Kentaro Fujita
Biographic Data
| ID | 77550 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Kentaro Fujita |
| GIVEN NAMES | Kentaro |
| FAMILY NAME | Fujita |
| SIGNATURE | FUJITA K |
| AFFILIATIONS | The Ohio State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6902-9085 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 44 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 334 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 44 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2002 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Methodological Refinement and Optimization in Service of Theory Specification and Development
Beliefs About Using Construal Level to Modulate Regulatory Scope
Goals require considering the immediate present as well as distant times, places, people, and possibilities. Although proximal goals require sensitivity to local opportunities, distal goals require action plans robust to variability. Construal level theory proposes that people contract versus expand regulatory scope (i.e., the range of possibilities one accounts for) to address these challenges. A primary tool they use to do so is construal level…
The Recursive Cycle of Perceived Mindset and Psychological Distress in College
College students are experiencing a significant mental health crisis, with rising rates of psychological distress. To help understand this trend, this study examines recursive relationships in the classroom between perceived mindset beliefs—that is, whether students perceive others in their classroom to view intelligence as malleable or fixed—and psychological distress. Across three time points, 288 undergraduates taking a physics course complete…
When do personal mindsets predict interest in a culture of growth versus genius? A mindset strength perspective
Decades of research indicate that growth versus fixed mindsets can influence important outcomes. Some, however, have recently questioned this conclusion, documenting small to nonexistent effects. Inspired by attitudes research, we propose that some growth mindsets may be stronger-more impactful-than others. Specifically, this work examines whether mindsets held with higher certainty are more likely to influence responses. A field study, a high-po…
Metamotivational knowledge of construal level predicts academic performance
Metamotivational Beliefs in Middle Childhood
Self‐regulation—the monitoring and control of thoughts, feelings, and behavior—plays a central role in guiding healthy social development. While the bulk of the literature examining children's self‐regulation has focused on how much or how well children can regulate specific cognitive functions or behaviors (e.g., emotion control, delay of gratification), recent adult research demonstrates the role of metamotivation —the monitoring and control of…
I’m Still Spending
People with financially contingent self-worth (FCSW) base their self-esteem on money and feel pressured to achieve financial success. However, the present research suggests such individuals may be vulnerable to compulsive buying and experiencing distress and impairment in their lives from engaging in this maladaptive behavior (Study 1a–1b). Study 2 identified a key mechanism: People with FCSW experience more motivational conflict between wanting …
The role of conflict representation in abstinence versus moderation in self-control
Self-control-the prioritization of valued global goals over immediate local rewards-is typically conceptualized and studied as isolated decisions. Goal pursuit, however, generally requires people to make repeated self-control decisions across contexts. We adopt a higher order, strategic level of analysis of self-control and explore, for the first time, people's preferences for abstinence (a pattern of choices in which one never indulges) versus m…
Examining Beliefs About the Benefits of Self-Affirmation for Mitigating Self-Threat
Self-affirmation—reflecting on a source of global self-integrity outside of the threatened domain—can mitigate self-threat in education, health, relationships, and more. Whether people recognize these benefits is unknown. Inspired by the metamotivational approach, we examined people’s beliefs about the benefits of self-affirmation and whether individual differences in these beliefs predict how people cope with self-threat. The current research re…
Early and slow weight loss responders’ perceptions of an adaptive diabetes prevention trial
Objective: Behavioural weight loss interventions demonstrate success on average, yet participants who respond more slowly may benefit from an augmented, tailored approach. Thus, an augmented intervention for early, slow weight loss responders was implemented. This qualitative analysis explored participants' perceptions of and experiences of the 12-month weight loss programme to inform future intervention development and implementation. Design: In…
Predicting Academic Performance with an Assessment of Students’ Knowledge of the Benefits of High-Level and Low-Level Construal
Metamotivation research suggests that people understand the benefits of engaging in high-level versus low-level construal (i.e., orienting toward the abstract, essential versus concrete, idiosyncratic features of events) in goal-directed behavior. The current research examines the psychometric properties of one assessment of this knowledge and tests whether it predicts consequential outcomes (academic performance). Exploratory and confirmatory fa…
Sex Differences in Early Weight Loss Success During a Diabetes Prevention Intervention
