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Traversing psychological distance
Nira Liberman1 and Yaacov Trope2
1
2
Department of Psychology, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel
Department of Psychology, New York University, 6 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003, USA
Traversing psychological distance involves going
beyond direct experience, and includes planning, perspective taking, and contemplating counterfactuals.
Consistent with this view, temporal, spatial, and social
distances as well as hypotheticality are associated, affect
each other, and are inferred from one another. Moreover,
traversing all distances involves the use of abstraction,
which we define as forming a belief about the substitutability for a specific purpose of subjectively distinct
objects. Indeed, across many instances of both abstraction and psychological distancing, more abstract constructs are used for more distal objects. Here, we
describe the implications of this relation for prediction,
choice, communication, negotiation, and self-control.
We ask whether traversing distance is a general mental
ability and whether distance should replace expectancy
in expected-utility theories.
Traversing psychological distance
In this review, we examine the benefits of high-level,
abstract mental representations for self-regulating with
respect to psychologically distal objects (goals, events, and
humans) by summarizing and extending our work on
construal level theory (CLT; [1,2]). As a starting point,
consider object permanence, a skill that humans typically
develop during the first year of life. An infant is said to have
formed object permanence if, facing an object being covered, they continue to believe that the object exists (as
indicated, for example, by them trying to remove the cover
[3]). Object permanence reflects abstraction, namely, a
belief that perceptions that appear across different spatiotemporal contexts and that are perceived to be different
from each other (the image of the object that is projected on
the retina changes with orientation, distance, and illumination) are nevertheless equivalent in the sense that they
all pertain to the same object. An object is more stable than
its context-specific perceptual image; that is, it changes
less in time, space, and perspective. Object permanence
allows prediction across time and space (e.g., if the object
disappeared behind a screen, it will reappear on the other
side) as well as construction of counterfactual worlds (e.g.,
the object would have been visible if not for the screen).
Object permanence is also an important building block of
perspective taking, a later-developing ability that involves
Corresponding authors: Liberman, N. ([email protected]);
Trope, Y. ([email protected]).
Keywords: psychological distance; construal level theory; abstraction.
1364-6613/
ß 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2014.03.001
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understanding of another person’s perspective on the same
object [4].
Developing object permanence is an example of the
process of abstraction, or forming a higher-level construct*.
We believe that, through repeated application of the same
process, guided by innate predispositions (e.g., to focus
more on moving than on still objects [5]) and facilitated
by direct, first-hand experience [6] as well as socially
mediated experience [7], individuals form increasingly
more abstract, high-level construals of the world. Despite
the fact that abstractions exist on many levels and come in
many forms, we maintain that they all serve the same
function, which is to support traversing psychological distance. Thus, abstraction enables traversing of psychological distance, and traversing distance, in turn, prompts
abstraction. Going back to the example, object permanence, which, as we noted, enables prediction, construction
of alternative worlds, and communication, is probably
acquired by young children via locomotion, a literal example of traversing distance. In what follows, we explain what
we mean by traversing psychological distance and argue
that, despite its many manifestations, psychological distance is a unitary construct. We then develop a more
detailed account of abstraction and present research bearing on its relation to psychological distance.
What is psychological distance?
Much of our life revolves around things that are not
happening to us right now. They may belong to the past
or the future, or maybe somewhere else, or pertain to
experiences of other humans or may even be alternatives
to reality, possibilities that never materialized (Box 1). Not
only can humans relate to psychologically distal objects,
but doing so is also important for effective managing of
their life: functioning adults must be able to plan, simulate
counterfactual worlds, and coordinate action with other
individuals.
The automatic assessment of distance
All psychological distances are egocentric with a common
zero-distance point, which is the experienced reality of me
here and now, and a common way of traversing it, which is
the use of mental construals. The fundamental similarity
between all dimensions of psychological distance is supported by evidence for a common, automatically processed
*
In this paper, we use the terms ‘abstraction’ and ‘formation of a higher-level construal’ interchangeably. The product of the process of abstraction is a higher-level representation. Also, high-level features are those that are retained in the more abstract,
high-level representation, whereas low-level features are those that are omitted in the
process of abstraction.
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Box 1. Psychological distance
We define psychological distance as the extent of divergence from
direct experience of me, here and now along the dimensions of
time, space, social perspective, or hypotheticality. Table I provides
examples of the ways in which psychological distance has been
varied in previous research.
