Cheryl J Wakslak
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 123281 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Cheryl J Wakslak |
| PRENOMES | Cheryl J |
| SOBRENOME | Wakslak |
| ASSINATURA | WAKSLAK C J |
| AFILIAÇÕES | University of Southern California |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9748-1896 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 31 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 305 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 31 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2004 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 8 |
Methodological Refinement and Optimization in Service of Theory Specification and Development
Developing a General Construal Questionnaire
thinking and concrete thinking shape how we interpret and interact with the world. One of the most influential approaches to abstract and concrete construals is Construal Level Theory, which has primarily taken a situational approach to studying construal level. The current research develops the General Construal Questionnaire to measure individuals’ general tendencies toward abstract and concrete thinking, opening possibilities for new research …
Nice to meet you.(!) Gendered norms in punctuation usage
She sees the trees, he sees the forest
841), a mechanism that could perpetuate gender roles and organizational inequity. The Supplemental Materials include three additional studies that help validate the present results. Finally, we conducted an internal meta-analysis (including supplemental and file drawer studies) to summarize the main effects. We discuss the theoretical implications of this research and provide recommendations for future research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025…
Entrepreneurial imagination
Entrepreneurial imagination is core to the entrepreneurial process but hard to study in the present. Methodologically, historians have the advantage of reconstructing entrepreneurs’ future thinking in their time. However, traditional historical methodology offers only limited tools to analyse and interpret uncertainty in historical future-oriented sources. In this paper, we suggest that Construal Level Theory (CLT), a theory in social-cognitive p…
Construing hypotheticals
Effects of temporal distance on a dynamic measure of action identification
I” am more concrete than “we
There has been much discussion around when people use "I" versus "we" pronouns, and abstract versus concrete communications, as well as how each of these can shape communication effectiveness. In the current research we bring together these separate research streams. Drawing on research arguing that abstract and concrete language are linked with communicative scope, we argue for an association between linguistic abstractness and personal pronoun …
Anticipated effort and morality of segregated versus aggregated volunteering
Does the way individuals think about the burdens and benefits of giving time to charity depend on how that time is distributed? Prior work shows that the assessment of a whole is different than the assessment of the sum of its parts. Drawing on this work, we demonstrate that when a volunteer experience is segregated into multiple parts (vs. aggregated into a whole)—for example, volunteering 4 h a day for 2 days versus 8 h in a single day—individu…
Measuring Abstract Mind-Sets Through Syntax
ion in language has critical implications for memory, judgment, and learning and can provide an important window into a person’s cognitive abstraction level. The linguistic category model (LCM) provides one well-validated, human-coded approach to quantifying linguistic abstraction. In this article, we leverage the LCM to construct the Syntax-LCM, a computer-automated method which quantifies syntax use that indicates abstraction levels. We test th…
Gender differences in communicative abstraction
Drawing on construal level theory, which suggests that experiencing a communicative audience as proximal rather than distal leads speakers to frame messages more concretely, we examine gender differences in linguistic abstraction. In a meta-analysis of prior studies examining the effects of distance on communication, we find that women communicate more concretely than men when an audience is described as being psychologically close. These gender …
A Brief, Distance-Based Intervention Can Increase Intentions to Follow Evidence-Based Guidelines in Cancer Screening
Although research findings are increasingly accessible to the public, people may choose to rely on anecdotal over evidence-based information when making important decisions. Thus, a key challenge facing the scientific community is to develop effective strategies for increasing people’s reliance on research evidence in their decision-making. Focusing on the critical context of cancer-screening decisions, we find that a brief, distance-based interv…
Dynamic distance
Communicating With Distant Others
We introduce the construct of relational scope to refer to the degree to which an individual engages in communication with a more or less distant audience, with a contractive relational scope indicating a near audience and an expansive relational scope indicating a distant audience. Drawing on construal level theory, we argue that speakers use abstract messages strategically when faced with an expansive relational scope in order to be widely rele…
Social learning across psychological distance