Objectives: Males often lose more weight than females during treatment, and early weight loss predicts weight loss longer-term. Yet, mechanisms for sex differences in early weight loss are unknown and were examined in this study. Methods: Adults≥21 years old with overweight or obesity and prediabetes (N=206) participated in a lifestyle intervention and completed baseline psychosocial questionnaires. Percent weight loss, session attendance, and nu…
A Cross-Cultural Investigation of Metamotivational Beliefs About Regulatory Focus Task-Motivation Fit
Recent metamotivation research revealed that Westerners recognize that promotion versus prevention motivations benefit performance on eager versus vigilant tasks, respectively; that is, they know how to create task-motivation fit with respect to regulatory focus. Westerners also believe that, across tasks, promotion is more beneficial than prevention (i.e., a promotion bias). Adopting a cross-cultural approach, we examined whether beliefs about t…
From whom do people seek what type of support? A regulatory scope perspective
From whom do people seek what type of support? Although people regularly seek support from close and distant others, little work has systematically investigated when and why people approach different people in their support network for different types of support. The present research introduces a novel distinction of social support and explores its relationship to the scope or range of support providers people would consider asking for support. B…
Regulatory Scope and Its Mental and Social Supports
Adaptive functioning requires the ability to both immerse oneself in the here and now as well as to move beyond current experience. We leverage and expand construal-level theory to understand how individuals and groups regulate thoughts, feelings, and behavior to address both proximal and distal ends. To connect to distant versus proximal events in a way that meaningfully informs and guides responses in the immediate here and now, people must exp…
Happiness—To enjoy now or later? Consequences of delaying happiness and living in the moment beliefs
How do people think about happiness? Is it something best enjoyed as an investment over time, or is it something fleeting that should be savored? When people view happiness as an investment, they may endorse delaying happiness (DH)-the belief that working hard and sacrificing opportunities for happiness now will contribute to greater future happiness. When people view happiness as fleeting, they may endorse living in the moment (LM)-the belief th…
Smarter, Not Harder
According to common sense, successful self-control requires “willpower.” Psychology often models willpower as the effortful inhibition of temptation impulses—a process theorized to require sufficient motivation and resources. This article challenges the centrality of willpower in self-control. Instead, successful self-control relies on a variety of strategies beyond effortful inhibition: diminishing the influence of immediately available rewards …
Quantitative Sars-CoV-2 Antibody Screening of Healthcare Workers in the Southern Part of Kyoto City During the Covid-19 Pre-pandemic Period
Background: The coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is associated with a heavy burden on the mental and physical health of patients, regional healthcare resources, and global economic activity. While understanding of the incidence and case-fatality rates has increased, there are limited data concerning seroprevalence of antibodies against the severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) in healthcare workers during the pr…
Metamotivational knowledge of the role of high-level and low-level construal in goal-relevant task performance
Metamotivation research suggests that people may be able to modulate their motivational states strategically to secure desired outcomes (Scholer & Miele, 2016). To regulate one's motivational states effectively, one must at minimum understand (a) which states are more or less beneficial for a given task and (b) how to instantiate these states. In the current article, we examine to what extent people understand the self-regulatory benefits of high…
Knowledge of the self-control benefits of high-level versus low-level construal
Research indicates that inducing high-level construal (processing that highlights invariant, essential features) relative to low-level construal (processing that highlights idiosyncratic, peripheral features) promotes self-control (Fujita & Carnevale, 2012). In the present work, we investigate to what extent people recognize the self-control benefits of high-level construal, and explore the consequences of this knowledge. Studies 1 and 2 provide …
The Role of Temporal Distance on the Color of Future-Directed Imagery
This research investigates the effect of temporal distance on how consumers “see” the future through their mind’s eye. Drawing from construal-level and visual perception theories, we propose that shape (vs. color) is a high-level (vs. low-level) visual feature. Because construal of the distant (vs. near) future generally focuses on high-level (vs. low-level) features, when consumers visualize the distant (vs. near) future, they should engage in p…
Immersion Versus Transcendence
Research indicates that words activate high-level construal (processing that highlights central, goal-relevant features of events) whereas pictures activate low-level construal (processing that highlights idiosyncratic, peripheral features). We examine how these differences between words and pictures impact evaluative associations. Research has demonstrated that high-level relative to low-level construal promotes evaluative associations that enha…
How Words Transcend and Pictures Immerse
