Construal
MAR 3503
March 1, 2012
False consensus effect
Estimated percent of
others who would:
Rater’s own choice
Ross, Greene, & House, 1977
Construal
• The way in which a person interprets the
world around them
• The same situation may produce very
different behavior depending on the
subjective meaning that is attached to it
• This is a fundamental theme in the study of
consumer behavior!
Some determinants of construal
• 1. Recency
Some determinants of construal
• 1. Recency
• 2. Frequency/familiarity
– How would “They ran into the bank” be
interpreted by a banker? A sailor?
Some determinants of construal
• 1. Recency
• 2. Frequency/familiarity
• 3. Context
Primacy effects in judgment
Person A is…
• Intelligent
• Industrious
• Impulsive
• Stubborn
• Critical
• Envious
Person B is…
• Envious
• Critical
• Stubborn
• Impulsive
• Industrious
• Intelligent
A treat
• It’s hot, and you’re at the beach. You want a
refreshment. How much would you pay for
this Häagen Dazs ice cream?
Reactive devaluation
• Proposal offered by the Palestinians on
5/10/93
• “How good is the proposal for Israel (1-7)?”
minus “How good is the proposal for the
Palestinians (1-7)?
Putative source
Participants
Israeli delegation
Palestinian delegation
Israeli Jews
-0.95
-2.45
Israeli Arabs
0.93
-0.01
Party over policy
• Participants evaluate a welfare reform bill
– Some participants were told that the bill was
written by Republicans, others told it was written
by Democrats
• Ps indicate (on a 1-7 scale) how much they are
in favor of the bill
Bill was written by
Participants’ own affiliation
Liberal
Conservative
Democrats
5.46
2.69
Republicans
3.15
5.49
Cohen, 2003
Some determinants of construal
•
•
•
•
1. Recency
2. Frequency/familiarity
3. Context
4. Motivation
Construal and above average effect
• “…Everyone ranks himself high in qualities he
values; careful drivers give weight to care,
skillful drivers give weight to skill, and those
who think that, whatever else they are not, at
least they are polite, give weight to courtesy,
and come out high on their own scale. This is
the way that every child has the best dog on
the block.” –Thomas Schelling
Construal and above average effect
• Dunning, Meyerowitz, & Holzberg (1989)
• More of an above average effect on
ambiguous traits (e.g., sensible) than
unambiguous traits (e.g., punctual)
• Less of an above average effect when asked to
make ratings based on specific criteria
supplied by someone else
Some determinants of construal
•
•
•
•
•
1. Recency
2. Frequency/familiarity
3. Context
4. Motivation
5. Temporal perspective
Construal level
Being social awkward
OR
Standing alone
Achieving a goal
OR
Wearing a medal
Being a voter
OR
Going to the polls
Temporal construal theory
• People adopt higher level construals when
considering distant as opposed to near future
events
High-level construals
Low-level construals
Abstract
Concrete
Simple
Complex
Structured, coherent
Unstructured, incoherent
Decontextualized
Contextualized
Primary, core
Secondary, surface
Superordinate
Subordinate
Temporally distant = higher level
• When people are asked to list events they expect
to experience during a good day or bad day in
the near or distant future:
– The near-future events are more variable in valence
(SD of ratings)
– The distant-future events are more extreme in
valence (mean ratings)
• People are more likely to code near-future
events in terms of “how” and distant-future
events in terms of “why”
– Does “locking the door” mean “putting a key in the
lock” or “securing the house”?
Temporal construal theory
• Implications for preference, choice, and
behavior:
• “Getting away from it all” versus “buying food,
assembling gear, getting permits, etc.”
• “Cheating on an exam” versus “peeking at my
neighbor’s exam to compare answers”
The big message
• The broader message of construals is that we
may think that our memories, feelings, and
knowledge are set and reflect reality, but…
• Instead, our knowledge and preferences are
constructed
What is reframing?
• It’s presenting the same option in different
formats
– This can change people’s opinions, choices, and
preferences
– Both formats are accurate, and convey the same
information
– The meaning of that information is what differs
• REFRAMING: “Our new fan uses 50% less energy than our
old fan!” versus “Our old fan uses twice as much energy as
our new fan!”
