Comprehensive Exams/Dr. S. Shyam Sunder
Nan Yu/March 11, 2008
Questions:
Discuss how construal level theory can be used to systematically design messages
recommending health actions in interventions and campaigns. 1) In particular, do
you think recipients’ construal of the consequences of health action be affected by
the concept of "social distance" woven into message content? 2) And is this
culture-specific? 3) If so, what are your recommendations for using construal-level
theory in health communication research and practice?
Your response should be rooted in theory and research pertaining to construal level
theory and health communication.
However it is important to take some leaps
from the literature and speculate.
My simple answer to the first question above is “Yes.” To further explicate my
answers, I will review previous literature pertaining to Construal Level Theory and try to
illustrate the influences of social distance on attitudinal or behavioral changes. In
particular, my discussion will focus on the findings pertaining to health communications
as well as the studies associated with cultural implications.
I. Construal Level Theory (CLT)
The mind of human beings is capable of forming different meanings toward one
same object or issue. For example, “taking a vacation in Hawaii” could mean “packing
and checking weather conditions” if it will happen in two days. But, if this is a plan for
some time in the next year, it could also mean “having a wonderful break.” From the
perspective of Construal Level Theory (CLT), “Having a wonderful break” is considered
as a more abstract (a high-level construal) representation of the issue, whereas “packing
and checking weather conditions” is less abstract (a low-level construal).
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In the most recent piece from Trope, Liberman and Wakslak (2007), the authors
summarized CLT as “a framework linking distant with abstraction (p.83).” More
specifically, CLT suggests that people use more abstract (high-level construals)
information to represent more distant objects, and more concrete (low-level construals)
information to represent information about more near objects. In turn, as level of
abstraction increases, perceptions of psychological distance would increase as well (i.e.
distance objects are perceived more abstract v. near objects are perceived more concrete).
Sequentially, the low- and high construals will guide people’s evaluation and behaviors
differently (Trope, Liberman, & Wakslak, 2007).
As the example illustrated, high-level construals refer to superordinate, general,
abstract and core features of an option (e.g. “having a wonderful break”), whereas the
low-level construals refer to subordinate, specific, and incidental features of an option
(e.g. “packing and checking weather conditions”). Following the framework of CLT,
attitudes or behavioral intent toward the whole plan of “taking a vacation in Hawaii”
would vary because of the distinct interpretation of the plan when the time frames
change.
In addition, Liberman, Trope and Stephan (2007) suggested the high-level
construals were associated with the dispositional and decontextualized information of an
object, whereas the low-level construals were related to the situational and contextualized
information of the same object. In sum, within the framework of CLT, the mental
representation of the same information is categorized into two broad groups – low-level
construals (i.e. concrete, situational information) versus high-level construals (i.e.
abstract, dispositional information).
The unanswered question is – how the low or high construals are formed?
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II. Psychological Distance
According to CLT, the sense of “distance” in people’s mind is the reason that
people can have different interpretation of a same thing. In the Hawaii-trip example
illustrated above, the concept of “distance” was operationalized as “in two days” versus
“sometime in the next year.” This example reflects one of the dimensions of
psychological distance – temporal distance, which emphasizes on the time distance. More
specifically, it refers to whether a decision has to be made or a behavior has to be
conducted in the near future or in the distance future (Trope & Liberman, 2003).
The other three dimensions of psychological distance include 1) spatial distance the distance is generated based on the location remoteness of an event (e.g. something
happened in the U.S. vs. in Africa;” 2) social distance – the distance is produced based on
the closeness of a relationship between self and other people (e.g. the way that my best
friends or average Penn State student perceives about the “taking a flu shot;” 3)
hypothetical distance – the distance is created based on the how far the imaginary
situation is to the reality (e.g. what if I had married another person) (for a review, see,
Liberman, Trope, & Stephan, 2007).
Over the past two decades, significant amount of studies have been contributed to
the influences of temporal distance. Extensive empirical studies have supported the
proposition of CLT on the dimension of temporal distance in that the distance of time
generated in people’s mind affects individuals’ judgments and decisions regarding future
options by systematically changing the way they construe those options (Trope &
Liberman, 2003).
