Construal Level Theory Research Articles

Developing Creative Leadership in the Use of Digital Communication Tools: A Psychological Perspective

Creative organizations have shifted their daily communication to the virtual environment in response to COVID-19. This study examines how media use affects the communication effectiveness between creative leaders and followers from a psychological perspective by reviewing the comprehensive literature on creative leadership, media use, and psychological distance. A mixed-method methodology is employed to investigate ten common media configurations. The findings indicate that configured digital communication tools create certain levels of psychological distance between leaders and followers. Thus, it is crucial for creative leaders to match the psychological distance of different media and construal orientations of creative tasks to cultivate followers’ creativity. Using reflective interviews with creative professionals, we determined the impact of psychological distance on creative leadership from three aspects: task performance, member feelings perception and technology selection. We also identified several situations that might hinder creativity. To conclude, this study proposes a “Cognitive Model of Media Use Strategy in Creative Leadership”, which aims to bridge the gap between creative leadership theory and media use theory from the organizational psychology perspective. This study confirms that psychological distance exists in the digital environment, thus expanding the application scenarios of “Construal Level Theory” as well as providing practical implications for media selection in creative leading processes.

Novel products and advertising visuals: the mediating role of perceived luxuriousness on willingness to try clean meat products

Underpinned by art infusion theory and construal level theory, this research examines the role of illustrations and photographs in advertising a novel product (i.e. clean meat) and explores the underlying psychological mechanism of luxuriousness. We conducted three experiments to examine the differential effects of illustrations and photographs on customers’ willingness to try a meat product and ascertain whether this relationship was mediated by perceived luxuriousness. Participants reported a greater willingness to try a novel product, such as clean meat, when the advertisement featured an illustration (vs. a photograph), demonstrating the art infusion effect. However, there were non-significant differences among participants in terms of their willingness to try a familiar product, such as conventional meat. The indirect effect of illustration on willingness to try clean mean via perceived luxuriousness was stronger compared to the conventional meat condition. This mediation effect of luxuriousness was also validated using the moderation-of-process approach. The findings provide meaningful guidelines to marketing practitioners and highlight the pertinence of art infusion to clean meat consumption, a relatively unexplored research area.

So Close, Yet So Far Away: Exploring the Role of Psychological Distance from Climate Change on Corporate Sustainability

Despite some improvements and increasing social pressures, most organizations seem to be stagnating in a superficial implementation of sustainability practices despite the accumulation of climate change consequences. Research on corporate sustainability has shown that external pressures and psychological factors influence managers’ environmental decisions. However, these psychological factors have been undertheorized in the management research field. The concept of psychological distance has shown promising results in studying environmental behaviors. This concept is rooted in the construal level theory and is defined as the subjective experience of feeling that something is close or far away from the self, the here and the now. Therefore, it represents a relevant path for exploration in research on corporate sustainability. The main goals of this integrative review are to explore how the concept of psychological distance has been employed in research on corporate sustainability and to explore related concepts from this research field. Additionally, concepts that are related to the four dimensions of psychological distance (i.e., temporal, spatial, social, and hypothetical) are critically discussed. The links between these concepts and their impacts on sustainability endeavors within organizations are then visually presented through a conceptual map, which forms the main contribution of this review. Further theoretical contributions are presented, the implications for managers are discussed, and future research avenues are proposed.

Preference reversal: Analysis using construal level theory that incorporates discounting

According to the behavioral decision theory, time discounting is often used to explain preference reversals. However, the discounting theory fails to explain some types of preference reversals. Furthermore, preference reversals are limited to those along the time axis (i.e., temporal distance). To extend our knowledge of preference reversals in various choice contexts, this study constructs an analytical framework that combines the time discounting notion of behavioral decision theory and construal level theory developed in social psychology. We put forward three propositions for discounting: magnitude effect (the higher the construal level, the smaller the discounting rate), sign effect (the discounting rate is smaller for losses than for gains), and generalization of distance (discounting applies not only to temporal distance but also to psychological distances such as social distance). These propositions were validated in two studies. In Study 1, we conducted a series of three experiments on a lottery choice task using two samples of respondents (i.e., students and a web panel). In Study 2, we estimated the discounting rates of the higher and lower construal levels by employing multiple intertemporal choice tasks. While many choices involve trade-offs among attributes, the effects of changes in psychological distances are not clear. However, by identifying whether these attributes evoke high or low construal levels and whether the aspects are related to gains or losses, our approach greatly facilitates the analysis of how evaluation and preference are affected by psychological distance, and consequently, that of preference reversal behavior.