Drawing from construal level theory, we test the hypothesis that words promote thinking of events in terms of their abstract and central features (i.e., high-level construal), whereas pictures promote thinking in terms of more concrete and idiosyncratic features (i.e., low-level construal). In Experiments 1a and 1b, we found that verbal (vs. pictorial) presentation of objects led to broader, more inclusive categorization of those objects. In Expe…
Seeing the Math in the Story
The negative social, health, financial, and other life outcomes associated with mathematical proficiency deficits highlight the need to understand the underlying cognitive operations entailed in solving math problems. We focus specifically on mathematical word problems and propose that abstraction can enhance performance by helping people see beyond the incidental details described in word problems and to recognize instead the underlying mathemat…
The Motivational Dynamics of Dissent Decisions
We propose that dissent decisions involve a tension between shorter term group stability goals and longer term group change goals. Strongly identified members may be animated by either goal, and their behavior with respect to group norms is influenced by which is currently dominant. In two experiments, we manipulated construal level, a factor that affects goal selection, such that people are more likely to make decisions that further long-term go…
Construal levels and self-control
The authors propose that self-control involves making decisions and behaving in a manner consistent with high-level versus low-level construals of a situation. Activation of high-level construals (which capture global, superordinate, primary features of an event) should lead to greater self-control than activation of low-level construals (which capture local, subordinate, secondary features). In 6 experiments using 3 different techniques, the aut…
Influencing attitudes toward near and distant objects
When risk seeking becomes a motivational necessity
Four studies demonstrate the importance of self-regulatory mechanisms for understanding risk-seeking behavior under loss. Findings suggest that risk seeking becomes a motivational necessity under 3 conditions: (a) when an individual is in a state of loss; (b) when the individual is in a prevention-focused regulatory state (E. T. Higgins, 1997); and (c) when the risky option alone offers the possibility of eliminating loss. In situations involving…
Modeling support provision in intimate relationships
Whereas supportive interactions are usually studied from the perspective of recipients alone, the authors used a dyadic design to incorporate the perspectives of both provider and recipient. In 2 daily diary studies, the authors modeled provider reports of support provision in intimate dyads over several weeks. The 1st involved couples experiencing daily stressors (n = 79); the 2nd involved couples experiencing a major professional stressor (n = …
"Transcending the "Here
Construal level theory proposes that increasing the reported spatial distance of events produces judgments that reflect abstract, schematic representations of the events. Across 4 experiments, the authors examined the impact of spatial distance on construal-dependent social judgments. Participants structured behavior into fewer, broader units (Study 1) and increasingly attributed behavior to enduring dispositions rather than situational constrain…
Stereotype performance boosts
The activation of positive stereotypes has been shown to produce academic performance boosts. Evidence regarding the role of self-relevance in producing such effects has been mixed. The authors propose that the subtlety of stereotype activation plays a key role in creating performance boosts among targets and nontargets of stereotypes. Study 1 found that subtle stereotype activation boosted performance in targets, but blatant activation did not. …
Promoting prospective self-control through abstraction
Mindsets and pre-conscious open-mindedness to incidental information
Construal Level Theory and Spatial Distance
Growing evidence points to a bidirectional relationship between spatial distance and level of mental representation, whereby distant (vs. near) events are represented by a higher level of representation, and higher levels of representations increase perceptions of distance. In the current article, we review research that establishes this association and explores its implications. We begin by briefly describing construal level theory, the theoreti…
The effect of distance-dependent construals on schema-driven impression formation
Monochrome Forests and Colorful Trees
Marketing communications (e.g., advertising, packaging) can be either colorful or black and white. This research investigates how presence or absence of color affects consumer information processing. Drawing from construal-level and visual perception theory, five experiments test the hypothesis that black-and-white (BW) versus color imagery is cognitively associated with high-level versus low-level construal, respectively. Experiment 1 establishe…
Metamotivational knowledge of the role of high-level and low-level construal in goal-relevant task performance
Metamotivation research suggests that people may be able to modulate their motivational states strategically to secure desired outcomes (Scholer & Miele, 2016). To regulate one's motivational states effectively, one must at minimum understand (a) which states are more or less beneficial for a given task and (b) how to instantiate these states. In the current article, we examine to what extent people understand the self-regulatory benefits of high…
Inhibition in goal systems
Rebels with a cause
From whom do people seek what type of support? A regulatory scope perspective