Table I. Examples of the ways in which psychological
distance has been varied in previous research
Distance
Time
Operationalization
Future (e.g., make a decision that would be
implemented tomorrow versus a year from now;
imagine an event in the near versus the distant
future)
Past (e.g., an object that belongs to the present or
to the past)
Nearby versus faraway place (e.g., the map
Space
represents a path from your office to the nearest
cafeteria versus from an office in another city to
the nearest cafeteria)
Social distance Self versus other (e.g., you describe or decide for
yourself versus for another person)
Similar versus dissimilar other
Familiar versus unfamiliar other
Ingroup versus outgroup
Hypotheticality High versus low probability
Real versus hypothetical (e.g., you play a demo of
a game versus the real game)
meaning of the various dimensions of distance. In a set of
Stroop-like studies [8], participants viewed landscape
photographs with an arrow that was pointed to either a
proximal or a distal point in the landscape. Each arrow
contained a word denoting either proximity (e.g., tomorrow, we, or sure) or remoteness (e.g., year, others, or
maybe). Participants indicated by pressing one of two keys
whether the arrow pointed to a proximal or to a distal
location, or, in another version of the task, identified the
word printed in the arrow. In both versions, participants
responded faster to distance-congruent stimuli (e.g., a
spatially distant arrow with the word ‘year’) than to distance-incongruent stimuli (e.g., a spatially distal arrow
with the word ‘tomorrow’). These results suggest that
spatial distance, temporal distance, social distance, and
hypotheticality have a common meaning (psychological
distance) that is accessed even when it is not related to
the current task. We believe that psychological distance is
assessed automatically because of its fundamental, unconditional importance: it is ever important whether an object
is real or imagined, certain or probable, present, future or
past, mine or somebody else’s. However, distance is typically not part of the fixed semantic meaning of objects, but
rather is a variable relation between the perceiver and the
perceived object. Perhaps for this reason, distance from an
object has not received the same attention from researchers as, for example, the valence of objects [9–11].
Estimates of different distances are correlated
Consider the relation between interpersonal closeness and
other distances. Social psychologists use spatial distance
(e.g., preferred sitting distance) as an implicit measure of
interpersonal closeness [12,13]. Hypotheticality is used in
Trends in Cognitive Sciences July 2014, Vol. 18, No. 7
communication to signal social distance (e.g., ‘X seems to be
the case’ is preferred to ‘X is the case’ when addressing a
socially distal person [14]). We believe that these examples
reflect a general principle, namely, that individuals tend to
judge distances as positively correlated. Supporting this
notion, research has found that humans expect unlikely
events to occur in situations that are relatively remote in
time, space, and social distance [15]. For example, participants expected a rare cat blood type to be found in cats in
spatially remote rather than nearby places, whereas a
common cat blood type was expected in a near rather than
a remote location. A recent study examined the associations between all distance dimensions [16]. Participants
imagined themselves performing an activity that was either distal or proximal on some dimension (e.g., arguing
with a familiar or unfamiliar person, in a near or distant
location) and then provided estimates of the distance of
this activity on other dimensions (e.g., probability or time).
Activities that were distal on one dimension were judged as
more distal on other dimensions. These results demonstrate that completing ‘long time ago in a ___ land’ with
‘faraway’ rather than ‘nearby’ reflects not only a literary
convention, but also a robust psychological principle.
Distance at a distance
Judgment of distance reflects the psychophysical Weber–
Fechner law [17] of diminishing sensitivity with increasing
intensity: people are more sensitive to proximal intervals
(e.g., here versus 1 mile away) than to distal intervals (100
versus 101 miles away). If distances are interchangeable,
then this principle should apply not only within one dimension of distance, but also across different dimensions.
Indeed, participants judged an interval on any dimension
(e.g., a delay of 1 week) as shorter when it was distal rather
than proximal on any other dimension [18]. For example, in
the context of intertemporal choice, participants were
willing to wait longer when the choice pertained to spatially distal options, when the recipient of the reward was
more socially distal, and when the choice situation was less
likely.
In sum, we propose that psychological distance is a basic
dimension of meaning in a way similar to valence. Both
distance and valence are important in many situations and
are assessed automatically [19]. Humans’ tendency to infer
one distance from another parallels their tendency to infer
one aspect of valence from another (e.g., ascribe positive
traits to good-looking humans [20]). All valenced objects
elicit in a perceiver an approach or avoidance reaction [21],
with a stronger reaction to objects that have more extreme
valence [22]. In the next section, we demonstrate that,
correspondingly, all distal objects elicit in the perceiver
abstract mental representations, with more abstract representations for more distal objects.
What is abstraction?
