Construal level as a moderator of the role of affective and cognitive attitudes in the prediction of health‐risk behavioural intentions

Abstract

Esta es la versión de autor del artículo publicado en: This is an author produced version of a paper published in: El acceso a la versión del editor puede requerir la suscripción del recurso Access to the published version may require subscription Construal level as a moderator of the role of affective and cognitive attitudes in the prediction of health-risk behavioral intentions.Many cases of health-promoting and health-risk behaviors present intercomponent ambivalence, a kind of "heart vs. mind conflict" which reduces the predictive power of psychological models such as the Theory of Planned Behavior (Conner & Sparks, 2002). Conner, Povey, Sparks, James and Shepherd (1998) studied 12 health-risk behaviors very common in young people, and found drinking alcohol (the most ambivalent), sleeping 7-8 hours per night and exercising as good examples of behaviors in which there were ambivalent attitudes.In the case of health-risk behaviors, when there is high intercomponent attitudinal ambivalence (e.g., fun but unhealthy, or healthy but boring), affective attitudes are usually stronger predictors of intentions than cognitive attitudes (Lawton, Conner, & McEachan, 2009;Lawton, Conner, & Parker, 2007;Trafimow & Sheeran, 1998;Trafimow et al., 2004). The present research extends these findings to the domain of Construal Level Theory (CLT; Liberman, Trope, & Stephan, 2007;Trope & Liberman, 2003) by showing how the level at which people construe their future intentions influences which attitudinal component is used (affective or cognitive).According to CLT, individuals use more abstract mental models when they represent actions situated in the distant future (versus concrete mental models used to represent near-future events). Abstract or high-level construals are relatively simple and decontextualized representations focused on superordinate traits and relevant goals; at the opposite pole are situated concrete or low-level construals, contextualized and more detailed representations that include subordinate features. Liberman and Trope (1998) found that superordinate aspects like desirability are valued more when people make decisions about the distant future, whereas subordinate aspects such as feasibility are

Abstractness leads people to base their behavioral intentions on desired attitudes

“…CLT also argues that objects, features, and information that are congruent with a given mindset will have greater impact than those that are incongruent with the mindset. For example, for people in an abstract (versus concrete) mindset, abstract concepts such as their values (Eyal, Sagristano, Trope, Liberman, & Chaiken, 2009;Torelli & Kaikati, 2009), ideology (Ledgerwood, Trope, & Chaiken, 2010), general attitudes (Carrera, Muñoz, Caballero, Fernández, & Albarracín, 2012) and affective attitudes (see also Carrera, Caballero, Muñoz, González-Iraizoz, & Fernández, 2014) are more likely to predict subsequent behavioral intentions.…”

Effects of Self-Affirmation Feedback on Exercise Intention of Women in Their Twenties Depending on Construal Level

“…Prior studies (Calderon, Mac Giolla, Granhag, & Ask, 2017; Carrera et al., 2014) which examined the effect of construal level on intention, using an experimental design, had higher sample sizes (e.g., 125 participants in Calderon et al., 2017 and 87 in Carrera et al., 2014) than that in this study. Although the sample size in this study was smaller, compared to those in prior studies, it was appropriate because the suitable sample size for a moderate effect size ( f = .20) with alpha set at .05 and power at .80 through G*Power software (Faul, Erdfelder, Buchner, & Lang, 2009) was 52.…”

“…Although there was no statistically significant difference in continuation intentions of failure between the measurement times (pre- vs. post-) ( F (1, 53) = 0.01, p = .921) and between the groups (FSF vs. DSF) ( F (1, 53) = 0.51, p = .479), an interaction effect (pre- vs. post- × FSF vs. DSF) was observed at p < .15 (see Carrera et al., 2014) ( F (1, 53) = 2.21, p = .143). Table 4 shows that continuation intentions of failure were increased in DSF, but decreased in FSF.…”

“…Carrera et al. (2014) studied whether the effects of affective and cognitive attitudes toward health-promoting and health-risk behaviors on intention to continue vary according to construal level.…”

Abstract Construal Level and its Link to Self-Control and to Cross-Situational Consistency in Self-Concept: Predicting Health-Risk Behavioral Intentions

“…In our proposal, the role played by the construal level is particularly significant in influencing predictions related to behaviors. CLT has shown that, when people use an abstract mindset, they form judgments and behavioral intentions focusing more on their personal values (Eyal, Sagristano, Trope, Liberman, & Chaiken, 2009), general attitudes (Carrera, Muñoz, Caballero, Fernández, & Albarracín, 2012), affective attitudes (Carrera, Caballero, Muñoz, González-Iraizoz, & Fernández, 2014), and desired attitudes (Carrera, Caballero, Fernández, & Muñoz, 2017).…”