How Employees Experience Digital Transformation: A Dynamic And Multi-Layered Sensemaking Perspective

The capacity to deal with digital transformation is a valuable asset for established organizations, and employees play a crucial role in this process. This study contributes to the understanding of employees’ sensemaking of digital transformation in the tour operating industry. Using prior digital transformation research, construal-level theory (CLT), and dynamic change perspectives, our scholarly work focuses on the complexities of organizational change in a digital transformation context. Although employees generally support digital transformation, our findings show that their perceptions change over time across a range of specific challenges experienced during the employee change journey. Our findings stress the importance of adopting a social exchange lens in digital transformation knowledge as this represents deep structure change that might cause well-designed transformation processes to fail. Implications for hospitality and tourism management are discussed.

Is something out of reach more attractive? The effectiveness of visual distance in computational advertising.

With the development of mobile Internet technology, firms need to complete the entire process of consumer targeting, ad content generation, and ad display in a very short time window. Therefore, computational advertising, such as native ads on social media platforms, has become the mainstream of online advertising with its automation and personalization features. However, computational advertising faces some problems when using artificial intelligence technology to generate content. First, the images should have a significant enough impact on consumers and be easy to adjust to save computational power at the same time; second, the iteration of the computational advertising system relies on consumer behaviors or advertising effectiveness, and firms need to learn the relationship between ad design and consumer behaviors. Under the above two problems, this paper selects visual distance as the main variable, and images can be adjusted by cropping to save computational power. This paper incorporates image design and ad effectiveness metrics into the construal level theory framework, under which the effectiveness metrics can be quickly determined. Following previous studies, we use click-through rate (CTR) to represent the early stage of the sales funnel and a higher construal level and CVR (conversion rate) to represent the later stage of the sales funnel and a lower construal level. Therefore, visually distant images bring distant psychological distance or higher construal level, which can get higher CTR; visually proximate images bring near psychological distance or lower construal level, which can bring higher CVR. These findings suggest that firms can improve the efficiency of their advertising systems and gain more revenue by understanding consumer psychological states.

The Effect of Promotional Format, Message Framing, and Psychological Distance on Perception and Engagement of Cause-related Marketing

Aims: This research provides a unique lens by offering a more comprehensive consideration of cause-related marketing (CRM) campaign effectiveness. Specifically, we propose that the relative effectiveness of contribution type (monetary vs. in-kind) may hinge upon message framing (loss vs. gain-framed).
 Study Design: Integrating construal level and prospect theories with related CRM, message framing, and psychological distance literatures lead to propositions.
 Methodology: Literature reviews were first conducted. Rationalized on the construal level theory, multiple propositions of the effect of psychological distance on different contribution types and message framing are presented. The relationships among these concepts are proposed to have significant and positive effects on the effectiveness of CRM promotional campaigns based on the literature reviewed.
 Conclusion: The proposed research model not only advances the collective knowledge of construal level theory and psychological distance literatures, making a theoretical contribution specifically in the CRM field, but also should provide important marketing insights to guide CRM practices.

A construal level view of contemporary heritage tourism

Psychological distance is “a subjective experience that something is close or far away from the self, here, and now” (Trope & Liberman 2010, p. 440). This research investigates heritage tourism from the perspective of Construal Level theory, which postulates that individuals mentally represent objects and events by adopting either low or high construal levels. We show that heritage tourism leads tourists to adopt a higher psychological distance and therefore a higher construal level. In turn, this higher construal negatively affects destination loyalty and perceived uniqueness. However, authenticity and engagement moderate the heritage–construal relationship, counterbalancing the higher psychological distance induced by heritage. We explore these relationships in two studies focusing on contemporary heritage sites. This further allows to compare visitors’ mental representations of the experience, based on their memory type. The paper concludes by addressing implications for theory and practice.