While those we learn from are often close to us, more and more our learning environments are shifting to include more distant and dissimilar others. The question we examine in 5 studies is how whom we learn from influences what we learn and how what we learn influences from whom we choose to learn it. In Study 1, we show that social learning, in and of itself, promotes higher level (more abstract) learning than does learning based on one's own di…
Using abstract language signals power
Power can be gained through appearances: People who exhibit behavioral signals of power are often treated in a way that allows them to actually achieve such power (Ridgeway, Berger, & Smith, 1985; Smith & Galinsky, 2010). In the current article, we examine power signals within interpersonal communication, exploring whether use of concrete versus abstract language is seen as a signal of power. Because power activates abstraction (e.g., Smith & Tro…
Why Feasibility Matters More to Gift Receivers than to Givers
This article looks at the trade-offs that gift givers and gift receivers make between desirability and feasibility using construal level theory as a framework. Focusing on the asymmetric distance from a gift that exists within giver-receiver dyads, the authors propose that, unlike receivers, givers construe gifts abstractly and therefore weight desirability attributes more than feasibility attributes. Support for this proposition emerges in studi…
Construing creativity
Selling the Forest, Buying the Trees
Four studies demonstrate that selling and buying prices are differentially influenced by the value of products' low- and high-level construal features. The study shows that sellers construe products at a higher level than do buyers and owners. Based on this, this study predicts and demonstrates that selling prices exceed buying prices when (1) the object's primary aspects are superior and the object's secondary aspects are inferior but not vice v…
The experience of cognitive dissonance in important and trivial domains
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…
Differential information use for near and distant decisions
The Effect of Construal Level on Subjective Probability Estimates
In a series of studies, we examined novel predictions drawn from a conceptualization of probability as psychological distance. Manipulating construal level in a number of different ways and examining a variety of probability judgments, we found that participants led to adopt a high-level-construal mind-set made lower probability assessments than did those led to adopt a low-level-construal mind-set. Moreover, this occurred even when construal lev…
Cognitive consequences of affirming the self
System Justification and the Meaning of Life
Profiling and Police Legitimacy
This paper reports the results of four studies that investigate racial profiling as an attribution about police motives. Each study explores, first, the types of police behavior that heighten or lessen the occurrence of profiling attributions and, second, the consequences of such attributions. Results support prior studies in finding that judgments about whether the police are profiling are associated with the level of public support for the poli…
Cognitive consequences of affirming the self
Why Feasibility Matters More to Gift Receivers than to Givers
This article looks at the trade-offs that gift givers and gift receivers make between desirability and feasibility using construal level theory as a framework. Focusing on the asymmetric distance from a gift that exists within giver-receiver dyads, the authors propose that, unlike receivers, givers construe gifts abstractly and therefore weight desirability attributes more than feasibility attributes. Support for this proposition emerges in studi…
System Justification and the Meaning of Life
Representations of the self in the near and distant future
Seven studies provide evidence that representations of the self at a distant-future time point are more abstract and structured than are representations of the self at a near-future time point and that distant-future behaviors are more strongly related to general self-conceptions. Distant-future self-representations incorporate broader, more superordinate identities than do near-future self-representations (Study 1) and are characterized by less …
Differential information use for near and distant decisions
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…
Construing creativity
Selling the Forest, Buying the Trees
Four studies demonstrate that selling and buying prices are differentially influenced by the value of products' low- and high-level construal features. The study shows that sellers construe products at a higher level than do buyers and owners. Based on this, this study predicts and demonstrates that selling prices exceed buying prices when (1) the object's primary aspects are superior and the object's secondary aspects are inferior but not vice v…
Social learning across psychological distance
While those we learn from are often close to us, more and more our learning environments are shifting to include more distant and dissimilar others. The question we examine in 5 studies is how whom we learn from influences what we learn and how what we learn influences from whom we choose to learn it. In Study 1, we show that social learning, in and of itself, promotes higher level (more abstract) learning than does learning based on one's own di…
Using abstract language signals power
