Orderliness/Disorderliness Is Mentally Associated With Construal Level and Psychological Distance.

Kaiyun Li,Yingchao Dong,Tianze Wang,Fengxun Lin,Zhenxing Zhang,Jiayi Wu,Xinrui Li,Ruikang Han,Yingqi Lv

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02521

Abstract

People are innately capable of exploring and detecting orderliness and of attempting to make the world in which they live more orderly rather than more disorderly. Construal level theory asserts that the same stimuli can be represented abstractly or concretely and that psychological distance can affect the construal level. No research, however, has examined whether perceived orderliness/disorderliness is mentally associated with construal level and psychological distance. In this study, by using the Implicit Association Test (IAT), we conducted 10 studies to examine this possibility. The results of studies 1A–1B showed that people tended to associate high-level construal concepts with orderliness concepts and low-level construal concepts with disorderliness concepts. By contrast, the results of studies 2A–5B revealed that people associated psychologically proximal concepts with orderliness concepts and psychologically distal concepts with disorderliness concepts. These studies demonstrated that orderliness/disorderliness is associated with both construal level and psychological distance, but in opposite directions, suggesting that construal level and psychological distance may have distinct natures.

Highlights

In nature and culture, order and disorder are present everywhere, and humans can avoid or eliminate neither order nor disorder (Koole and Van den Berg, 2005; Vohs et al, 2013)
The same pattern of results emerged in study 1B (Mincongruent = 1351.92 ms ± 289.02 versus Mcongruent = 1171.53 ms ± 341.55), t(35) = 2.82, p = 0.008 < 0.01, Cohen’s d = 0.47, 95% CI [50.45, 310.33]
The results of both study 1A and study 1B supported hypothesis 1, that high-level construal concepts were associated with orderliness concepts more than with disorderliness concepts and that low-level construal concepts were associated with disorderliness concepts more than with orderliness concepts

Summary

Introduction

Order and disorder are present everywhere, and humans can avoid or eliminate neither order nor disorder (Koole and Van den Berg, 2005; Vohs et al, 2013). Humans have evolved to prefer order, structure, and patterns over disorder, randomness, and chaos (Canfield and Haith, 1991; Huettel et al, 2002). Even 2- to 3-month-old infants can seek and detect consistent patterns that would empower them to predict their environment (Canfield and Haith, 1991). The visible perceived order includes social and physical cues (Skogan, 1986; Taylor and Shumaker, 1990). Visual social disorder usually refers to people who are loitering on the streets, drinking to excess, taking drugs, or engaging in dangerous behavior. On the other end of the continuum, visual social and physical order include quiet, drug-free people, no people loitering, and buildings that are clean and in good repair (Ross and Jang, 2000).

Methods

Results

Conclusion