Trope (2004) continued to suggest that same mechanics could be applied to other
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distance dimensions, such as spatial distance, social distance, and hypothetical distance.
This argument was further supported in Bar-Anan, Liberman, and Trope’s study (2006),
in which the association between construal levels and psychological distance was
empirically tested across all the four dimensions and resulted in a similar pattern. The
study also revealed that this association could be “activated automatically without
conscious deliberation (p. 617).”
In sum, CLT assumes that people construct higher level construals for things that
happen in the more remote time frames or the places that are far away, about more
socially distant people, or about things that could have happened. The four dimensions of
psychological distance are unified and collectively served as the basis for the theory of
CLT (Trope, 2004). Figure 1 shows the theoretical associations predicted by CLT (see all
figures in Appendix I).
-FIGURE 1 IS PLACED HEREIn the following discussion, I will continue to review the literature associated with
social distance, one form of psychological distance, and try to illustrate how it has been
conceptualized and operationalized in the different studies. I will also discuss the
potential operationalization of social distance in future research.
II. Social Distance
Liberman, Trope and Stephan (2007) suggested that social distance could contain
several dimensions, including self versus other, first-person perspective versus
third-person perspective, and in-group versus out-group. According to CLT, the mental
representation of the socially distant objects (e.g. other or out-group members) would be
higher than the more socially proximal objects (e.g. self or in-group members).
The assumptions in social distance originated from the studies related to the
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“actor-observer effect.” Researchers in social psychology found that people’s descriptions
and explanations for other people’s activities differ from their descriptions and
explanations for their own activities (Jones & Nisbett, 1972; Gilbert, 1998). For example,
Semin and Fiedler (1988) discovered that people tended to use more abstract verbs to
describe the activities when they were the observers but use more specific and less
abstract verbs to describe the activities when they were the actors.
In addition, Ronbins, Spranca, and Mendelsohn (1996) revealed that individuals
tended to believe their own behaviors were influenced or caused by their partner but their
partner’s behaviors were mostly due to his or her personality. This finding suggested that
an individual saw his/her own behavior was caused by the specific and concrete
situational factors (i.e. low-level construals), whereas other person’s behavior was caused
by a general and dispositional factor of that person (i.e. high-level construals).
Some of the research regarding social distance emphasized on the dimension of
first-person versus third-person perspective. For example, Frank and Gilovich (1989)
found that individuals made more global, dispositional attributions (i.e. high-level
construals) when recalled an event from a third-person perspective than from a
first-person perspective. Libby and Eibach (2002, study 4) also revealed that when people
imaged to perform an activity from a third-person perspective, they generated more
abstract and less vivid reports (i.e. high-level construals) than when they imagined the
same activity from a first-person perspective.
In a recent piece, Bar-Anan, Liberman, and Trope (2006) used implicit association
tests to investigate the relationship between the psychological distance and construal level.
In the experiments (study 3A, 3B) they asked participants to link words about distant (e.g.
strangers, they) or proximal (e.g. siblings, we) social targets with the adjectives that
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denoted either abstractness (e.g. general, universal) or concreteness (e.g. specific,
detailed). The study showed that the participants responded much faster when paring
socially distant words with abstract adjectives than with concrete adjectives. Similarly,
the study suggested that it was easier for the participants to associate socially proximal
words with the concrete adjectives than with the abstract adjectives.
In sum, all of the studies summarized above demonstrate that people tend to
generate high-level construals for more distant target social targets (e.g. other) and
generate low-level construals for more proximal social target (self). Figure 2 shows the
links between social distance and level of construal.
-FIGURE 2 IS PLACED HEREIII. Predictions of CLT about health-related perceptions and behaviors
Attitudinal or behavioral predictions of social distance were relative less sufficient
than those of temporal distance. However, as previous discussion indicated, the
assumptions in CLT are shared by all of the four dimensions of psychological distance
(Trope, 2004; Trope, Liberman, & Wakslak, 2007). In the following discussion, I will
concentrate on reviewing the findings pertaining to how CLT could predict health-related
perceptions and behaviors.