The process of abstraction involves forming a belief about
the substitutability for a specific purpose of two or more
subjectively distinct objects [23]. It is based on an implicit
or explicit decision on which properties of the objects are
primary versus secondary [24]. For example, a belief that a
pen and a keyboard are substitutable (e.g., as members of
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the more abstract category ‘writing tools’) involves a decision that function is important but physical shape is not.
Likewise, a belief that ‘rowing’ and ‘biking’ are substitutable involves a decision that level of effort is important but
the specific muscles involved are not. Notably, importance
may depend on one’s goals, giving rise to multiple possible
abstractions of the same object. A pen would be substitutable with a stick but not with a keyboard if one’s goal is to
poke somebody and rowing would be substitutable with
swimming but not with biking if one is to cross a river.
Much of psychology may be thought of as the study of
abstraction. Perception research studies how humans abstract physical stimuli that reach their sense organs into
perceptions (e.g., object). Cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, and psycholinguistics study how
humans form categories of objects, such as ‘dog’, ‘arm’,
and ‘person’ and categories of actions, such as ‘put’, ‘talk’,
and ‘steal’. Social psychology studies how humans come to
understand and use social categories such as group or race,
and how humans abstract traits (e.g., ‘active’) from actions
(e.g., ‘exercises’).
These examples illustrate three points: first, it is possible to perform abstractions recursively by applying them to
products of former processes of abstraction, thereby creating multiple levels of abstraction. Second, abstraction is
ubiquitous and has many manifestations (Box 2). Third,
although abstraction is a process of reduction whereby lowlevel features are omitted and high-level features are
retained, more abstract constructs are not simply more
impoverished, because they may acquire extra meaning by
virtue of being connected to other abstract constructs. For
example, the action ‘help’ is connected to ‘love’ (e.g., via
their shared positive valence [20]) but its more concrete
exemplar ‘write a check’ is not. Likewise, the category
‘vertebrates’ connect to the abstract notion ‘evolution’ more
than concrete exemplars such as ‘chameleon’.
Abstraction and traversing distance
Our main contention is that all abstractions, by virtue of
being more invariant than their elements, serve a similar
function of enabling humans to traverse psychological
distance. Higher-level abstractions, being more invariant,
afford traversing larger distances. Therefore, when answering the question ‘what is it?’, humans are likely to
use more abstract construals with increasing distance to
the object.
That spatial distance facilitates global perception is not
surprising. The characteristics of our visual system are
such that, farther away from an object, one is more likely to
perceive its global shape rather than its details. More
interestingly, other distances have the same effect [25].
Consider hierarchical visual stimuli [26], which allow two
qualitatively different answers to the question ‘what is it,’
one referring to the global shape, the other to its local
elements. In a set of studies, participants first wrote about
a day in the distant future or in the near future and then
imagined doing the hierarchical letters task on that day.
Temporal distance, compared with proximity, produced
faster identification of global shapes and slower identification of local shapes [25]. Other studies found that
the likelihood of abstracting an object from fragmented
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Box 2. Level of construal
The process of abstraction (or forming a higher level of construal)
involves forming a belief about the substitutability for a specific
purpose of two or more subjectively distinct objects. Abstraction
applies to a range of mental processes, from perception to highlevel cognition. Table I provides some examples of the ways in
which the distinction between high- and low-level construals has
been used in previous research.
Table I. Examples of the ways in which the distinction
between high- and low-level construals has been used in
previous research
High-level, abstract
construals
Object construal
Gestalt, global figure
Wide categories
Words
Primary features
Event construal
Large time segments
Causes
Person construal
Traits
Dispositions
Group identity, stereotypes
Action construal
Abstract action verbs
(e.g., help or cheat)
Why an action is performed
Ends, desirability
Abstract goals, values,
ideologies
Low-level,
concrete construals
Details
Exemplars, narrow categories
Pictures
Secondary features
Small time segments
Effects
Behaviors
Situational pressures
Individuating information
Concrete action verbs (e.g.,
lift or talk)
How an action is performed
Means, feasibility
Incidental and/or local
considerations, situational demands
pictures increased when these were presented as sample
items from a test to be taken in the more distant future [27]
or a test that was less likely [28].
