AI can help people feel heard, but an AI label diminishes this impact.

People want to "feel heard" to perceive that they are understood, validated, and valued. Can AI serve the deeply human function of making others feel heard? Our research addresses two fundamental issues: Can AI generate responses that make human recipients feel heard, and how do human recipients react when they believe the response comes from AI? We conducted an experiment and a follow-up study to disentangle the effects of actual source of a message and the presumed source. We found that AI-generated messages made recipients feel more heard than human-generated messages and that AI was better at detecting emotions. However, recipients felt less heard when they realized that a message came from AI (vs. human). Finally, in a follow-up study where the responses were rated by third-party raters, we found that compared with humans, AI demonstrated superior discipline in offering emotional support, a crucial element in making individuals feel heard, while avoiding excessive practical suggestions, which may be less effective in achieving this goal. Our research underscores the potential and limitations of AI in meeting human psychological needs. These findings suggest that while AI demonstrates enhanced capabilities to provide emotional support, the devaluation of AI responses poses a key challenge for effectively leveraging AI's capabilities.

Inaugural editorial.

The commencement of a new editorial tenure within the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: Attitudes and Social Cognition (JPSP: ASC) provides an opportunity for reflection regarding the journal's core mission. The editors recognize that social psychology is at a crossroads due to competing demands that may have led to reduced submissions and posed challenges for previous editors in filling the journal's pages. Now, JPSP: ASC has been allotted more pages to allow for growth during this editorial term. Although this is desirable for the field, it adds to the pressure of identifying articles for publication given the difficulties filling the pages during previous editorial terms. As the premier outlet of social psychology since 1965, JPSP: ASC will retain its centrality if we increase submissions and publish more articles, while continuing to strive to communicate methodologically trustworthy, intellectually stimulating, and socially relevant research, in a responsible fashion. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

"I" am more concrete than "we": Linguistic abstraction and first-person pronoun usage.

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 usage. Across three archival data sets and two experiments, we find support for this association: Speakers who use more concrete language also use more first person singular (vs. plural) pronouns. In two follow-up studies we further find that this association can impact message effectiveness, such that using more first person singular than plural pronouns is increasingly ineffective when using abstract rather than concrete language, and using more concrete language is increasingly effective when using first-person singular rather than plural pronouns. By illustrating the link between linguistic abstraction and pronoun use, we offer insights into previously documented phenomena and suggest a key way of enhancing communication effectiveness. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

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 differences in linguistic abstraction are eliminated when speakers consider an audience whose distance has been made salient (Study 1). In studies that follow, we examine gender differences in linguistic abstraction in contexts where the nature of the audience is not specified. Across a written experimental context (Study 2), a large corpus of online blog posts (Study 3), and the real-world speech of congressmen and congresswomen (Study 4), we find that men speak more abstractly than women. These gender differences in speech abstraction continue to emerge when subjective feelings of power are experimentally manipulated (Study 5). We believe that gender differences in linguistic abstraction are the result of several interrelated processes-including but not limited to social network size and homogeneity, communication motives involving seeking proximity or distance, perceptions of audience homogeneity and distance, as well as experience of power. In Study 6, we find preliminary support for mediation of gender differences in linguistic abstraction by women's tendency to interact in small social networks. We discuss implication of these gender differences in communicative abstraction for existing theory and provide suggestions for future research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

A meta-analytical review of brain activity associated with intertemporal decisions: Evidence for an anterior-posterior tangibility axis.

In temporal discounting experiments, subjects are repeatedly presented with option sets in which they must choose between receiving a small amount of money sooner (SmallerSooner) or a larger amount of money at a more distant point in time (LargerLater). Although over 50 temporal discounting experiments using fMRI are described in literature, there has not been a meta-analysis identifying regions activated when subjects choose SmallerSooner versus LargerLater alternatives. Evidence suggests a prefrontal cortex 'abstraction hierarchy', from abstract planning in more anterior regions to concrete processing in posterior regions. Because abstraction has been linked with making LargerLater choices, we hypothesized an association between LargerLater choices and more anterior prefrontal cortex activity, and an association between SmallerSooner choices and more posterior activity. Across thirteen fMRI temporal discounting studies including 436 subjects, we observed LargerLater activity anterior of SmallerSooner activity, both in the left inferior frontal gyrus pars triangularis, consistent with our pre-registered hypothesis. We call for further work linking temporal discounting and hierarchical processing of abstract and concrete information in the prefrontal cortex.

