Can't see the forest for the trees: Time poverty influences construal level and the moderating role of autonomous versus controlled motivation

In today's fast-paced world, increasing numbers of individuals face time poverty, i.e., having too much to do and not enough time. The current research conducted six studies (total valid N = 1307) examining whether time poverty influences individuals' construal levels and the moderating role of individuals' motivations towards what they do. The results consistently suggest that time poverty leads individuals to adopt more concrete construal regardless of whether time poverty was measured (Study 1) or manipulated either by a scenario (Studies 2a, 3-5) or by a recall task (Study 2b). Concrete construal prioritizes the "how" over the "why" aspect of actions (Studies 1 and 2a) and emphasizes secondary rather than primary features of options (Studies 2b, 3-5). Meanwhile, the results supported the moderating role of motivations (Studies 3-5). Specifically, compared with those experiencing time poverty due to too many things they "have-to" do (controlled motivation), those experiencing time poverty because of too many things they "want-to" do (autonomous motivation) demonstrated weaker tendencies towards adopting concrete construal. Taken together, our findings contribute to the growing literature on how the chronic perception of time poverty shapes the way people feel, think and do.

The Wise Mind Balances the Abstract and the Concrete

We explored how individuals' mental representations of complex and uncertain situations impact their ability to reason wisely. To this end, we introduce situated methods to capture abstract and concrete mental representations and the switching between them when reflecting on social challenges. Using these methods, we evaluated the alignment of abstractness and concreteness with four integral facets of wisdom: intellectual humility, open-mindedness, perspective-taking, and compromise-seeking. Data from North American and UK participants (N = 1,151) revealed that both abstract and concrete construals significantly contribute to wise reasoning, even when controlling for a host of relevant covariates and potential response bias. Natural language processing of unstructured texts among high (top 25%) and low (bottom 25%) wisdom participants corroborated these results: semantic networks of the high wisdom group reveal greater use of both abstract and concrete themes compared to the low wisdom group. Finally, employing a repeated strategy-choice method as an additional measure, our findings demonstrated that individuals who showed a greater balance and switching between these construal types exhibited higher wisdom. Our findings advance understanding of individual differences in mental representations and how construals shape reasoning across contexts in everyday life.

Mental Time Travel as Self-Affirmation

ACADEMIC ABSTRACT

This article integrates and advances the scope of research on the role of mental time travel in bolstering the self. We propose that imagining the self in the future (prospection) or in the past (retrospection) highlights central and positive self-aspects. Thus, bringing to mind one's future or past broadens the perceived bases of self-integrity and offers a route to self-affirmation. In reviewing corresponding research programs on self-prospection and nostalgia, we illustrate that mental time travel serves to affirm the self in terms of self-esteem, coherence, and control. Mental time travel could be implemented as a source of self-affirmation for facilitating coping and behavior change in several domains such as relationships, health, education, and organizational contexts.

PUBLIC ABSTRACT

People can mentally travel to their future or to their past. When people imagine what they will be like in the future, or what they were like in the past, they tend to think about themselves in terms of the important and positive attributes that they possess. Thinking about themselves in such an affirming way expands and consolidates their self-views. This broader image of themselves can increase self-esteem (the extent to which one likes who they are), coherence (the extent to which one perceives life as meaningful), and control (the extent to which one feels capable of initiating and pursuing goals or effecting desirable outcomes). Mental time travel, then, has favorable or affirming consequences for one's self-views. These consequences can be harnessed to modify one's behavior in such life domains as relationships, health, education, and work.

Fear and anxiety differ in construal level and scope

The fear-anxiety distinction has been extensively discussed and debated among emotion researchers. In this study, we tested this distinction from a social-cognitive perspective. Drawing on construal level theory and regulatory scope theory, we examined whether fear and anxiety differ in their underlying level of construal and scope. Results from a preregistered autobiographical recall study (N = 200) that concerned either a fear situation or an anxiety situation and a large dataset from Twitter (N = 104,949) indicated that anxiety was associated with a higher level of construal and a more expansive scope than fear. These findings support the notion that emotions serve as mental tools that deal with different challenges. While fear prompts people to seek immediate solutions to concrete threats in the here and now (contractive scope), anxiety prompts them to deal with distant and unknown threats that require more expansive and flexible solutions (expansive scope). Our study contributes to a growing literature on emotions and construal level and points to interesting avenues for further research.