Words are more abstract than pictures, because they
omit many incidental details that are necessarily present
in pictures (even a schematic picture of a dog specifies the
leg–torso proportion [29]). Therefore, distance should increase preference for words relative to pictures. Indeed,
when presented with spatially, temporally, or socially near
or distant items in either a pictorial or verbal format and
asked to identify the items, participants were faster when
pictures represented psychologically proximal objects and
words represented psychologically distal objects than vice
versa
Distance affects not only perception, but also category
width [30]. Individuals imagined an event (e.g., a camping
trip) occurring in either the near or the distant future and
grouped a set of related objects (e.g., tent, ball, and snorkel)
into groups. Participants who thought of a more distant
event created fewer, broader groups of objects. Reduced
likelihood and social distance had the same effect [31,32].
Relatedly, participants divided a stream of behavior into
larger segments when the behavior was believed to be
spatially more distal [31] or less likely [28]. Also related
is the finding that, when creating a unit of measurement
for a line that represented either a spatially proximal or
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Box 3. Outstanding questions
Traversing distance as an ability
Various human abilities may be conceptualized in terms of traversing
different psychological distances (e.g., delay of gratification as traversing temporal distance [39], social perspective-taking as traversing
social distance [40], or engaging in pretend-play as traversing hypotheticality [41]). Our claim that the different distances are interrelated raises
several research questions: do these abilities develop together? Are they
correlated? Do pathologies that are related to these abilities show
comorbidity? For example, is there a relation between autism, which
could be characterized as pathology in traversing social distance, and
impulsiveness, which could be characterized as pathology in traversing
temporal distance? Is a deficient ability to engage in pretend play
characteristic of individuals with autism and/or impulsivity? Is there a
basic pathology that underlies multiple deficiencies in traversing
distance and abstraction? Can training in traversing one distance
improve the ability to traverse another?
Generalization
How broadly do humans generalize what they learn? CLT would
predict that psychological distancing would produce wider generalization of the learned response. Consider, for example, learning that a
tone predicts reward. Would learning that occurred under a distal
(versus proximal) mindset generalize to tones that are less similar to
the original tone? A related prediction regarding social learning is that
distal path, participants chose a larger unit for the more
distal path [33].
Abstract construal of actions links them to a superordinate purpose (why one performs them), whereas concrete,
low-level construal of the same actions links them to
subordinate means (how one performs them [34]). Participants used higher-level terms (e.g., to describe ‘studying’
as ‘doing well is school’ rather than as ‘reading a textbook’)
when the action was more distant in time [34] or space [31],
when it was less likely [28], or when the actor was less
similar to themselves [32].
Behaviors can be represented specifically (e.g., climbed
the Himalaya), or abstracted into traits (e.g., adventurous).
The well-known actor–observer effect in attribution [35] is
the tendency to ascribe the behavior of other humans to
humans would learn more abstract, general principles from more
socially distal others (e.g., unfamiliar teachers), but would learn
specific, concrete details from proximal others (e.g., close friends and
family members).
A proximity-by-value theory of motivation
Motivational strength, according to many theories, is proportional to
the product of outcome expectancy and value. In CLT, expectancy is a
dimension of psychological distance, which suggests that a more
general form of this theory should be that motivational strength is
proportional to the product of psychological proximity and value.
Abstraction and traversing distance in groups and societies
Not only individuals, but also entire societies face the need to regulate
themselves with respect to targets of varying distance. Perhaps a
sociological analysis could benefit from examining the correspondence between distancing and abstractness. For example, is it the
case that higher-level institutions, which encompass more social
perspectives (e.g., Federal court versus state courts, countries versus
city councils) operate by more general laws? Is it the case that they
tend to change their rules less frequently? Is it the case that abstract
cultural institutions (e.g., science as opposed to technology, or art as
opposed to decoration) produce more enduring artifacts? Is it the case
that they are more attracted to the unusual and unlikely?
personal traits (he is clumsy) but one’s own similar behavior to situational forces (the floor is slippery). From the
current perspective, this represents an effect of social
distance on level of construal that should occur with other
distances as well. Consistent with this prediction, research
shows that humans expect their own and others’ behavior
to be more consistent across different situations (e.g., a
party, a supermarket, or at work) and reflective of stable
personality dispositions when the situations pertain to the
more distant future [36]. Humans also use more dispositional and less situational explanations for their past and
future selves compared with their present self [37,38].
In sum, abstraction is a process that the human mind
uses across many domains, from simple percepts to complex ideologies. That distance promotes abstraction across
Box 4. Applications to prediction, evaluation, and behavior
Prediction of more distal events relies on higher-level constructs
and neglects low-level aspects [36]. When confidence derives from
high-level constructs and is undermined by low-level constructs,
predictions for the more distant future tend to be more confident
(e.g., psychology students were more confident that major
theoretical predictions in the field would replicate in an experiment
that would be run a year later rather than on the same day).
