense of control (Study 4). (shrink)

John Searle’s account of collective intentions in action appears to have all the theoretical pros of the non-reductivist view on collective intentionality without the metaphysical cons of committing to the existence of group minds. According to Searle, when we collectively intend to do something together, we intend to cooperate in order to reach a collective goal. Intentions in the first-person plural form therefore have a particular psychological form or mode, for the we-intender conceives of his or her intended actions as (...) singular contributions by means of which – or: by way of which – a collective goal is pursued. Accordingly, we-intentions are held to have a psychological mode with a “collective goal by means of singular contribution” structure, which makes them primitive and irreducible to intentions in the I-form. It is further contended that, albeit primitive and irreducible, we-intentions are not the mental states of an alleged group mind but always of an individual’s mind. This paper targets Searle’s claim of irreducibility by developing an argument whose aim is to show that, pace Searle, it is possible to track the idea of intentions with a psychological mode structured in terms of “collective goal by means of singular contribution” back to the concept of intentions in the I-form. The argument mainly relies on the idea that Searle’s technical expressions “being a collective goal by means of singular contribution intention in action” or “being a collective goal by way of singular contribution intention in action” are susceptible to conceptual analysis. The upshot of this analysis is that we-intentions can be reduced to complex bundles of mental states, all of which come in the first-person singular form. If this argument is sound, Searlean we-intentions do not belong to a primitive kind of mental states. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Cognitive Linguistics Jahrgang: 26 Heft: 4 Seiten: 633-656.

As the number of consumer transgressions continues to increase, so do their financial repercussions for companies. Though academic and managerial interest in addressing this issue is growing, research on how to dissuade consumers from committing transgressions remains scarce. Drawing on the mental imagery literature and normative moral theory, the present research examines a novel way of reducing consumers’ appraisals of their own transgressions. Whereas an actor-imagery perspective fosters a teleological, egoistic view of morality and, in turn, induces moral leniency, having (...) consumers adopt an observer-imagery perspective fosters a deontological view of morality and, in turn, induces moral stringency. The effects are robust across various types of consumer transgressions, including the purchase of counterfeit products and return fraud in the form of wardrobing. Study 2 also rules out vividness as an alternative explanation for these effects. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed. (shrink)

Two for the seesaw: requester and requested Research on emotion conducted so far has usually ignored situations where the person experiences a certain emotion, but where the external stimulus that evoked and upholds this emotion suddenly disappears. This kind of situation, however, is relatively common in everyday life. This article attempts to recognize certain consequences of those conditions under which the stimuli justifying our experience of such emotional states as fear or anxiety suddenly disappear. Research done to data by the (...) author and his colleagues indicates increased compliance of the subject when addressed with various requests, commands or suggestion in the situation termed here "emotional see-saw" or "fear-then-relief". (shrink)

Escalation of commitment causes people to continue a failing course of action. We study the role of construal level in such escalation of commitment. Consistent with the widely held view of construal level as a primed effect, we employed a commonly used prime for manipulating this construct in a laboratory experiment. Our findings revealed that the prime failed to produce statistically significant differences in construal level, which was measured using the Behavior Identification Form. Furthermore, there was no effect of the (...) prime on escalation of commitment, or on constructs that have previously been linked to construal level such as the perceived importance of feasibility considerations relative to desirability considerations, and the number of pros and cons that subjects can think of.Interestingly, however, subjects’ actual construal level scores on the BIF were found to significantly affect escalation. Specifically, our findings show that people with a low construal level are less willing to continue a failing project. This relation is mediated by the perceived importance of the feasibility of the project relative to its desirability. For people with a low construal level, the perceived importance of feasibility relative to desirability is higher, which in turn makes escalation of commitment less likely.Our findings are consistent with prior research suggesting that priming construal level may not always be effective. Thus, while construal level has typically been regarded as a state-like variable that can be primed, in this study, we show that construal level may also be considered as a trait. (shrink)

As more and more instances of corporate hypocrisy become public, consumers have developed an inherent general skepticism towards firms’ corporate social responsibility claims. As CSR skepticism bears heavily on consumers’ attitudes and behavior, this paper draws from Construal Level Theory to identify how it can be pre-emptively abated. We posit that this general skepticism towards CSR leads people to adopt a low-level construal mindset when processing CSR information. Across four studies, we show that matching this low-level mindset with concrete CSR (...) messaging works to effectively mitigate the negative effects of inherent CSR skepticism on consumers’ attitudes, purchase intentions, and word of mouth. The resulting construal-mindset congruency strengthens the favorability of consumer responses through increased positive elaboration and perceptions of CSR message credibility. Furthermore, this congruency effect is shown to persist over time in skeptical domains but to dissipate in less skeptical domains. (shrink)