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 direct experience. In Studies 2 and 3, we show that when people learn from and emulate others, they tend to do so at a higher level when learning from a distant model than from a near model. Studies 4 and 5 show that thinking about learning at a higher (compared to a lower) level leads individuals to expand the range of others that they will consider learning from. Study 6 shows that when given an actual choice, people prefer to learn low-level information from near sources and high-level information from distant sources. These results demonstrate a basic link between level of learning and psychological distance in social learning processes.

Controllable objects seem closer.

More and more we interact with other people across varying amounts of geographical distance. What shapes our categorization of a fixed amount of such distance as near or far? Building upon and expanding prior work on the association between spatial distance perception and reachability, we argue that people judge a given geographical distance as subjectively smaller when they can exert control across that distance. Studies 1-4 demonstrate this effect of control on spatial distance judgment in disparate contexts, including political, work, and family domains, and explore implications of such judgments for the downstream judgment of travel time to a location (Study 2). We do not find that one's desire for control moderates these effects (Study 4). Supporting a cognitive association argument, we find evidence that the association between control and distance is bidirectional, with subjective distance influencing perceived controllability (Study 5). Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

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 & Trope, 2006), perceivers may expect higher power individuals to speak more abstractly and therefore will infer that speakers who use more abstract language have a higher degree of power. Across a variety of contexts and conversational subjects in 7 experiments, participants perceived respondents as more powerful when they used more abstract language (vs. more concrete language). Abstract language use appears to affect perceived power because it seems to reflect both a willingness to judge and a general style of abstract thinking.

Communicating with the crowd: speakers use abstract messages when addressing larger audiences.

Audience characteristics often shape communicators' message framing. Drawing from construal level theory, we suggest that when speaking to many individuals, communicators frame messages in terms of superordinate characteristics that focus attention on the essence of the message. On the other hand, when communicating with a single individual, communicators increasingly describe events and actions in terms of their concrete details. Using different communication tasks and measures of construal, we show that speakers communicating with many individuals, compared with 1 person, describe events more abstractly (Study 1), describe themselves as more trait-like (Study 2), and use more desirability-related persuasive messages (Study 3). Furthermore, speakers' motivation to communicate with their audience moderates their tendency to frame messages based on audience size (Studies 3 and 4). This audience-size abstraction effect is eliminated when a large audience is described as homogeneous, suggesting that people use abstract construal strategically in order to connect across a disparate group of individuals (Study 5). Finally, we show that participants' experienced fluency in communication is influenced by the match between message abstraction and audience size (Study 6).

How do we want others to decide?: Geographical distance influences evaluations of decision makers.

People who decide on behalf of others can be located at various geographical distances from their clients and constituents. Across five experiments, we examined the role distance plays in evaluations of these decision makers. Specifically, drawing on construal level theory, we examined how the type of information (aggregate or case-specific) that closer and more distant decision makers cited as the basis for their decisions influenced how they were evaluated. We found that people expressed more anger toward (Experiment 1) and were less enthusiastic about (Experiments 2 and 4) more distant decision makers who relied on case-specific (vs. aggregate) information. In addition, we found that people were less enthusiastic about decision makers who relied on case-specific (vs. aggregate) information when evaluators were in a higher-level (vs. lower-level) construal mind-set (Experiments 3 and 5). Implications for how decision makers can manage impressions are discussed.

The use of visual and verbal means of communication across psychological distance.