Chandran and Menon (2004, study 1) tested the interaction effect between
temporal distance and social distance in the context of health communication. The study
operationalized social distance as the perceived influence of a health problem on self or
another person. The researchers proposed that when the social distance increased, the
perceived risk of a health hazard would also increase due to individual’s self-positivity
bias.
The notion of self-positivity bias basically suggests that individual has an
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intention to believe that him/herself is less likely to be affected by negative events, such
as becoming ill (Perloff & Fetzer, 1986), contracting AIDS (Raghubir & Menon, 1998),
or being infected with hepatitis C (Menon, Block & Ramanathan, 2002) than others. This
notion of self-positivity bias is very similar to theory of Third Person Effect such that
people tend to believe the persuasive messages will have a bigger effect on others than on
themselves.
Chandran and Menon (2004) chose mononucleosis (mono) as the health issue for
their study. The authors discovered when the risk of getting mono through kissing was
framed as occurring every day, people thought that they were as much as risky as others.
However, when the same risk was framed as occurring every year, people thought others
were more at risk than the self or his/her best friend. The finding implied the temporal
distance (e.g. every day v. every year) could interact with social distance and had an
impact on people’s perceived risk. Figure 3 depicts the theatrical interaction effects of
social distance and temporal distance.
-FIGURE 3 IS PLACED HEREIn addition, Chandran and Menon (2004) tested the interaction effect of temporal
frames and the outcome valence on the issue of heart disease. When the outcome was
framed negatively (e.g. lots of people succumb to heart disease) and it happened every
day, people demonstrated a higher perceived risk and severity toward heart disease. They
also became more anxious, thought the designed messages as more persuasive, and were
more inclined to participate in educational and preventive behaviors. However, when the
outcome valence of preventing heart disease was framed positively (e.g. lost of people
avert heart disease) and the message emphasized the positive outcomes happened every
year, the evaluations of the messages, the perceived risk and severity, and the
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persuasiveness of the health message were increased and enhanced. Figure 4 illustrates
the theoretical interaction effect of temporal frames and the outcome valence.
-FIGURE 4 IS PLACED HEREIn a similar vein, Nan (2007) found that a gain frame of hepatitis C test was more
effective than a loss frame when participants were asked to make decisions for
themselves or for others. The self-positivity bias was revealed here in that people tend to
think other people should take actions to detect a potential health problem only when
there were potential gains. The theoretical proposition of the interaction effect between
social distance and loss- and gain frames is presented in Figure 5.
-FIGURE 5 IS PLACED HEREThe author further argued that the study supported the notion that potential gain
was associated high-level construals whereas the potential loss was associated with
low-level construals. This finding was consistent with what Liberman, Trope and Stephan
(2007) have proposed: “in deciding whether to undertake an action, cons (i.e. losses,
low-level construals) are subordinate to pros (i.e. gains, high-level construals) (p. 366).”
In both studies (Chandran & Menon, 2004; Nan, 2007), the manipulation of
“social distance” was consistent with the framework of self-positivity bias. Participants
were exposed to persuasive messages and then asked whether they thought their best
friends/themselves (i.e. self) or average people (i.e. other) should perform certain actions.
In this type of manipulation, researchers tried to test the existing distinct mental
representation of “self” versus “other” in people’s mind rather than to induce them.
However, most of the research on “temporal distance” manipulated and embedded
the different time frames directly in the persuasive messages (Trope & Liberman, 2003;
Chandran & Menon, 2004). Given that all the four dimensions of psychological distance
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shared common principles of CLT, it is reasonable to propose that social distance could
also be framed in the persuasive messages with careful operationalization.
As discussed above, social distance refers to socially proximal or distant objects,
such as self versus other or in-group versus out-group members. Bar-Anan, Liberman and
Trope (2006) indicated some specific languages that were associated with social distant.
They suggested that terms like “friends, parents, buddies, siblings, ours, ourselves, we at
our place, and for us,” symbolize socially proximal objects, whereas terms like “enemies,
strangers, opponents, anonymous person, they, theirs, at their place, and for them” denote
socially distant objects.
