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RUNNING HEAD : TIME , CONSTRUALS , & PERSUASION Influencing Attitudes Toward Near and Distant Objects
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Fujita, Kentaro Chaiken, S. Trope, Yaacov |
| Copyright Year | 2008 |
| Abstract | It is argued that the temporal distance of attitude objects systematically changes how the object is mentally represented, and thus influences the strength of particular persuasive appeals. Three experiments tested the hypothesis that people preferentially attend to arguments that highlight primary, abstract (high-level) vs. incidental, concrete (low-level) features when attitude objects are temporally distant vs. near. Results suggested that when attitude objects are temporally distant vs. near, arguments emphasizing primary vs. secondary features (Study 1), desirability vs. feasibility features (Study 2), and general classes vs. specific cases are more persuasive (Study 3). The relation of construal theory to dual process theories of persuasion and persuasion phenomena, such as personal relevance effects and functional matching effects, are discussed. TIME, CONSTRUALS, & PERSUASION 3 In everyday life, attitude objects that people evaluate may be near or distant in time. For example, students may evaluate courses being offered at their college weeks vs. just days before enrollment. Similarly, voters might be asked to decide whether to adopt a policy that is to be implemented several years later vs. in only a few months. What kinds of information would influence people’s attitudes toward these objects and events? For example, would students be more persuaded by the quality of a professor’s lectures, or the location of the class? Will voters be more concerned about the outcomes a policy might promote, or how difficult the implementation of the policy might be? The question we address in this article is how the temporal distance of these objects – the difference in time between the present and experiencing the attitude object – influences the impact (and hence success) of particular persuasive appeals on attitude change. Surprisingly, there has been little research examining directly whether the temporal distance of an attitude object affects persuasion processes. Most persuasion studies relevant to time have manipulated temporal distance of attitude objects as an operationalization of personal relevance (Petty & Cacioppo, 1984; Petty, Cacioppo, & Goldman, 1981). Personal relevance is the extent to which an issue has important personal consequences, and is typically manipulated by varying the degree to which an issue has a direct impact on study participants. For example, in a now classic study (Petty et al., 1981), student participants were informed that their university had adopted comprehensive senior examinations, which were to be implemented in one year (high personal relevance) or in a decade (low personal relevance). They were then presented with strong and weak arguments in favor of the examinations by experts or non-experts. Those who believed the exams would be implemented in a year were more sensitive to the strength of the argument presented, whereas those who believed that the exams would be implemented in a TIME, CONSTRUALS, & PERSUASION 4 decade were more sensitive to the source of the argument (i.e., whether the source was an expert). Data from personal relevance studies such as the one above are often interpreted to be consistent with dual process models of attitudes, which distinguish between two types of information processing (e.g., Chaiken, Giner-Sorolla, & Chen, 1996; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986): systematic (central) vs. heuristic (peripheral) processing. Systematic/central processing entails careful, elaborative, and reflective thinking and reasoning about relevant stimuli (such as the arguments presented, the source of and causes for the arguments). Such information processing is effortful, and requires not only sufficient motivation but also cognitive capacity. Heuristic/peripheral processing, on the other hand, entails the application of well-learned decision rules that obviate the need to deliberate information deeply and thoroughly. These simple associative rules or heuristics, such as “experts know best” and “argument length implies argument strength,” allow evaluations and judgments to be formed quickly and efficiently with relatively little cognitive effort. Dual process models suggest that when motivation to process information is sufficiently high (high personal relevance), individuals engage in systematic/central processing and are more sensitive to argument strength. When motivation is low (low personal relevance), individuals engage in heuristic/peripheral processing and are more sensitive to heuristic cues such as source expertise or consensus opinion. Mental Construal of Attitude Objects Increasing temporal distance may decrease the personal relevance of attitude objects, causing individuals to engage in less systematic and more heuristic processing. Time, however, may also independently change how an attitude object is understood, i.e., what features are made accessible and relevant in evaluation (e.g., Eagly & Chaiken, 1993). Attitude objects can