Construal level mind-sets moderate self- and social stereotyping.

Abstract

Construal level theory suggests that events and objects can be represented at either a higher, more abstract level involving consideration of superordinate goals, desirability, global processing, and broad categorizations or a lower, more concrete level involving consideration of subordinate goals, feasibility, local processing, and narrow categorizations. Analogously, social targets (including the self) can be represented more broadly, as members of a group, or more narrowly, as individuals. Because abstract construals induce a similarity focus, they were predicted to increase the perceived fit between social targets and a salient social category. Accordingly, placing individuals into a more abstract construal mind-set via an unrelated task increased the activation and use of stereotypes of salient social groups, stereotype-consistent trait ratings of the self, group identification, and stereotype-consistent performance relative to more concrete construal mind-sets. Thus, nonsocial contextual influences (construal level mind-sets) affect stereotyping of self and others.

Getting it done and getting it right: Leader disciplinary reactions to Followers’ moral transgressions are determined by construal level mindset

“…This procedure has been shown to consistently induce high or low construal level mindsets in a large number of studies (e.g., Fujita & Roberts, 2010;McCrea et al, 2012;Torelli & Kaikati, 2009). This is, if people are prompted to consider more abstract information (i.e., superordinate goals) or more concrete information (i.e., subordinate means), the mindset carries over to subsequent tasks (Malkoc, Zauberman, & Bettman, 2010).…”

“…In both studies, we used in-basket exercises, a popular tool to assess managerial behavior (e.g., Meyer, 1970;Whetzel, Rotenbury, & McDaniel, 2014) and asked the leader to respond to employee misconduct (see Hoogervorst, De Cremer, & Van Dijke, 2010 for a similar procedure). We manipulated the intentionality of the transgression (Leunissen et al, 2013;Struthers et al, 2008) GETTING IT DONE RIGHT 9 and construal level of the leader (Freitas, Gollwitzer, & Trope, 2004;McCrea, Wieber, & Myers, 2012) using existing procedures.…”

Modulation of taxonomic (versus thematic) similarity judgments and product choices by inducing local and global processing

“…We induced either a local attentional focus (focusing on small details or parts of objects) or a global attentional focus (attending to the "whole" rather than individual parts). Such perceptual processing is linked with conceptual processing and has previously been used widely to induce more abstract (global) or more concrete (local) thinking (Burgoon, Henderson & Markman, 2013, Dijkstra et al, 2012, McCrea, Wieber & Myers, 2012. We predicted that local and global processing would therefore induce taxonomic and thematic thinking, respectively.…”

On Being Open and Perceiving Novelty

“…In particular, individuals who chronically construe at a more abstract level tend to perceive targets as more similar, which leads to broader and more inclusive categorization (Levy, Freitas, and Salovey 2002;McCrea, Wieber, and Meyers 2012).…”

“…This in turn leads to inclusion of more atypical exemplars into a single conceptual category (Förster 2009a;Liberman et al 2002;Trope and Liberman 2010). In particular, individuals who chronically construe at a more abstract level tend to perceive targets as more similar, which leads to broader and more inclusive categorization (Levy, Freitas, and Salovey 2002;McCrea, Wieber, and Meyers 2012).…”