The effectiveness of normative messages to decrease meat consumption: The superiority of dynamic normative messages framed as a loss

Consumer behaviors related to food consumption, such as meat consumption, is acknowledged to be a main contributor to the environmental problems. Recent research supports the efficacy of normative messages to change these behaviors for the good. Normative messages make the social norm salient in the behavioral context. Research shows that the normative messages are effective to encourage “desired” pro-environmental behavior if this behavior is carried out by a numerical majority. However, the pro-environmental consumer behaviors are often carried out by a minority of people only. Making salient these behaviors performed by minority of people in normative messages often backfires because the normative message makes salient that it is normal to perform the “undesirable” environmentally harmful behavior. To overcome this shortfall, research has experimented with highlighting that the desired behavior, although still a behavior by minority people, has increased in prevalence (i.e., a dynamic rather than static normative message). However, when such dynamic normative messages are most effective is less clear. Specifically, according to goal-framing theory, it can be assumed that a dynamic normative message highlighting that an increasing minority of people start carrying out the desirable behavior represents a gain frame, while emphasizing that the behavior performed by majority of people is decreasing indicates a loss frame. So far, research on dynamic normative messages only applied gain frames in their messages. This is surprising, as construal level theory (CLT) suggests that the dynamic normative messages will be more effective when framed as a loss. This study therefore tested whether a dynamic normative message is more effective than a static normative message or no message at all, depending on whether it is framed as a loss or a gain. In a one-way between-subject experimental design, including five experimental conditions [i.e., static descriptive normative message (1) gain framed or (2) loss framed; dynamic descriptive normative message (3) gain framed or (4) loss framed; (5) control condition;N= 270], we found that only dynamic normative messages that were framed as a loss were more effective in encouraging a consumer's intention to reduce meat consumption. Therefore, the dynamic normative messages are effective to encourage pro-environmental consumer behaviors of minority of people, but especially when they are framed as a loss rather than a gain.

Green Product Types Modulate Green Consumption in the Gain and Loss Framings: An Event-Related Potential Study.

People show a separation of intention and behavior in green consumption, and promoting actual green purchase behavior is more important than purchase intention. This study adopted a conflicting environmental decision paradigm to investigate behavioral and neural processes during actual green consumption decision-making involving different types of green products and message framing, according to construal level theory. Participants were instructed to make green consumption decisions involving green products with different psychological distances (self-interested green products vs. other-interested green products) under gain (e.g., buying green products brings positive results) or loss framing (e.g., not buying green products brings negative effects) while electroencephalograms were recorded. The behavioral results demonstrated that participants tended to purchase green products under loss framing more than under gain framing. The event-related potential results showed that under gain framing, decision-making for self-interested green products was associated with larger P3 than decision-making for other-interested green products. While under loss framing, decision-making for other-interested green products has a larger P260 than for self-interested green products. These findings suggest that under gain framing, self-interested green products elicit more cognitive resources than other-interested green products, while under loss framing, other-interested green products elicit stronger negative emotions than self-interested green products. The research has managerial implications for promoting consumers’ actual purchase behavior.

CSR Engagement and Identification with the Moderating Effect of Social Capital and Construal Level

Aims: Previous research has primarily focused on companies’ overall use of Facebook and message strategies on CSR-dedicated Facebook pages. The current research is developed to fill this gap in the literature. Specifically, we propose how the quantity of Facebook use (number of Facebook friends, time spent using Facebook) and motivations for accessing Facebook (making new friends, maintaining ties with current friends) relate to consumer engagement in CSR initiatives and consumer identification in both direct and moderating routes. Furthermore, the current research integrates and proposes multiple moderators under a theoretical framework of social capital and construal level theories.
 Methods: A literature review integrated with theoretical background leads to propositions.
 Conclusions: Given the fact that Facebook has grown to be the most popular social networking site (SNS), companies have begun to adopt the platform in their corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication. This research not only fills the literature gaps of CSR initiatives and moderators on SNS, Facebook in particular but also these propositions can provide more possibilities for companies to reconsider and redesign their CSR strategy and program via SNS.

