Ravit Nussinson
Biographic Data
| ID | 130137 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ravit Nussinson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Ravit |
| FAMILY NAME | Nussinson |
| SIGNATURE | NUSSINSON R |
| AFFILIATIONS | Open University of Israel |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7331-548X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 38 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
How Norms Depend on the Presence and Status of Observers: The Relational Contingency of Everyday Behaviors in 90 Societies
Norms are fundamental to social life, but basic questions about how they are affected by social context remain. Specifically, how do normative constraints depend on the presence and status of observers, and how do such relational contingencies vary across cultures? Using data from more than 25,000 individuals across 90 societies, we test several hypotheses linking normative constraints on everyday behaviors (like arguing, laughing, cursing, kissi…
“Once Upon a Time, Far, Far Away”: Psychologically Distal Stories Are Judged as More Suitable to Convey General Messages
Storytelling helps people learn, make sense of the world, and connect with others. But stories and narrative may vary in how effective they are perceived to be at communicating different types of messages. Drawing on research on storytelling, communication, and psychological distance, we predicted that psychologically distant (vs. proximal) narratives would be perceived as more appropriate for conveying general messages. Findings across seven pre…
An Association Between Speech Rate and Politeness
Four preregistered studies ( N = 369) demonstrate a relationship between speech rate and politeness: participants experienced slower (/faster) versions of a foreign-language message as more (/less) compatible with politeness (Study 1); intended to speak more slowly (/faster) to convey more (/less) politeness (Studies 2a and 2b); and read a pre-written message more slowly when intending to be more polite (Study 3). Findings show the association be…
Cold and distant: Bi-directional associations between stimulus perceived temperature and its psychological distance and construal level
Validation of the Short Version (TLS-15) of the Triangular Love Scale (TLS-45) across 37 Languages
Love is a phenomenon that occurs across the world and affects many aspects of human life, including the choice of, and process of bonding with, a romantic partner. Thus, developing a reliable and valid measure of love experiences is crucial. One of the most popular tools to quantify love is Sternberg’s 45-item Triangular Love Scale (TLS-45), which measures three love components: intimacy, passion, and commitment. However, our literature review re…
The poetry of psychological distance: Bidirectional associations between stimulus speed and its psychological distance and construal level
Based on the cognitive-ecological approach and on logical-functional principles, in 12 studies (11 preregistered), we examine the novel hypotheses that psychological distance and construal level (CL) are associated in people's minds with stimulus speed: the psychologically distant/abstract is slow, and the psychologically close/concrete is fast. The findings support our expectations. Study Set I examined the association between psychological dist…
Predictors of enhancing human physical attractiveness: Data from 93 countries
People across the world and throughout history have gone to great lengths to enhance their physical appearance. Evolutionary psychologists and ethologists have largely attempted to explain this phenomenon via mating preferences and strategies. Here, we test one of the most popular evolutionary hypotheses for beauty-enhancing behaviors, drawn from mating market and parasite stress perspectives, in a large cross-cultural sample. We also test hypoth…
Tears evoke the intention to offer social support: A systematic investigation of the interpersonal effects of emotional crying across 41 countries
Tearful crying is a ubiquitous and likely uniquely human phenomenon. Scholars have argued that emotional tears serve an attachment function: Tears are thought to act as a social glue by evoking social support intentions. Initial experimental studies supported this proposition across several methodologies, but these were conducted almost exclusively on participants from North America and Europe, resulting in limited generalizability. This project …
“Heavy of Mouth” and “Heavy of Tongue”: Weight as a Conceptual Metaphor of Disability
We suggest that disability is metaphorically represented in people’s minds as heaviness. In three studies we demonstrate the existence of a mental association between physical weight (light vs. heavy) and disability (non-disabled vs. disabled) as well as its bi-directional causal effects (from weight to disability and from disability to weight). In Study 1 (N = 250), participants exhibited the hypothesized association between the dimensions on bo…
Bi-Directional Effects of Stimulus Vertical Position and Construal Level
We suggest that there is an association in people's minds between the vertical position of a stimulus (up vs. down) and its construal level (high vs. low), which results in bi-directional effects between the dimensions. In Study 1, participants exhibited both implicit and explicit associations between the dimensions. Studies 2 and 3 demonstrated that stimulus construal level affects its vertical position, with participants showing a preference fo…
Kama muta: Conceptualizing and measuring the experience often labelled being moved across 19 nations and 15 languages
English-speakers sometimes say that they feel "moved to tears," "emotionally touched," "stirred," or that something "warmed their heart;" other languages use similar passive contact metaphors to refer to an affective state. The authors propose and measure the concept of kama muta to understand experiences often given these and other labels. Do the same experiences evoke the same kama muta emotion across nations and languages? They conducted studi…
Value‐related goals and vocational choice: The effect of temporal distance
This field study examines the importance that people assign to value‐related goals in their vocational decisions. We focused on the interactive effects of temporal distance from the vocational decision and the level of abstraction of the goal. Soldiers rated the importance of value‐related goals for their vocational choice following their release from military service. They were presented with value‐driven, abstract, decontextualized goals and wi…