Decisions for more distal situations give more weight to high-level
aspects of the alternatives and less weight to low-level aspects.
Temporal, social, and spatial distance and hypotheticality
increase the weight of ends versus means (e.g., how interesting
a lecture is versus how convenient it is to get there; [32,34,42,43]).
Temporal and social distances increase the weight of primary,
defining aspects as opposed to secondary aspects (e.g., the main
task versus a filler task in an experiment [32,44]).
Temporal and spatial distance increase the weight of aggregate versus case-specific information (e.g., average ratings of
many customers versus a verbal review of a single customer;
[45,46]).
High-level goals and values guide plans for temporally distant
situations but not for near situations (e.g., being a hedonist predicts
planning hedonistic behaviors for the distant future but not for the
upcoming week) [47–49].
Ideologies, compared with incidental social pressures (e.g., strangers’ opinions), predict choices for the distant future more than for
the near future [50].
In negotiation, logrolling is defined as conceding on secondary, lowlevel issues in exchange for high-priority (high-level) issues. Logrolling increases when negotiation pertains to temporally distal
issues [51] and when it is conducted over a large spatial distance [52].
Communication may be seen as traversing social distance.
Humans use higher-level construals in communicating with a
larger, more diverse audience [53].
Preference for using words (versus pictures) increases when
communicating with temporally, socially, or geographically distal
(versus proximal) others [54].
Self-control conflicts may be conceptualized as conflicts between
high-level goals and low-level goals. Distance and abstract mindsets improve self-control [55].
Discounting of future monetary outcomes is less steep for
delayed outcomes [56] and after induction of an abstract mindset
[55].
An abstract mindset promotes positive evaluation of healthy food
(versus fatty food) among dieters [57].
Temporal distance increases the willingness to receive unpleasant but useful negative feedback [58].
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this entire span of mental constructs has been demonstrated in many studies and merits further corroboration
(Box 3). Humans use abstraction to answer not only the
question ‘what is it’, but also ‘what do I want’, making
abstraction processes relevant to decision making, evaluation, self-control, negotiation, and communication (see
Box 4 for some examples). Generally, this research shows
that decisions that pertain to more psychologically proximal situations assign more weight to low-level aspects of
the decision situation and less weight to high-level aspects.
Concluding remarks
Traversing psychological distance is indispensable for
adaptive human functioning. The course of human evolution, the (much shorter) course of human history, and the
(even shorter) course of child development are associated
with traversing increasingly greater distances. We argue
that this process critically relies on abstraction, that is, the
formation of mental representations that allow seeing
distinct objects as equivalent, thereby introducing invariance into the variety of objects around us. Major cornerstones in evolution, history, and personal development
indeed reflect the close relation between abstraction and
traversing distance. For example, the evolution of language, an abstract system of symbols, enabled traversing
larger social distances by communicating to more humans
and made it possible to communicate about hypothetical
and future events more than gesturing, the likely predecessor of language. In the course of history, abstract systems of ideas in the form of religions and ideologies enabled
the formation of large social groups and expanded humans’
temporal perspective by making them consider events in
both the distal past (e.g., creation of the world) and the
distal future (e.g., utopian salvation). On the personal
level, developing an ability to use immaterial, abstract
representations of rewards facilitates delay of gratification
[39].
Research conducted in the framework of CLT has corroborated the notion of psychological distance, the notion of
abstraction, and the relation between distance and abstraction. It has shown that different distance dimensions
are inter-related, in that they are associated with each
other, affect each other, and add to each other to produce a
unified sense of distance. Research has also shown that
more distal objects, on any dimension of distance, are
construed in more abstract, high-level terms and that
the notion of abstraction applies across a range of psychological phenomena, from low-level perception (e.g., details
versus gestalt), to cognition (exemplars versus categories),
and to higher-level constructs, such as explanations of
behavior (in terms of local situations or global, enduring
traits). Abstraction, in turn, makes it possible to traverse
psychological distance, namely, to predict, evaluate, and
plan for events that are not part of the ‘here-and-now.’
Acknowledgments
The research reported in this paper was supported by US-Israel
Binational Science Foundation Grant #2011-080 to N.L. and Y.T., by
the I-CORE Program of the Planning and Budgeting Committee and The
Israel Science Foundation (grant No. 51/11) to N.L., and by the National
Science Foundation Award #BCS-1053128 and the John Templeton
Foundation Award # FB49739-A to Y.T.
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