The effect of construal level on subjective probability estimates
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Published on: April 18, 2017
1Department of Psychology, New York University, 6 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003, USA. cjf236@nyu.edu
Abstract:
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.
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