Kama Muta: Similar Emotional Responses to Touching Videos Across the United States, Norway, China, Israel, and Portugal
Ethnographies, histories, and popular culture from many regions around the world suggest that marked moments of love, affection, solidarity, or identification everywhere evoke the same emotion. Based on these observations, we developed the kama muta model, in which we conceptualize what people in English often label being moved as a culturally implemented social-relational emotion responding to and regulating communal sharing relations. We hypoth…
Approach/Avoidance Orientations Affect Self-construal and Identification with In-group
Approach and avoidance are two basic motivational orientations. Their activation influences cognitive and perceptive processes: Previous work suggests that an approach orientation instigates a focus on larger units as compared to avoidance. Study 1 confirms this assumption using a paradigm that more directly taps a person's tendency to represent objects as belonging to small or large units than prior studies. It was further predicted that the sel…
Movement direction or change in distance? Self- and object-related approach–avoidance motions
Based on the conceptualization of approach as a decrease in distance and avoidance as an increase in distance, we predicted that stimuli with positive valence facilitate behavior for either approaching the stimulus (object as reference point) or for bringing the stimulus closer (self as reference point) and that stimuli with negative valence facilitate behavior for withdrawing from the stimulus or for pushing the stimulus away. In Study 1, we fou…
Movement direction or change in distance? Self- and object-related approach–avoidance motions
Based on the conceptualization of approach as a decrease in distance and avoidance as an increase in distance, we predicted that stimuli with positive valence facilitate behavior for either approaching the stimulus (object as reference point) or for bringing the stimulus closer (self as reference point) and that stimuli with negative valence facilitate behavior for withdrawing from the stimulus or for pushing the stimulus away. In Study 1, we fou…
Kama Muta: Similar Emotional Responses to Touching Videos Across the United States, Norway, China, Israel, and Portugal
Ethnographies, histories, and popular culture from many regions around the world suggest that marked moments of love, affection, solidarity, or identification everywhere evoke the same emotion. Based on these observations, we developed the kama muta model, in which we conceptualize what people in English often label being moved as a culturally implemented social-relational emotion responding to and regulating communal sharing relations. We hypoth…
Tears evoke the intention to offer social support: A systematic investigation of the interpersonal effects of emotional crying across 41 countries
Tearful crying is a ubiquitous and likely uniquely human phenomenon. Scholars have argued that emotional tears serve an attachment function: Tears are thought to act as a social glue by evoking social support intentions. Initial experimental studies supported this proposition across several methodologies, but these were conducted almost exclusively on participants from North America and Europe, resulting in limited generalizability. This project …
Bi-Directional Effects of Stimulus Vertical Position and Construal Level
We suggest that there is an association in people's minds between the vertical position of a stimulus (up vs. down) and its construal level (high vs. low), which results in bi-directional effects between the dimensions. In Study 1, participants exhibited both implicit and explicit associations between the dimensions. Studies 2 and 3 demonstrated that stimulus construal level affects its vertical position, with participants showing a preference fo…
Value‐related goals and vocational choice: The effect of temporal distance
This field study examines the importance that people assign to value‐related goals in their vocational decisions. We focused on the interactive effects of temporal distance from the vocational decision and the level of abstraction of the goal. Soldiers rated the importance of value‐related goals for their vocational choice following their release from military service. They were presented with value‐driven, abstract, decontextualized goals and wi…
Movement direction or change in distance? Self- and object-related approach–avoidance motions
Based on the conceptualization of approach as a decrease in distance and avoidance as an increase in distance, we predicted that stimuli with positive valence facilitate behavior for either approaching the stimulus (object as reference point) or for bringing the stimulus closer (self as reference point) and that stimuli with negative valence facilitate behavior for withdrawing from the stimulus or for pushing the stimulus away. In Study 1, we fou…
Approach/Avoidance Orientations Affect Self-construal and Identification with In-group
Approach and avoidance are two basic motivational orientations. Their activation influences cognitive and perceptive processes: Previous work suggests that an approach orientation instigates a focus on larger units as compared to avoidance. Study 1 confirms this assumption using a paradigm that more directly taps a person's tendency to represent objects as belonging to small or large units than prior studies. It was further predicted that the sel…
Kama muta: Conceptualizing and measuring the experience often labelled being moved across 19 nations and 15 languages
English-speakers sometimes say that they feel "moved to tears," "emotionally touched," "stirred," or that something "warmed their heart;" other languages use similar passive contact metaphors to refer to an affective state. The authors propose and measure the concept of kama muta to understand experiences often given these and other labels. Do the same experiences evoke the same kama muta emotion across nations and languages? They conducted studi…
Value‐related goals and vocational choice: The effect of temporal distance