These words could serve as a starting point of the message design for social
distance. For example, in the scenario of influenza and flu shots, a message containing
socially distant objects should emphasize on the benefits or costs upon average people. In
the message with the emphasis on social-proximal objects, the benefits or costs upon
family, friends, or self should be salient. Although such manipulations have never been
used (at least I didn’t find any) in the previous studies, they are derived from previous
literature and structured with careful operationalization of social distance. In addition,
these manipulations are very similar to what have been operationalized in the studies of
temporal distance (Chandran & Menon, 2004). However, a manipulation check is
necessary before further testing the effects of the messages.
From the CLT perspective, I propose that the presentation of distance in the
message will interact with the gain – or loss frames and will generate an impact on
people’s perceived risk or affect people’s health-related judgments or behavior intent
(Chandran & Menon, 2004). More specifically, the self frame could make the disease
more proximal and concrete especially when the self frame is combined with loss frame
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(emphasizing the loss of not preventing a health problem). For example, in the scenario
of influenza and flu shots, when the message emphasizes on the loss of not preventing flu,
the self frame should be more effective in increasing perceived risk and severity of flu,
and should enhance the behavioral intention to prevent flu than the other frame. If the
message emphasizes on the gains of preventing flu, the other frame should be more
effective and more persuasive. These hypotheses are consistent with the findings in
Chandra and Menon’s (2004) study in which the authors used time frames to manipulate
temporal distance (i.e. every day vs. every year). Figure 6 portrays the proposed
interaction effect of self- and other frames (i.e. social distance) and gain- and loss frames
(i.e. frame valence) on the issue of preventing flu.
-FIGURE 6 IS PLACED HEREIV. CLT and Culture
Liberman, Trope and Stephan (2007) suggested that the effects predicted by CLT
could vary among independent and interdependent cultures. Research on cross-cultural
psychology suggests that Asian and South American cultures emphasize more on the
interdependence and interconnectedness of the individuals, whereas West European and
North American cultures concentrate on his or her independence from others (Markus &
Kitayama, 1991).
The authors suggest that countries such as China and India are prone to
interdependent cultures. Therefore, people from these countries may put more emphasis
on the importance of other people and try to maintain the harmony of interpersonal
relations. From the social distance perspective, interdependent cultures may be
interpreted as maintaining proximity between a person and his or her socially surrounding
(Liberman, Trope & Stephan, 2007).
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In addition, the authors further proposed that if others are more proximal in
interdependent cultures, then people would be more predisposed to apply low-level
construals of distant issues or objects. In other words, people from interdependent
cultures have a natural tendency to construal issues or objects with low-level,
situation-specific, and relational terms (for a review, see Choi, Nisbett, & Norenzayan,
1999).
For example, Morris and Peng (1994) conducted a series of studies among
Chinese and American participants from high schools and graduate schools to test the
cultural differences of fundamental attribution error. The notion of fundamental
attribution error refers to the tendency to underestimate the impact of situational factors
(low-level construals) and overestimate the role of personal and dispositional factors
(high-level construals). In other words, people have the inclination to assume that a
person’s behavior is due to what “kind” of person he/she is rather than due to the social or
environmental factors influencing him/her.
The findings of Morris and Peng (1994)’s studies revealed that the effect of
fundamental attribution error was culturally limited. The author suggested that “in highly
collectivist cultures, such as China, persons are primarily identified as group members,
they cannot freely leave groups, and they are socialized to behave according to group
norms, role constraints, and situational scripts (Morris & Peng, 1994, p. 592).”
Consequently, Chinese tend to explain, view and perceive things by emphasizing on
situational factors. For example, when Chinese participants were asked to weigh the
possible causes for murder, they emphasized greatly on situational factors (e.g. influenced
by violent movies; the murderer was frustrated because nobody respects him). These
situational factors, according to CLT, are low-level construals.