From whom do people seek what type of support? Although people regularly seek support from close and distant others, little work has systematically investigated when and why people approach different people in their support network for different types of support. The present research introduces a novel distinction of social support and explores its relationship to the scope or range of support providers people would consider asking for support. B…
Knowledge of the self-control benefits of high-level versus low-level construal
Research indicates that inducing high-level construal (processing that highlights invariant, essential features) relative to low-level construal (processing that highlights idiosyncratic, peripheral features) promotes self-control (Fujita & Carnevale, 2012). In the present work, we investigate to what extent people recognize the self-control benefits of high-level construal, and explore the consequences of this knowledge. Studies 1 and 2 provide …
The Role of Temporal Distance on the Color of Future-Directed Imagery
This research investigates the effect of temporal distance on how consumers “see” the future through their mind’s eye. Drawing from construal-level and visual perception theories, we propose that shape (vs. color) is a high-level (vs. low-level) visual feature. Because construal of the distant (vs. near) future generally focuses on high-level (vs. low-level) features, when consumers visualize the distant (vs. near) future, they should engage in p…
Stereotype performance boosts
The activation of positive stereotypes has been shown to produce academic performance boosts. Evidence regarding the role of self-relevance in producing such effects has been mixed. The authors propose that the subtlety of stereotype activation plays a key role in creating performance boosts among targets and nontargets of stereotypes. Study 1 found that subtle stereotype activation boosted performance in targets, but blatant activation did not. …
Spatial Distance and Mental Construal of Social Events
Construal-level theory proposes that increasing the reported spatial distance of events leads individuals to represent the events by their central, abstract, global features (high-level construal) rather than by their peripheral, concrete, local features (low-level construal). Results of two experiments indicated that participants preferred to identify actions as ends rather than as means to a greater extent when these actions occurred at a spati…
Mindsets and pre-conscious open-mindedness to incidental information
Construal levels and self-control
The authors propose that self-control involves making decisions and behaving in a manner consistent with high-level versus low-level construals of a situation. Activation of high-level construals (which capture global, superordinate, primary features of an event) should lead to greater self-control than activation of low-level construals (which capture local, subordinate, secondary features). In 6 experiments using 3 different techniques, the aut…
"Transcending the "Here
Construal level theory proposes that increasing the reported spatial distance of events produces judgments that reflect abstract, schematic representations of the events. Across 4 experiments, the authors examined the impact of spatial distance on construal-dependent social judgments. Participants structured behavior into fewer, broader units (Study 1) and increasingly attributed behavior to enduring dispositions rather than situational constrain…
Inhibition in goal systems
Influencing attitudes toward near and distant objects
Modeling support provision in intimate relationships
Whereas supportive interactions are usually studied from the perspective of recipients alone, the authors used a dyadic design to incorporate the perspectives of both provider and recipient. In 2 daily diary studies, the authors modeled provider reports of support provision in intimate dyads over several weeks. The 1st involved couples experiencing daily stressors (n = 79); the 2nd involved couples experiencing a major professional stressor (n = …
Moving Beyond Deliberative Control of Impulses
Many prominent models propose that self-control requires deliberative control of impulses. We propose that people's subjective mental construals of events can alter temptation impulses without requiring conscious deliberation. Research has indicated that high-level construals (subjective mental representations that capture the core, essential, and abstract features of events) lead to greater self-control than low-level construals (representations…
When risk seeking becomes a motivational necessity
Four studies demonstrate the importance of self-regulatory mechanisms for understanding risk-seeking behavior under loss. Findings suggest that risk seeking becomes a motivational necessity under 3 conditions: (a) when an individual is in a state of loss; (b) when the individual is in a prevention-focused regulatory state (E. T. Higgins, 1997); and (c) when the risky option alone offers the possibility of eliminating loss. In situations involving…
Promoting prospective self-control through abstraction
The effect of distance-dependent construals on schema-driven impression formation
On Conceptualizing Self-Control as More Than the Effortful Inhibition of Impulses
The notion that self-control entails effortful inhibition of impulses dominates prevailing psychological models of self-control. This article describes some of the conceptual and empirical limitations of defining self-control as the effortful inhibition of impulses. The present article instead advocates for a dual-motive conceptualization, which describes self-control as the process of advancing distal rather than proximal motivations when the tw…
Construal Level Theory and Spatial Distance
