Focused and fired up: Narrowed attention produces perceived proximity and increases goal-relevant action

Approach and Avoidance as Organizing Structures for Motivated Distance Perception

“…Some research suggests this is the case. Interventions designed to create the experience of perceived proximity (e.g., narrowed attention), facilitate faster goal-relevant responding (Cole, Riccio, & Balcetis, 2014). This suggests that motivated perception may assist in prompting adaptive action.…”

“…Just as the actual distance to a threat or a reward can shift the strength of the motivated response, so too might the mere perception of a dangerous threat or appetitive reward. Indeed, people trying to exercise who saw the rewarding finish line as closer rather than farther away were also the people who walked faster and experienced the physical exertion as easier (Cole et al, 2014). The relationships among actual distance, perceptions of distance, and motivational direction may prove interrelated and reciprocal as perceptual experiences functionally guide behavioral responses.…”

Motivated level of construal: How temperature affects the construal level of state-relevant stimuli

“…We argue that-much as motivated distance perception may assist in prompting adaptive action (Cole et al 2014)motivated level of construal may be a previously unknown mechanism to serve the same function. The present research tested the idea that motivational states affect the level of construal of stimuli that are relevant to the person in that state.…”

“…Participants were randomly assigned to a 2 (Prime: warm, cold) × 2 (Product: ventilators, heaters) × 2 (Information Type: product favored by average information, product favored by individualized information) mixed design with the second and third factors varied within participants. As in Experiment 1, we determined the required sample size based the average effect size found in the related literature (Balcetis and Dunning 2010;Cole et al 2014;Zhang and Risen 2014). Entering the effect of f = 0.26 and a desired power of 1-β = 0.80, an alpha level of α = 0.05 into the program G*Power (Faul et al 2009) with specifying the number of groups with 2 and the number of measurements with 4 (since participants rated heaters and ventilators favored by individualized information and heaters and ventilators favored averaged information), with an assumed correlation between the ratings of r = 0, resulted in a total sample size of 42, which means at least 21 participants per experimental condition.…”

Keeping the Goal in Sight: Testing the Influence of Narrowed Visual Attention on Physical Activity

“…When people oriented eye gaze on a goal, focusing visual attention narrowly rather than expansively, they engaged in more effective exercise. For example, when they were motivated to exercise, people who narrowed their attention on the finish line compared with when they expanded their attention around their environment walked to the finish line faster and felt that the physical exertion required was less (Cole, Riccio, & Balcetis, 2014). Similarly, although unfit individuals perceived distances to a finish line as greater than fit individuals, when unfit individuals narrowly focused their visual attention on the goal, they perceived it as just as close as did their fit counterparts, believed they could accomplish the task, and subsequently improved the quality of their exercise (Balcetis et al, 2015).…”