Beliefs About Using Construal Level to Modulate Regulatory Scope

Goals require considering the immediate present as well as distant times, places, people, and possibilities. Although proximal goals require sensitivity to local opportunities, distal goals require action plans robust to variability. Construal level theory proposes that people contract versus expand regulatory scope (i.e., the range of possibilities one accounts for) to address these challenges. A primary tool they use to do so is construal level: low-level construal (representation that highlights unique, idiosyncratic features of events) contracts scope; high-level construal (representation that captures essential, core features) expands scope. Fourteen experiments (4 in the main text, 10 in the Online Supplement) support these assertions by documenting meta-motivational beliefs. Lay people recognize the benefits of construal level for modulating scope across a gradient of temporal distance, and across multiple distance dimensions. They also appreciate diverse methods with which to induce differences in construal level, including social preferences. We discuss theoretical and methodological implications.