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On the other hand, the authors suggested that “in highly individualist cultures,
such as the United States, persons are primarily identified as individual units, they can
leave groups at will, and they are socialized to behave according to personal preferences
(Morris & Peng, 1994, p. 592).” As a result, American participants incline to explain,
view and perceive things by emphasizing on personal factors. For example, when
American participants were asked to evaluate the possible causes for murder, they
stressed more on personal factors (e.g. the murderer was crazy and had mental illness and
personality problems.) These dispositional factors, according to CLT, are high-level
construals.
Overall, this study (Morris & Peng, 1994) ssuggested that people from
collectivist/interdependent cultures are inclined to construal events or issues with
situational factors (i.e. low-level construals), whereas people from
individualist/independent cultures tend to construal events with dispositional factors (i.e.
high-level construals).
Nisbett, Peng, Choi and Norenzayan (2001) revealed a similar result. They
suggested that people from interdependent cultures give more attention to the relationship
between objects and process information in a contextual manner (i.e. low-level
construals), whereas people from independent cultures pay more attention to the core
attributes and processing information by isolating the objects from the background (i.e.
high-level construals).
Based on the literature related CLT and cross-cultural psychology, the effects of
the self-other frames that I proposed above would be different in interdependent or
independent cultures. I would propose that in the interdependent cultures like China,
Korea or India, the persuasive effects of self-other frames will not be significant as it
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would be in the independent cultures like the U.S. or some European countries. In other
words, people with independent views should be more sensitive to the distinction
between self and other, whereas people with interdependent views should be less
responsive to this difference. Figure 7 illustrates the hypothesized interaction between
social distance and cultural orientation.
-FIGURE 7 IS PLACED HEREPrevious literature also suggests that independent individuals would be more
reactive to high-level construals (e.g. dispositional factors, potential gain), while
interdependent individuals would be more responsive to low-level construals (e.g.
situational factor, potential loss). Therefore, individuals who are more independent from
others would be more sensitive to gains, whereas those are more interdependent would be
more responsive to losses. Figure 8 shows the hypothesized interaction effect between
cultural orientation and gain- and loss frames.
-FIGURE 8 IS PLACED HEREIt would be a little bit difficult to hypothesize the possible three-way interaction
between gain-loss frames, self-other frames, and the cultural orientations without
collecting data and conducting proper statistical analysis. However, CLT has offered
scholars a chance to link a variety of theoretical frameworks (e.g. message framing,
social distance, and cultural influence) together and explain related phenomenon.
V. Implications of CTL for health communication research and practice
Message framing theory has been central to the studies related to health
communication. That theory offers explanation of the effects loss- and gain frames on
motivating particular types of health behavior. In particular, it suggests that gain frames
(e.g. benefits of taking a flu shot) would be more effective for preventive behaviors and
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loss frames (e.g. costs of not doing mammography) would be more persuasive for
detection-related behaviors (for a review, see Rothman et al., 2006).
CLT offers another explanation for the effect of loss- and gain frames. First, CLT
suggests that losses are subordinate to gains (Liberman, Trope & Stephan, 2007). For
example, if people know a treatment has some health benefits, they would ask about its
potential side effects before making a decision. But if there are no benefits, people won’t
even bother to ask about the side effects. In the other scenario, no matter whether people
already know about the treatment’s side effects or maybe they just vaguely know about
the side effects, they would still ask for the benefits anyway because they want to
determine whether the benefits outweigh the side effects. In other words, the importance
of side effects (losses) depends on whether the treatment is beneficial or not (gains).
However, the importance of benefits (gains) is independent of whether the treatment is
known to have side effects (losses).
Second, CLT predicts an interaction effect between psychological distance and
frame valence. More specifically, gains are associated with high-level construals and
become more salient when the psychological distance increases. Losses are associated
with low-level construals and become more salient when the psychological distance
decreases. As a result, if a health hazard is psychologically proximal to an individual, it
could activate thoughts or actions to reduce the hazard. If a health benefit is
psychologically distant to an individual, it could activate thoughts or actions to seek for
the benefit. However, these hypothesized interaction effects still require more empirical
tests. So far, the only direct support of this interaction comes from the study conducted by
Chandran and Menon in 2004. Further research is definitely needed to enrich the
understanding between the interactions between psychological distance and message
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framing.