The current study investigated the effect of distance on medium preferences in interpersonal communication. Five experiments showed that people's preference for using pictures (vs. words) is increasingly higher when communicating with temporally, socially, or geographically proximal (vs. distal) others. In contrast, preference for words is increasingly higher when communicating with those who were distal. A sixth experiment showed that communication's medium influences distance preferences, such that people's preference for communicating a message to a distant (vs. proximal) target is greater for verbal compared with pictorial communications. A seventh experiment showed that recipients are more likely to heed a sender's suggestions when the medium and distance are congruent. These findings reflect the suitability of pictures for communication with proximal others and words with distal others. Implications of these findings for construal-level theory, perspective taking, embodied cognition, the development of language, and social skills with children are discussed.

Psychological distance and priming: when do semantic primes impact social evaluations?

Semantic primes influence the impressions and evaluations people form of others. According to construal level theory (CLT), as stimuli get closer psychologically (e.g., physically, probabilistically), people construe stimuli in more concrete, localized, individuating terms. Across three studies, the authors present participants with individuals performing behaviors (skydiving, motor biking) that are ambiguous with respect to being either adventurous or reckless. Using a CLT framework, the authors show that people are more likely to assimilate their judgments of others to available semantic primes for psychologically close rather than distant targets (Studies 1 and 2). Conversely, they show that general, global attitudes drive evaluations more for distant rather than close targets (Study 3). Implications for priming more broadly are discussed.

Cognitive consequences of affirming the self: The relationship between self-affirmation and object construal.

Previous research suggests that affirming one's important values is a powerful way of protecting one's general self integrity, allowing non-defensive processing of self-relevant information. In a series of four studies linking self-affirmation with construal level, we find that in addition to any self buffering effect, thinking about one's values and why they are important more generally shifts cognitive processing towards superordinate and structured thinking. Self-affirmation leads participants to perceive a greater degree of structure within their selves (Study 1), to increasingly identify actions in terms of their endstates (Study 2), to more strongly distinguish between primary and secondary object features (Study 3) and to perform better on tasks requiring abstract, structured thinking than those requiring detail-oriented, concrete thinking. Together, these findings suggest that thinking about important values helps individuals to structure information and focus on the big picture.

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 level was manipulated in a context separate from the judgment task and the manipulation was unrelated in content to the events being judged. These findings suggest that broad processing variables can exert a widespread influence on probability judgment.

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 complexity (Study 2), more cross-situational consistency (Study 3), and a greater degree of schematicity (Study 4). Furthermore, people's behavioral predictions of their distant-future (vs. near-future) behavior are more strongly related to their general self-characteristics (Study 5), distant-future behaviors are seen as more self-expressive (Study 6), and distant-future behaviors that do not match up with acknowledged self-characteristics are more strongly rejected as reflections of the self (Study 7). Implications for understanding both the nature of the self-concept and the way in which distance may influence a range of self-processes are discussed.

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 Study 2, the induction of a system-justification mind-set through exposure to "rags-to-riches" narratives decreased moral outrage, negative affect, and therefore intentions to help the disadvantaged. In both studies, moral outrage (outward-focused distress) was found to mediate the dampening effect of system justification on support for redistribution, whereas existential guilt (Study 1) or negative affect in general (Study 2; inward-focused distress) did not. Thus, system-justifying ideology appears to undercut the redistribution of social and economic resources by alleviating moral outrage.

Construal Levels and Psychological Distance: Effects on Representation, Prediction, Evaluation, and Behavior.

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 distance (time, space, social distance, and hypotheticality) affect mental construal and that these construals, in turn, guide prediction, evaluation, and behavior. The present paper reviews this research and its implications for consumer psychology.

Seeing the forest when entry is unlikely: probability and the mental representation of events.

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 high, participants were more broad (Study 1) and inclusive (Study 2) in their categorization of objects, increased their preference for general rather than specific activity descriptions (Study 3), segmented ongoing behavior into fewer units (Study 4), were more successful at abstracting visual information (Study 5), and were less successful at identifying details missing within a coherent visual whole (Study 6). Further, after exposure to low-probability as opposed to high-probability phrases, participants increasingly preferred to identify actions in ends-related rather than means-related terms (Study 7). Implications for probability assessment and choice under uncertainty are discussed.