Predicting Academic Performance with an Assessment of Students’ Knowledge of the Benefits of High-Level and Low-Level Construal

Metamotivation research suggests that people understand the benefits of engaging in high-level versus low-level construal (i.e., orienting toward the abstract, essential versus concrete, idiosyncratic features of events) in goal-directed behavior. The current research examines the psychometric properties of one assessment of this knowledge and tests whether it predicts consequential outcomes (academic performance). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses revealed a two-factor structure, whereby knowledge of the benefits of high-level construal (i.e., high-level knowledge) and low-level construal (i.e., low-level knowledge) were distinct constructs. Participants on average evidenced beliefs about the normative benefits of high-level and low-level knowledge that accord with published research. Critically, individual differences in high-level and low-level knowledge independently predicted grades, controlling for traditional correlates of grades. These findings suggest metamotivational knowledge may be a key antecedent to goal success and lead to novel diagnostic assessments and interventions.

Emotion Regulation by Psychological Distance and Level of Abstraction: Two Meta-Analyses

Self-reflection is suggested to attenuate feelings, yet researchers disagree on whether adopting a distant or near perspective, or processing the experience abstractly or concretely, is more effective. Given the relationship between psychological distance and level of abstraction, we suggest the "construal-matching hypothesis": Psychological distance and abstraction differently influence emotion intensity, depending on whether the emotion's appraisal involves low-level or high-level construal. Two meta-analyses tested the effects of psychological distance (k = 230) and level-of-abstraction (k = 98) manipulations on emotional experience. A distant perspective attenuated emotional experience (g = 0.52) but with weaker effects for high-level (g = 0.29; for example, self-conscious emotions) than low-level emotions (g= 0.64; for example, basic emotions). Level of abstraction only attenuated the experience of low-level emotions (g = 0.2) and showed a reverse (nonsignificant) effect for high-level emotions (g = -0.13). These results highlight differences between distancing and level-of-abstraction manipulations and the importance of considering the type of emotion experienced in emotion regulation.

Aging Impairs Inhibitory Control Over Incidental Cues: A Construal-Level Perspective

Age-related changes in decision making have been attributed to deterioration of cognitive skills, such as learning and memory. On the basis of past research showing age-related decreases in the ability to inhibit irrelevant information, we hypothesize that these changes occur, in part, because of older adults' tendency to give more weight to low-level, subordinate, and goal-irrelevant information than younger adults do. Consistent with this hypothesis, our findings demonstrated that young adults are willing to pay more for a product with superior end attributes than a product with superior means attributes (Study 1, N = 200) and are more satisfied after an experience with superior end than means attributes (Study 2, N = 399). Young adults are also more satisfied with a goal-relevant than with a goal-irrelevant product (Study 3, N = 201; Study 4, N = 200, preregistered). Importantly, these effects were attenuated with age. Implications for research on construal level and aging, as well as implications for policymakers, are discussed.

Psychological distance and the pandemic: Insights from Construal Level Theory and relationship science

The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has brought about unprecedented challenges to public health. Compounding these hardships is the fact that typical social functions such as maintaining valued relationships cannot proceed as usual. Social cognitive perspectives like that presented by Construal Level Theory (CLT) can provide a valuable framework for understanding our unique interpersonal experiences during this difficult time, and potentially offer avenues for adaptation and healthier coping. I begin by introducing CLT and follow with a discussion of its implications for understanding the psychological effects of social distancing on our interpersonal relationships and pursuit of social goals. I describe how abstract and concrete construals can affect our experiences of maintaining close relationships that vary widely in terms of geographic distance or separation. CLT can offer insight not only into how geographic distance or closeness may shape our thoughts and feelings about our close others, but also how we approach pursuing goals that are directly or indirectly shaped by these close others. The more effectively we can frame and communicate about experiences during this challenging time in history, the better equipped we may be to support our public health apparatus and satisfy our psychological needs.

Differential effects of abstract and concrete processing on the reactivity of basic and self-conscious emotions

The present research examines the influence of different processing modes (abstract vs. concrete) on the intensity of negative basic emotions (anger, fear) and self-conscious emotions (guilt, shame). We suggest that the cognitive appraisals underlying self-conscious emotions are relatively more abstract and less concrete than the appraisals underlying basic emotions. Consequently, we predicted that abstract processing would increase the intensity of self-conscious emotions and decrease the intensity of basic emotions, whereas concrete processing would increase the intensity of basic emotions and decrease the intensity of self-conscious emotions. We tested this prediction in four experiments. In Experiments 1 and 2, concrete processing led to more intense anger than abstract processing, and abstract processing led to more intense guilt than concrete processing. In Experiment 3a, concrete processing increased the intensity of fear, and in Experiment 3b, concrete processing decreased the intensity of shame. Our findings highlight the importance of considering the emotion's underlying appraisals when reflecting on one's emotional experience.