Growing evidence points to a bidirectional relationship between spatial distance and level of mental representation, whereby distant (vs. near) events are represented by a higher level of representation, and higher levels of representations increase perceptions of distance. In the current article, we review research that establishes this association and explores its implications. We begin by briefly describing construal level theory, the theoreti…
Transcending Temptation Through Abstraction
Many goals that people pursue are distal in that they cannot be attained in the here and now but rather must be achieved through action across varied social contexts over time. Self-control requires people to make decisions consistent with distal goals when tempted by more immediate rewards. Inspired by construal-level theory, we propose and review evidence that the way in which people subjectively represent, or construe, events systematically in…
Self-regulation of health behavior
OBJECTIVE: The goal of this article is to review and highlight the relevance of social psychological research on self-regulation for health-related theory and practice. METHODS: We first review research on goal setting, or determining which goals to pursue and the criteria to determine whether one has succeeded. We discuss when and why people adopt goals, what properties of goals increase the likelihood of their attainment, and why people abandon…
Identity-Goal Threats
We hypothesized that threatening self-aspects that pertain to an identity specified in a binding identity goal leads to distinct compensation (i.e., self-symbolizing), whereas threatening self-aspects not specified in a binding identity goal leads to general self-worth restoration. To test this hypothesis, participants with either weak or strong commitments to becoming lawyers were subjected to either a related or unrelated self-threat, and then …
Rebels with a cause
Seeing the Math in the Story
The negative social, health, financial, and other life outcomes associated with mathematical proficiency deficits highlight the need to understand the underlying cognitive operations entailed in solving math problems. We focus specifically on mathematical word problems and propose that abstraction can enhance performance by helping people see beyond the incidental details described in word problems and to recognize instead the underlying mathemat…
The Motivational Dynamics of Dissent Decisions
We propose that dissent decisions involve a tension between shorter term group stability goals and longer term group change goals. Strongly identified members may be animated by either goal, and their behavior with respect to group norms is influenced by which is currently dominant. In two experiments, we manipulated construal level, a factor that affects goal selection, such that people are more likely to make decisions that further long-term go…
Monochrome Forests and Colorful Trees
Marketing communications (e.g., advertising, packaging) can be either colorful or black and white. This research investigates how presence or absence of color affects consumer information processing. Drawing from construal-level and visual perception theory, five experiments test the hypothesis that black-and-white (BW) versus color imagery is cognitively associated with high-level versus low-level construal, respectively. Experiment 1 establishe…
Immersion Versus Transcendence
Research indicates that words activate high-level construal (processing that highlights central, goal-relevant features of events) whereas pictures activate low-level construal (processing that highlights idiosyncratic, peripheral features). We examine how these differences between words and pictures impact evaluative associations. Research has demonstrated that high-level relative to low-level construal promotes evaluative associations that enha…
How Words Transcend and Pictures Immerse
Drawing from construal level theory, we test the hypothesis that words promote thinking of events in terms of their abstract and central features (i.e., high-level construal), whereas pictures promote thinking in terms of more concrete and idiosyncratic features (i.e., low-level construal). In Experiments 1a and 1b, we found that verbal (vs. pictorial) presentation of objects led to broader, more inclusive categorization of those objects. In Expe…
The Role of Temporal Distance on the Color of Future-Directed Imagery
This research investigates the effect of temporal distance on how consumers “see” the future through their mind’s eye. Drawing from construal-level and visual perception theories, we propose that shape (vs. color) is a high-level (vs. low-level) visual feature. Because construal of the distant (vs. near) future generally focuses on high-level (vs. low-level) features, when consumers visualize the distant (vs. near) future, they should engage in p…
Knowledge of the self-control benefits of high-level versus low-level construal
Research indicates that inducing high-level construal (processing that highlights invariant, essential features) relative to low-level construal (processing that highlights idiosyncratic, peripheral features) promotes self-control (Fujita & Carnevale, 2012). In the present work, we investigate to what extent people recognize the self-control benefits of high-level construal, and explore the consequences of this knowledge. Studies 1 and 2 provide …
Psychology (39 works) · Social Psychology (36 works) · Behavioral Health and Interventions (30 works) · Construal level theory (22 works) · Cultural Differences and Values (22 works) · Cognitive psychology (19 works) · Social and Intergroup Psychology (18 works) · Computer Science (16 works) · Social Psychology (14 works) · Construals (8 works)