Construing in a crowd: The effects of social crowding on mental construal

Abstract

How does social crowdedness shape the way people mentally represent objects in the environment? Building on research suggesting that motivational intensity can serve to influence the span of conceptual scope, we demonstrate that individuals in socially crowded environments tend to rely on concrete low-level construals, while those in less crowded environments utilize more abstract high-level construals. We further demonstrate that these effects are mediated by a social crowding induced avoidance motivation, and are moderated by the composition of the crowd.