Power can be gained through appearances: People who exhibit behavioral signals of power are often treated in a way that allows them to actually achieve such power (Ridgeway, Berger, & Smith, 1985; Smith & Galinsky, 2010). In the current article, we examine power signals within interpersonal communication, exploring whether use of concrete versus abstract language is seen as a signal of power. Because power activates abstraction (e.g., Smith & Tro…
The experience of cognitive dissonance in important and trivial domains
Construing hypotheticals
Effects of temporal distance on a dynamic measure of action identification
Gender differences in communicative abstraction
Drawing on construal level theory, which suggests that experiencing a communicative audience as proximal rather than distal leads speakers to frame messages more concretely, we examine gender differences in linguistic abstraction. In a meta-analysis of prior studies examining the effects of distance on communication, we find that women communicate more concretely than men when an audience is described as being psychologically close. These gender …
Dynamic distance
Entrepreneurial imagination
Entrepreneurial imagination is core to the entrepreneurial process but hard to study in the present. Methodologically, historians have the advantage of reconstructing entrepreneurs’ future thinking in their time. However, traditional historical methodology offers only limited tools to analyse and interpret uncertainty in historical future-oriented sources. In this paper, we suggest that Construal Level Theory (CLT), a theory in social-cognitive p…
I” am more concrete than “we
There has been much discussion around when people use "I" versus "we" pronouns, and abstract versus concrete communications, as well as how each of these can shape communication effectiveness. In the current research we bring together these separate research streams. Drawing on research arguing that abstract and concrete language are linked with communicative scope, we argue for an association between linguistic abstractness and personal pronoun …
Profiling and Police Legitimacy
This paper reports the results of four studies that investigate racial profiling as an attribution about police motives. Each study explores, first, the types of police behavior that heighten or lessen the occurrence of profiling attributions and, second, the consequences of such attributions. Results support prior studies in finding that judgments about whether the police are profiling are associated with the level of public support for the poli…
Seeing the forest when entry is unlikely
Conceptualizing probability as psychological distance, the authors draw on construal level theory (Y. Trope & N. Liberman, 2003) to propose that decreasing an event's probability leads individuals to represent the event by its central, abstract, general features (high-level construal) rather than by its peripheral, concrete, specific features (low-level construal). Results indicated that when reported probabilities of events were low rather than …
Construal Levels and Psychological Distance
Construal level theory (CLT) is an account of how psychological distance influences individuals’ thoughts and behavior. CLT assumes that people mentally construe objects that are psychologically near in terms of low‐level, detailed, and contextualized features, whereas at a distance they construe the same objects or events in terms of high‐level, abstract, and stable characteristics. Research has shown that different dimensions of psychological d…
Construal Level Theory and Consumer Behavior
The three commentaries on our paper “Construal Levels and Psychological Distance: Effects on Representation, Prediction, Evaluation, and Behavior” offer insightful theoretical extensions and practical applications of construal level theory (CLT). We were inspired and challenged by the commentaries to elaborate on a number of issues, although our elaboration more often raises questions and speculations than provides definite answers. Owing to spac…
Moral Outrage Mediates the Dampening Effect of System Justification on Support for Redistributive Social Policies
To understand how and why people tolerate ongoing social and economic inequality, we conducted two studies investigating the hypothesis that system justification is associated with reduced emotional distress and a lack of support for helping the disadvantaged. In Study 1, we found that the endorsement of a system-justifying ideology was negatively associated with moral outrage, existential guilt, and support for helping the disadvantaged. In Stud…
Representations of the self in the near and distant future
Seven studies provide evidence that representations of the self at a distant-future time point are more abstract and structured than are representations of the self at a near-future time point and that distant-future behaviors are more strongly related to general self-conceptions. Distant-future self-representations incorporate broader, more superordinate identities than do near-future self-representations (Study 1) and are characterized by less …
The Effect of Construal Level on Subjective Probability Estimates
In a series of studies, we examined novel predictions drawn from a conceptualization of probability as psychological distance. Manipulating construal level in a number of different ways and examining a variety of probability judgments, we found that participants led to adopt a high-level-construal mind-set made lower probability assessments than did those led to adopt a low-level-construal mind-set. Moreover, this occurred even when construal lev…
Cognitive consequences of affirming the self
System Justification and the Meaning of Life
Differential information use for near and distant decisions