When applying CLT in the domain of designing health-related persuasive
messages, the reduction in psychological distance should be preferred because it makes
the health problem more risky and drives people to do something about it (Chandran &
Menon, 2004). Previous CLT literature have suggested plenty of strategies that can
reduce the distance such as using a near-future frame instead of a distant-future frame
(e.g. tomorrow vs. next year); a socially proximal frame instead of a socially distant
frame (e.g. self vs. other); a spatially near frame instead of a spatially distant frame (e.g.
people live next door v. live in another state), an imaginary situation instead of a reality.
By reducing the distant, the perceived risk and severity will increase, which might
motivate people to reduce the risk. However, how psychological distance could interact
with prevention- or detection types of health behaviors is still unknown.
If connecting CLT with the domain of cultural psychology, one of the suggestions
I propose would be to design messages that fit the cultural characteristics of people.
Cultural psychologists often use individualists/collectivists or
independents/interdependents to classify national and individual cultural orientation.
Numerous studies have suggested that people that are more individualistic or holding
independent views prefer being uniqueness, whereas people that are more collectivistic or
holding interdependent views favor being more similar to the group (Markus & Kitayama,
1991).
Therefore, the distance between self and other among collectivist societies should
be closer than that among individualist societies. In other words, collectivistic people or
interdependents are more likely to view self as similar as others than individualistic
people or independents. Consequently, collectivists’ people could have a natural tendency
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to be less sensitive to the distance cues, concern more about group benefits or costs, and
pay more attention to situational factors. In contrast, people from individualist societies
or independents could be more sensitive to the distance cues, concern more about
individual benefits or costs, and pay more attention to dispositional factors.
In sum, CLT can carry a new perspective to understand the strategic health
communication strategies. However, it hasn’t attracted sufficient attention from scholars
in the field. Therefore, there are lots of potentials for future research for better
understanding how psychological distance could interact with the loss-gain frames and/or
other factors, which have conventionally been investigated in the health communication
research. In addition, the links between psychological distance and cultural orientations
might open a new window for future research on how same messages could yield distinct
effects in various cultures.
Note: Appendix I and the reference list are on the following pages.
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Appendix I
Abstractness
High-level construals
Dispositional attributes
Concreteness
Low-level construals
Situational attributes
Proximal objects
Distant objects
Figure 1. Theoretical links predicted by Construal Level
Theory
Abstractness
High-level construals
Dispositional attributes
Concreteness
Low-level construals
Situational attributes
Self
Other
In-groups
Out-groups
First-person
Third-person
Figure 2. Theoretical links of social distance and level of construal
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Perceived risk of
a health problem
Temporal distance
High
Every year
Every day
Low
Social distance
Self
Other
Figure 3. Theoretical interaction effect of social distance and temporal
distance on perceived risk of a health problem
Evaluations of the health message
Perceived risk and severity
Persuasiveness of the health message
Temporal distance
Every day
High
Every year
Low
Outcome valence
Positive
Negative
Figure 4. Theoretical interaction effect of social distance and outcome
valence on the effectiveness of a health messages
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Judgment for advocated
health behavior
Frames
Loss
Positive
Gain
Negative
Social distance
Self
Other
Figure 5. Theoretical illustration of the effect of social distance and
frame valence on judgment for advocated health behavior
Evaluations of the health message
Perceived risk and severity
Behavioral intent
Social distance
High
Self
Other
Low
Frames
Gain
Loss
Figure 6. Hypothesized interaction effect of social distance and frame
valence on the effectiveness of a health message
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Effectiveness of the message
Cultural Orientation
High
Independents
Interdependents
Low
Social distance
Self
Other
Figure 7. Hypothesized interaction effect of cultural orientation and
social distance on effectiveness of a health message
the effectiveness of a health message
Effectiveness of the message
Cultural Orientation
High
Independents
Interdependents
Low
Frames
Gain
Loss
Figure 8. Hypothesized interaction effect of cultural orientation and frame
valence on the effectiveness of a health message
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