• NOT REFRAMING: “Our new fan uses 50% less energy than
our old fan!” versus “Our new fan uses twice as much
energy as our old fan!”
Framing effects
•
•
•
•
Pro-life versus pro-choice
Liberal versus progressive
Terrorists versus freedom fighters
Cash discounts versus credit card surcharges
Framing effects
• Imagine that the country is preparing for the
outbreak of an unusual disease, which is
expected to kill 600 people. Two programs have
been proposed.
– If program A is adopted, 200 people will be saved
– If program B is adopted, there is a 1/3 chance that
600 people will be saved, and a 2/3 chance that no
one will be saved
• Imagine that the country…
– If program C is adopted, 400 people will die
– If program D is adopted, there is a 1/3 chance that
nobody will die, and a 2/3 chance that 600 will die
Tversky & Kahneman, 1981
Prospect theory
• People are risk averse when choosing among
gains, and risk seeking when choosing among
losses
• Loss aversion: losses loom larger than gains
– Consider a gamble where you have a 50% chance
of winning $1000 and a 50% chance of losing
$1000
– Gains often need to be twice as big as losses for
people to be willing to take the bet
Prospect theory
Mental accounting
• Imagine that you have decided to see a play
and paid the admission price of $20 per ticket.
As you enter the theater, you discover that
you have lost the ticket. The seat was not
marked and the ticket cannot be recovered.
• Would you pay $20 for another ticket?
Tversky & Kahneman, 1984
Mental accounting
• Imagine that you have decided to see a play
where admission is $20 per ticket. As you
enter the theater, you discover that you have
lost a $20 bill
• Would you still pay $20 for a ticket to the
play?
Tversky & Kahneman, 1984
Mental accounting
• Why are people generally willing to buy a ticket
after having lost $20, but not willing to buy
another ticket after having lost their previous
($20) ticket?
• It matters what “mental account” you file the loss
under:
• If you lose the ticket and buy another, you have
just increased the price of the play to $40
• But if you lose $20 and then buy a ticket, the
price of the play is still only $20
Sunk costs
• Imagine that you and a loved one have paid
$50 for two seats to the theater for tonight’s
show. You were really looking forward to
seeing it, but are not in the mood to go
tonight. You’re feeling tired because you
didn’t sleep well last night, and thunderstorms
are predicted for tonight. You really want to
spend the evening on the couch, cozy and
warm. What would you do in this situation?
Sunk costs
• Imagine you spent $500 on a ski trip to
Michigan that promises to be pretty fun
• Then you find a great deal for a $250 ski trip
to Wisconsin, which should be awesome
• But after you spend the money, it turns out
the two trips overlap, and you can’t get your
money back for either, due to the special deal
• Which trip do you go on?
Arkes & Blumer, 1985
Sunk costs
• Sunk costs are payments, investments or costs
that can’t be recovered
– With the sunk cost fallacy, people treat sunk costs as if
they weren’t sunk, but instead they could still “get
their money’s worth”
• This leads them to:
– Clean their plates even when they’re full
– Complete costly and unwanted public works projects
– Persevere in wars and conflicts so soldiers “won’t have
died in vain”
Reason-based choice
• Why do some people who would grant Parent
B custody also choose to deny Parent B
custody?
• People need to have reasons for their choices,
and mixed bag options usually provide more
reasons both in favor of an against that option
– So which way a person chooses in these kinds of
situations is very much influenced by what
question they are trying to answer
Construal and health
• Ps were 84 housekeepers from a variety of hotels
in the Boston area, recruited for a study on how
to increase health and happiness in the hotel
industry
• Half were told that their work constituted
exercise, half were not
• The amount of exercise they got and a number of
markers of health were measured
• Four weeks after the initial recruitment, they
were re-interviewed and re-examined
Crum & Langer, 2007
Crum & Langer, 2007
Overarching lesson
• It is not the objective situation that is so
powerful in determining thought and
behavior, it is the subjective situation – it is
how people interpret the world that matters
• So next time you see choices or behavior that
surprise you, think about what situation the
person thought he/she was confronting
Summary
• Construal influences our preferences,
perception, and satisfaction
• Several determinants of construal
– Recency
– Frequency/familiarity
– Context
– Motivation
– Temporal perspective
Next time…
• Predicting preferences and satisfaction