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Related Experiment Video

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Experimental Paradigm for Measuring the Effects of Self-distancing in Young Children

Experimental Paradigm for Measuring the Effects of Self-distancing in Young Children

Published on: March 1, 2019

Social learning across psychological distance.

David A Kalkstein¹, Tali Kleiman², Cheryl J Wakslak³

¹Department of Psychology, New York University.

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

|January 5, 2016

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Social learning fosters abstract thinking, especially when learning from distant individuals. People prefer distant sources for high-level knowledge and near sources for basic information, linking learning depth to psychological distance.

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Area of Science:

Psychology
Social Cognition
Learning Science

Background:

Learning environments increasingly include distant and dissimilar individuals.
Understanding the interplay between social learning sources and learning depth is crucial.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate how the source of learning influences the level of knowledge acquired.
To examine how the level of learning, in turn, affects the choice of learning sources.

Main Methods:

Six studies were conducted, involving social learning, direct experience, and varying levels of psychological distance.
Participants' learning levels and source preferences were assessed under different conditions.

Main Results:

Social learning promotes more abstract learning than direct experience.
Learning from distant models leads to higher-level emulation compared to learning from near models.
Higher-level thinking expands the range of potential learning sources, with a preference for distant sources for abstract information and near sources for concrete information.

Conclusions:

A fundamental connection exists between the level of learning (abstract vs. concrete) and the psychological distance of the learning source.
These findings highlight the dynamic relationship between whom we learn from and what we learn.