Crisis Management for Sustainable Corporate Value: Finding a Construal Fit between Social Distance, Crisis Response, and Crisis Severity

Despite growing research on public attributions of crisis responsibility, little is known about the role of perceived social distance to organizations in conjunction with crisis severity and crisis response strategies. Applying construal level theory (CLT) to the crisis communication context, we examined the role of the construal fit between social distance, crisis severity, and crisis response strategy in determining crisis responsibility, negative word-of-mouth (WOM) intentions, and anger. A two (social distance to a crisis: close vs. distant) × two (crisis response strategy: defensive vs. accommodating) × two (crisis severity: low vs. high) between-subjects experiment revealed two interaction effects: (1) the interaction effect of social distance and crisis response strategy on anger and negative WOM and (2) the interaction effect of social distance and crisis severity on negative WOM. No interaction effects emerged with respect to crisis responsibility. We discuss the theoretical contribution of this study’s results—namely, how social distance to a crisis impacts public reactions to crisis response strategies. We also outline the practical implications for achieving a better construal fit between social distance and crisis response strategy for effective crisis communication, which may serve as an opportunity for sustainable corporate management.

Exploring crisis communications during a pandemic from a cruise marketing managers perspective: an application of construal level theory

ABSTRACT Crisis communications are vital to business in times of uncertainty because clear messaging inspires confidence, keeps stakeholders updated and will help companies continue to trade successfully. Recently, the COVID-19 crisis has challenged traditional communication practice in the cruise sector, highlighting the limitations of traditional crisis communications approaches. Applying Construal Level Theory, this study aims to consider psychological distance and construal levels in cruise practitioners messaging. The study relies on a qualitative research design. We interviewed 15 experts to understand how the industry communicates with travellers during a time of crisis. The data analysis adopts the Gioia method which uses a sensemaking and sense giving approach. This study’s contribution is threefold. First, we extend existing knowledge about crisis marketing communication practice by focusing on cruise practitioners’ instead of travellers’ perspectives. Second, we identify an additional temporal stage, which has not been previously considered by Construal Level Theory, to communicate with travellers. We label it, ‘critical crisis communication mid-point’. Third, we offer a preliminary practitioner-led conceptualization of managing crisis marketing communications for the cruise and other service industries.

Moral-psychological mechanisms of rebound effects from a consumer-centered perspective: A conceptualization and research directions.

Rebound effects on the consumer level occur when consumers’ realized greenhouse gas emission savings caused by behaviors that might be beneficial to the environment are lower than their potential greenhouse gas emission savings because the savings are offset by behavioral adjustments. While previous literature mainly studied the economic mechanisms of such rebound effects, research has largely neglected the moral-psychological mechanisms. A comprehensive conceptualization of rebound effects on the consumer level can help fill this void and stimulate more empirical research in this relevant area. To this end, the paper introduces three focal dimensions of rebound effects on the consumer level: mechanism of rebound effects, product category, and consumption context. Based on this conceptualization, and integrating assumptions from the theory of moral licensing, the theory of categorization, and the construal level theory, this paper further refines the conceptualization of the moral component as an explanatory factor for rebound effects and highlights that the moral-psychological mechanisms of indirect rebound effects (i.e., rebound effects that occur across different product categories or consumption contexts) are more complex and diverse than the economic mechanisms. The paper outlines promising directions for future studies considering the different quantification and characteristics of economic and moral currencies that explain rebound effects on the consumer level and the strategic categorization of products and consumption contexts.

Career Hurdle or Booster: Consequences of Ambition on Promotability Evaluations

Existing research has shown that ambition acts as a personality variable for better understanding employees’ behaviors and work outcomes. However, research on how it is displayed and its impact is in its infancy. In this study, we propose that an ambitious employee may show more self-improvement behaviors, so a supervisor may consider them more promotable. An ambitious employee may also display unethical pro-organizational behaviors to obtain more money or power, thereby becoming less promotable. We adopt construal level theory to explain this dual mediating process in which employees consider either immediate or global rewards more, thereby determining their ambition realization pathway. The empirical results help us understand how career ambition helps or hinders career promotion. Our study provides significant theoretical and practical contributions to both ambition literature and construal-level theory.

