Effects of Thinking Abstractly or Concretely on Self-control

Source: Diego Reinero & Jay Van Bavel—New York University

Whether it's refraining from having a second serving of ice cream, studying instead of attending a fun party, or deciding to put money away in a savings account, sacrificing short-term outcomes in favor of long-term outcomes (i.e., delaying gratification) is a central tenant of self-control. When people apply self control, they engage numerous psychological processes to help them achieve their goal. These self-regulatory processes have been studied by psychologists for decades.

A decision to resist tempting short-term rewards can depend on an individual's mindset and focus. Psychologists have found evidence that how someone construes an event can influence how they make judgments and decisions, a theory called Construal Level Theory (CLT). In particular, CLT asserts that the same object or event can be represented at multiple levels of abstractness or psychological distance, most commonly either a high-(abstract/distant) or low-(concrete/near) level of construal.¹ Thinking about a situation with high-level construal entails emphasizing the global, superordinate, central features of an object or event (i.e,, zooming out and looking at the big picture), whereas thinking about a situation with low-level construal entails focusing on its unique and specific features. For example, thinking about children playing catch with high-level construal, one might describe this activity as "children having fun", whereas with a low-level construal, one might focus instead on specific features such as the color of the ball or age of the children.

The following experiment tests whether approaching a decision or situation with high-level construal will lead to greater self-control than low-level construal. This experiment utilizes a common method of priming a participant's level of construal through asking a series of "why" (high-level manipulation) or "how" (low-level manipulation) questions.²