Influencing attitudes toward near and distant objects

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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.

Section snippets

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 represented or construed in various ways. For example, enrolling in an academic course might be construed as promoting one’s

Temporal distance and persuasion

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 high- vs. low-level 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

Participants

Seventy-one students (50 women) at New York University in an Introductory Psychology course participated in the study in exchange for course credit. All students were within their first to third years of college. Participants were randomly assigned to condition.

Materials and procedures

Participants were run in groups of one to five. As a cover story, participants were informed that they were part of a pilot program designed by the Department of Psychology to test the effectiveness of a new format of presenting course

Participants

Participants were 112 undergraduate psychology students (70 women) from Tel Aviv University and from Tel Aviv-Jaffa College, ages 18–55, who participated in the study as part of their introductory course requirements. They were randomly assigned to condition.

Materials and procedures

Participants were asked to imagine finding a sale for DVD players on the Internet that was to occur this week (near future condition) vs. 3 months from now (distant future condition). The time frame of a few months was selected to insure

Method

Participants. Two hundred and six students (146 women) at The Ohio State University in an Introductory Psychology course participated in the study in exchange for course credit. Participants were randomly assigned to condition.

Materials and procedures. Participants were run in groups of up to 22. As a cover story, they were informed that the Department of Psychology and School of Communication at OSU were testing materials to be used in a fund-raiser for a wildlife conservation organization.

General discussion

We proposed that temporal distance changes how an attitude object is understood, i.e., what features are made accessible and relevant in evaluation (e.g., Eagly & Chaiken, 1993), and thus influence the success of certain persuasive appeals. Drawing from construal level theory (Liberman et al., 2002, Trope and Liberman, 2003, Trope et al., 2007), we hypothesized that increasing the temporal distance of attitude objects would promote the activation of high-level construals, which in turn would

Conclusion

The research presented in this paper was inspired by the question of whether temporal distance of an attitude object influenced persuasion processes. The results from three studies we report answer this question affirmatively, demonstrating that people preferentially attend to arguments that highlight high- vs. low-level features when attitude objects are temporally distant vs. near. More broadly, these findings suggest that psychological distance may play an important role in attitude

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Student Fellowship to Kentaro Fujita, NIMH Grant #R01 MH59030-06A1 to Yaacov Trope, and United States-Israel Binational Science Foundation Grant #2001057 to Nira Liberman and Yaacov Trope. Thanks to Li Xiu Chen, Cecelia Dones, Teresa Nguyen, and Samantha Walker for assistance in data collection and coding. Thanks also to the Group for Attitudes and Persuasion at The Ohio State University for helpful comments.

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