CEO Construal Levels, Cognitive Flexibility, and Firm Ambidexterity

We examine how two cognitive characteristics of a CEO—their construal level and cognitive flexibility—affect a firm’s ambidexterity, which is its ability to simultaneously pursue exploration and exploitation. Drawing on construal level theory and the paradox perspective in leadership, we argue that CEOs who think at more abstract levels are better able to flexibly adapt to the changing conditions of exploration and exploitation, and are thus more effective at achieving ambidexterity. We examined the proposed hypotheses in a sample of 344 Korean small- and medium-sized enterprises, using two-round (one-year lagged) and multi-respondent (CEOs and executives) survey data. We find that CEO construal levels lead to CEO cognitive flexibility, which in turn influences firm ambidexterity. This study provides new insights on how CEO cognitive capabilities can foster firm ambidexterity.

The Contradicting Effect of Intergroup Relations on Creativity Recognition of Creators and Creations

The current study addresses the paradox of creativity recognition, a novel phenomenon in which evaluators appreciate the potential of in-group creators, yet undervalue their creative ideas. Based on construal level theory and social identity theory, we propose that the different perspectives of intergroup relations (i.e., social distance and group identity) are activated by the creations and creators respectively. Four studies aim to reveal the cause of such a novel phenomenon. Our results show that the effects of intergroup relations are contradictory in the creativity recognition of creators and their creations (Study 1). When the target is the creation, the evaluators form a high-level construal to evaluate outsiders’ ideas and spot higher creativity from ideas of outsiders than those of insiders (Studies 2 and 4). By contrast, when the target is the creator, they perceive in-group creators to be more creative than out-group counterparts because of intergroup bias (i.e., perceived out-group threat or in-group liking) (Studies 3 and 4). The opposing effects are counteracted when both creators and their creations are evaluated simultaneously (Study 4). We provide a theoretical framework to describe how and why the paradox emerges.

An Investigation on the Cognitive Process Leading to Social Entrepreneurial Opportunity Recognition

Social entrepreneurial opportunity recognition is a critical step in social entrepreneurship. However, we know little about the cognitive process leading to social entrepreneurial opportunity recognition. This conceptual work examines direct experiences of social problems as a predictor of social entrepreneurial opportunity recognition. Building on construal level theory, we proposed that direct experiences of social problems enable individuals to form a more concrete representation of social problems, which in turn activates social entrepreneurial opportunity recognition. We further propose that business model schema richness moderates this indirect relationship. We contribute to the literature on social entrepreneurship and opportunity recognition in several ways.

Leading Future Work Self to Progress: the Role of Proximal Goals and Self-reflection

Goal pursuit literature suggests that to facilitate one's goal progress, a long-term goal should be divided into proximal goals; however, little is now about what long-term goal characteristics trigger proximal goal planning. Based on construal level theory, we hypothesized that a salient long-term goal such as salient future work self predicts proximal goal planning, resulting in perceived progress towards future work self. In addition, we proposed that improvement-oriented self-reflection moderates the indirect effect. Using a correlational field study (N = 208) and an experimental study (N = 110), we found that salient future work self combined with improvement-oriented self-reflection plays an influential role in boosting perceived progress through proximal goal planning. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of the findings.

An Endogenous Agency Model of Sociocognitive Processes

While much of the agency literature focus on the utility-maximization differences between principals and agents, less is understood about how individual-level factors interact with these situational differences in perspective. We develop a sociocognitive theory of agency that explains the interaction between the individual’s cognitive processing style and agency role. Integrating construal level theory with agency theory, we describe how agency roles provide differently ordered aspect hierarchies, through which individuals conceptualize decisions. As the aspect hierarchies of both principal and agent perspectives contain risk and return, the interplay with construal level determines which aspect is used to conceptualize the decision. We illustrate how traditionally labelled principals and agents both may exhibit varying degrees of risk taking based on how abstractly they think about decisions. Consequently, it is necessary to account for individual-level cognitive processing styles when explaining how interpersonal agency differences affect decision-making. By emphasizing the dynamic nature of decision conceptualization, we provide a framework for addressing agency conflicts based on influencing which aspects are used to evaluate decisions.