Two questions are addressed in this article: 1. Why are people attracted to leaders? 2. How are leaders' images construed? The first question is analyzed by using the concept of “deity” as a frame of reference for an “ideal model” of leadership. God as a “screen of projections” can satisfy the believer's fundamental needs and desires, as well as serving as a reference for causal attributions and a provider of transcendental meaning. Using Construal Level Theory, deity, as a frame of (...) reference, also facilitates analysis of the second question. This analysis explains universal principles underlying the leadership construal, and the psychological principles and culture-bound processes relevant to construing different images of leadership in different collectives. (shrink)

This research investigates the importance of trade-off salience in understanding how variations in consumers’ construal levels can influence moral judgments. Across five experiments, trade-offs are implied and explicitly made salient, and construal levels are manipulated by altering temporal distance and perceptual fluency, and by using a well-established cognitive method. Consistent with prior research, we demonstrate that higher construal levels can reduce anticipated unethical behavior, when trade-offs are not salient, by making higher-level moral values more prominent. When trade-offs are salient, however, (...) we reveal that unethical behavior is increased when construal levels are elevated by making desirability-related thoughts relatively more prominent, compared to feasibility-related thoughts. Tests of mediation provide support for the role of desirability- and feasibility-related thoughts. Together, our results provide insight into the opposing predictions made by construal level theory for ethical decision making by revealing how trade-off salience, often inherent in ethical dilemmas, systematically influences the effects of construal level on ethical decision making. (shrink)

In English, two deictic space-time metaphors are in common usage: the Moving Ego metaphor conceptualizes the ego as moving forward through time and the Moving Time metaphor conceptualizes time as moving forward toward the ego . Although earlier research investigating the psychological reality of these metaphors has typically examined spatial influences on temporal reasoning , recent lines of research have extended beyond this, providing initial evidence that personality differences and emotional experiences may also influence how people reason about events in (...) time . In this article, we investigate whether these relationships have force in real life. Building on the effects of individual differences in self-reported conscientiousness and procrastination found by Duffy and Feist , we examined whether, in addition to self-reported conscientiousness and procrastination, there is a relationship between conscientious and procrastinating behaviors and temporal perspective. We found that participants who adopted the Moving Time perspective were more likely to exhibit conscientious behaviors, while those who adopted the Moving Ego perspective were more likely to procrastinate, suggesting that the earlier effects reach beyond the laboratory. (shrink)

Through the ability to preview the future , people can anticipate how best to think, feel and act in just about any setting. But exactly what factors determine the contents of prospection? Extending research on action identification and temporal construal, here we explored how action goals and temporal distance modulate the characteristics of future previews. Participants were required to imagine travelling to Egypt to climb or photograph a pyramid. Afterwards, to probe the contents of prospection, participants provided a sketch of (...) their imaginary experience. Results elucidated the impact of goal type and temporal distance on mental imagery. While a climbing goal prompted participants to draw a larger pyramid in the near than distant future, a photographic goal influenced only the compositional complexity of the sketches. These findings reveal how action goals and temporal distance shape the contents of future simulations. (shrink)

Identification with all humanity is viewed as a critical construct that facilitates global solidarity. However, its origins have rarely been explored in previous literature, and no study has yet investigated the role of pop-culture in cultivating IWAH. To address this gap, this study initially focuses on science fiction, a specific pop-culture genre with worldwide audiences, and examines its effect on IWAH. It hypothesized a direct association between sci-fi engagement and IWAH from the narrative persuasion approach, and an indirect association via (...) abstract construal based on the cognitive-literary approach. Moreover, the moderating role of actively open-minded thinking in the direct and indirect association was also assessed. Results were obtained through a cross-sectional survey conducted in China and showed that sci-fi engagement was positively associated with IWAH; this association was also partially mediated by abstract construal. Interestingly, and inconsistent with our hypotheses, AOT positively moderated the indirect effect but negatively moderated the direct effect. Theoretical and practical implications for cultivating IWAH from the media and pop-cultural perspective were discussed. (shrink)

Drawing on the theory of cognitive-affective processing system and that of construal level, we propose a moderated mediation model illustrating the relationship among abusive supervision, shame, construal level, and work withdrawal. We tested this model with a two-source time-lagged survey of 387 employees from 129 work teams in central and East China. Results revealed that abusive supervision had a positive association with the emotion of shame and supported the mediating role of shame linking abusive supervision to work withdrawal. Besides, our (...) findings supported the buffering effect of construal level on the shame-work withdrawal relationship as well as the indirect relationship between abusive supervision and work withdrawal channeled through the emotion of shame. (shrink)