be TIME, CONSTRUALS, & PERSUASION 5 represented or construed in various ways. For example, enrolling in an academic course might be construed as promoting one’s education vs. enduring a two-hour lecture. One’s representation might preferentially focus on abstract features that are true of all courses (e.g., a syllabus enumerating course materials), or concrete features specific to a particular course (e.g., how comfortable the seats are). Construal level theory (Liberman, Trope, & Stephan, 2007; Trope & Liberman, 2003; Trope, Liberman, & Wakslak, 2007) suggests that the temporal distance of an attitude object systematically changes how the object is mentally construed. The theory proposes that as individuals become removed from the direct experience of objects and events, detailed information about them becomes unreliable or unavailable. As such, individuals must represent distant events by their more abstract, essential (high-level) features. This association between time and abstraction is thought to be overgeneralized such that even with equivalent information, construals of objects or events are more high-level when they are temporally distant vs. near. Research has shown, for example, that individuals represent temporally distant objects increasingly in terms of their prototypical vs. peripheral features (Liberman, Sagristano, & Trope, 2002). Perceivers are also more likely to organize behavior in terms of abstract traits when thinking about temporally distant vs. near individuals (Nussbaum, Trope, & Liberman, 2003). Similarly, individuals tend to identify distant vs. near future actions in terms of desirability (superordinate ends) vs. feasibility (subordinate means to an end; Liberman & Trope, 1998). As a direct consequence of activating different mental construals, preferences and decisions shift systematically as a function of temporal distance. High-level construals enhance the impact of primary, abstract (high-level) vs. incidental, concrete (low-level) features of objects and events in judgment. For example, individuals’ decisions tend to be based on TIME, CONSTRUALS, & PERSUASION 6 superordinate concerns of desirability (ends) over subordinate concerns of feasibility (means to an end) for distant future vs. near future events (Liberman & Trope, 1998; Sagristano, Trope, & Liberman, 2002). Individuals are also more likely to make choices that concur with primary, goal-relevant concerns vs. incidental, goal-irrelevant concerns when deciding between temporally distant vs. near objects (Trope & Liberman, 2000; Eyal, Liberman, Sagristano, & Trope, 2007). Levels of construal are distinct from dual-process models of attitudes in that extracting the abstract, central aspects of an object or event (high-level construals) is not necessarily more or less effortful than attending to the contextual, concrete details (low-level construals). For example, considering superordinate end-states of an action is not necessarily more or less demanding of one’s cognitive resources than thinking about specific means for achieving those ends. Moreover, it is possible to engage in both heuristic and systematic processing when considering a particular highvs. low-level feature. For example, one can process both how much space an apartment has (high-level, desirability feature) and how far away it is from work (low-level, feasibility issue) more or less deliberatively. Highand low-level construals also differ in the range of cases that they can be applied to. Whereas high-level construals can be applied globally and broadly to a wide range of cases (apartments in New York City), low-level construals are more specific representations of a particular case (this apartment in the East Village). Dual process models do not make such distinctions in the range of cases to which systematic or heuristic processing are applicable. Both modes of processing are equally applicable for considering a particular case vs. class of cases. Temporal Distance and Persuasion TIME, CONSTRUALS, & PERSUASION 7 We propose that time changes the mental construal of attitude objects and influences what features of an attitude object are attended to and perceived as relevant. The activation of high-level construals by increasing temporal distance should facilitate attention to highvs. lowlevel arguments. Therefore, we predict that messages highlighting (or consisting mostly of) positive high-level features vs. positive low-level features will have greater impact on attitudes toward objects in the distant vs. near future. For example, desirability vs. feasibility arguments should be preferentially attended to and cause greater attitude change for distant vs. near future attitude objects. Similarly, messages appealing to goal-relevant vs. goal-irrelevant issues should be more influential when referring to distant vs. near future objects. Our approach is similar to “functional matching” approaches to attitude change and persuasion (e.g. DeBono, 1987; Katz, 1960; Snyder & DeBono, 198 |
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| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://faculty.psy.ohio-state.edu/fujita/docs/Fujita,%20Eyal,%20Chaiken,%20Trope,%20&%20Liberman%20(2008).pdf |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