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 experience of cognitive dissonance in important and trivial domains
Construing creativity
Selling the Forest, Buying the Trees
Four studies demonstrate that selling and buying prices are differentially influenced by the value of products' low- and high-level construal features. The study shows that sellers construe products at a higher level than do buyers and owners. Based on this, this study predicts and demonstrates that selling prices exceed buying prices when (1) the object's primary aspects are superior and the object's secondary aspects are inferior but not vice v…
Using abstract language signals power
Power can be gained through appearances: People who exhibit behavioral signals of power are often treated in a way that allows them to actually achieve such power (Ridgeway, Berger, & Smith, 1985; Smith & Galinsky, 2010). In the current article, we examine power signals within interpersonal communication, exploring whether use of concrete versus abstract language is seen as a signal of power. Because power activates abstraction (e.g., Smith & Tro…
Why Feasibility Matters More to Gift Receivers than to Givers
This article looks at the trade-offs that gift givers and gift receivers make between desirability and feasibility using construal level theory as a framework. Focusing on the asymmetric distance from a gift that exists within giver-receiver dyads, the authors propose that, unlike receivers, givers construe gifts abstractly and therefore weight desirability attributes more than feasibility attributes. Support for this proposition emerges in studi…
Communicating With Distant Others
We introduce the construct of relational scope to refer to the degree to which an individual engages in communication with a more or less distant audience, with a contractive relational scope indicating a near audience and an expansive relational scope indicating a distant audience. Drawing on construal level theory, we argue that speakers use abstract messages strategically when faced with an expansive relational scope in order to be widely rele…
Social learning across psychological distance
While those we learn from are often close to us, more and more our learning environments are shifting to include more distant and dissimilar others. The question we examine in 5 studies is how whom we learn from influences what we learn and how what we learn influences from whom we choose to learn it. In Study 1, we show that social learning, in and of itself, promotes higher level (more abstract) learning than does learning based on one's own di…
A Brief, Distance-Based Intervention Can Increase Intentions to Follow Evidence-Based Guidelines in Cancer Screening
Although research findings are increasingly accessible to the public, people may choose to rely on anecdotal over evidence-based information when making important decisions. Thus, a key challenge facing the scientific community is to develop effective strategies for increasing people’s reliance on research evidence in their decision-making. Focusing on the critical context of cancer-screening decisions, we find that a brief, distance-based interv…
Dynamic distance
Measuring Abstract Mind-Sets Through Syntax
ion in language has critical implications for memory, judgment, and learning and can provide an important window into a person’s cognitive abstraction level. The linguistic category model (LCM) provides one well-validated, human-coded approach to quantifying linguistic abstraction. In this article, we leverage the LCM to construct the Syntax-LCM, a computer-automated method which quantifies syntax use that indicates abstraction levels. We test th…
Gender differences in communicative abstraction
Drawing on construal level theory, which suggests that experiencing a communicative audience as proximal rather than distal leads speakers to frame messages more concretely, we examine gender differences in linguistic abstraction. In a meta-analysis of prior studies examining the effects of distance on communication, we find that women communicate more concretely than men when an audience is described as being psychologically close. These gender …
Anticipated effort and morality of segregated versus aggregated volunteering
Does the way individuals think about the burdens and benefits of giving time to charity depend on how that time is distributed? Prior work shows that the assessment of a whole is different than the assessment of the sum of its parts. Drawing on this work, we demonstrate that when a volunteer experience is segregated into multiple parts (vs. aggregated into a whole)—for example, volunteering 4 h a day for 2 days versus 8 h in a single day—individu…
I” am more concrete than “we
There has been much discussion around when people use "I" versus "we" pronouns, and abstract versus concrete communications, as well as how each of these can shape communication effectiveness. In the current research we bring together these separate research streams. Drawing on research arguing that abstract and concrete language are linked with communicative scope, we argue for an association between linguistic abstractness and personal pronoun …
Construing hypotheticals
Psychology (30 obras) · Social Psychology (27 obras) · Behavioral Health and Interventions (20 obras) · Cultural Differences and Values (18 obras) · Cognitive psychology (16 obras) · Computer Science (16 obras) · Construal level theory (16 obras) · Social and Intergroup Psychology (15 obras) · Social Psychology (10 obras) · Abstraction (7 obras)