Why Does Psychological Distance Influence Construal Level? The Role of Processing Mode

The influence of psychological distance on construal level has been extensively documented in both social psychology and consumer research, with proximal (distal) events shown to induce low-level (high-level) construals. However, the extant literature takes a black box approach, as it were, to this effect by viewing it in terms of a direct association between distance and construal level, without specifying any intervening variables. The current research seeks to unpack this black box and provide more detailed process insights by identifying such an intervening variable: processing mode. We argue that people tend to rely more on visual processing when construing proximal events while engaging in a greater degree of verbal processing with regard to distal targets; in turn, visual processing is more likely to yield concrete (low-level) representations, whereas verbal processing facilitates abstract (high-level) representations. This unpacked formulation not only provides additional theoretical insight into a classic effect but also yields implications that are novel to the literature. In particular, emphasizing the role of processing mode (1) enables an identification of boundary conditions for the distance-construal effect, and (2) indicates when and why well-established consequences of psychological distance on consumer preferences can be reversed. Results from five studies provide convergent support for our key proposition and its corollaries.