This field study examines the importance that people assign to value‐related goals in their vocational decisions. We focused on the interactive effects of temporal distance from the vocational decision and the level of abstraction of the goal. Soldiers rated the importance of value‐related goals for their vocational choice following their release from military service. They were presented with value‐driven, abstract, decontextualized goals and wi…
Kama Muta: Similar Emotional Responses to Touching Videos Across the United States, Norway, China, Israel, and Portugal
Ethnographies, histories, and popular culture from many regions around the world suggest that marked moments of love, affection, solidarity, or identification everywhere evoke the same emotion. Based on these observations, we developed the kama muta model, in which we conceptualize what people in English often label being moved as a culturally implemented social-relational emotion responding to and regulating communal sharing relations. We hypoth…
“Heavy of Mouth” and “Heavy of Tongue”: Weight as a Conceptual Metaphor of Disability
We suggest that disability is metaphorically represented in people’s minds as heaviness. In three studies we demonstrate the existence of a mental association between physical weight (light vs. heavy) and disability (non-disabled vs. disabled) as well as its bi-directional causal effects (from weight to disability and from disability to weight). In Study 1 (N = 250), participants exhibited the hypothesized association between the dimensions on bo…
Bi-Directional Effects of Stimulus Vertical Position and Construal Level
We suggest that there is an association in people's minds between the vertical position of a stimulus (up vs. down) and its construal level (high vs. low), which results in bi-directional effects between the dimensions. In Study 1, participants exhibited both implicit and explicit associations between the dimensions. Studies 2 and 3 demonstrated that stimulus construal level affects its vertical position, with participants showing a preference fo…
Tears evoke the intention to offer social support: A systematic investigation of the interpersonal effects of emotional crying across 41 countries
Tearful crying is a ubiquitous and likely uniquely human phenomenon. Scholars have argued that emotional tears serve an attachment function: Tears are thought to act as a social glue by evoking social support intentions. Initial experimental studies supported this proposition across several methodologies, but these were conducted almost exclusively on participants from North America and Europe, resulting in limited generalizability. This project …
Predictors of enhancing human physical attractiveness: Data from 93 countries
People across the world and throughout history have gone to great lengths to enhance their physical appearance. Evolutionary psychologists and ethologists have largely attempted to explain this phenomenon via mating preferences and strategies. Here, we test one of the most popular evolutionary hypotheses for beauty-enhancing behaviors, drawn from mating market and parasite stress perspectives, in a large cross-cultural sample. We also test hypoth…
Validation of the Short Version (TLS-15) of the Triangular Love Scale (TLS-45) across 37 Languages
Love is a phenomenon that occurs across the world and affects many aspects of human life, including the choice of, and process of bonding with, a romantic partner. Thus, developing a reliable and valid measure of love experiences is crucial. One of the most popular tools to quantify love is Sternberg’s 45-item Triangular Love Scale (TLS-45), which measures three love components: intimacy, passion, and commitment. However, our literature review re…
The poetry of psychological distance: Bidirectional associations between stimulus speed and its psychological distance and construal level
Based on the cognitive-ecological approach and on logical-functional principles, in 12 studies (11 preregistered), we examine the novel hypotheses that psychological distance and construal level (CL) are associated in people's minds with stimulus speed: the psychologically distant/abstract is slow, and the psychologically close/concrete is fast. The findings support our expectations. Study Set I examined the association between psychological dist…
Cold and distant: Bi-directional associations between stimulus perceived temperature and its psychological distance and construal level
How Norms Depend on the Presence and Status of Observers: The Relational Contingency of Everyday Behaviors in 90 Societies
Norms are fundamental to social life, but basic questions about how they are affected by social context remain. Specifically, how do normative constraints depend on the presence and status of observers, and how do such relational contingencies vary across cultures? Using data from more than 25,000 individuals across 90 societies, we test several hypotheses linking normative constraints on everyday behaviors (like arguing, laughing, cursing, kissi…
“Once Upon a Time, Far, Far Away”: Psychologically Distal Stories Are Judged as More Suitable to Convey General Messages
Storytelling helps people learn, make sense of the world, and connect with others. But stories and narrative may vary in how effective they are perceived to be at communicating different types of messages. Drawing on research on storytelling, communication, and psychological distance, we predicted that psychologically distant (vs. proximal) narratives would be perceived as more appropriate for conveying general messages. Findings across seven pre…
An Association Between Speech Rate and Politeness
Four preregistered studies ( N = 369) demonstrate a relationship between speech rate and politeness: participants experienced slower (/faster) versions of a foreign-language message as more (/less) compatible with politeness (Study 1); intended to speak more slowly (/faster) to convey more (/less) politeness (Studies 2a and 2b); and read a pre-written message more slowly when intending to be more polite (Study 3). Findings show the association be…
Psychology (12 works) · Social Psychology (11 works) · Social Psychology (8 works) · Behavioral Health and Interventions (7 works) · Cultural Differences and Values (7 works) · Cognitive psychology (5 works) · Social and Intergroup Psychology (5 works) · Construal level theory (4 works) · Developmental psychology (4 works) · Stimulus (psychology (4 works)