social psychology Social psychology is the scientific study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people or by social norms. Social psychologists typically explain human behavior as a result of the ...

, a construal is a way that people perceive, comprehend, and interpret their world, particularly the acts of others toward them. Researchers and theorists within virtually every sub-discipline of psychology have acknowledged the relevance of a subjective construal, especially with regards to the concepts of the

false consensus effect In psychology, the false consensus effect, also known as consensus bias, is a pervasive cognitive bias that causes people to “see their own behavioral choices and judgments as relatively common and appropriate to existing circumstances”. In o ...

and the

fundamental attribution error In social psychology, fundamental attribution error (FAE), also known as correspondence bias or attribution effect, is the tendency for people to under-emphasize situational and environmental explanations for an individual's observed behavior whil ...

.Ross, L. (1987). The Problem of Construal in Social Inference and Social Psychology. In N. Grunberg, R.E. Nisbett, J. Singer (eds), ''A Distinctive Approach to psychological research: the influence of Stanley Schacter''. Hillsdale, NJ: Earlbaum. There is a difference between self-construal and construal in a social atmosphere. While self-construal is a perception of the self, the latter is a perception of one's surroundings. Construal plays a crucial role when one lacks the knowledge to correctly deal with a situation.

Major theoretical approaches

The concept of construal is not a new one, and the components of construal can be seen in the works of many past psychologists including

Kurt Lewin Kurt Lewin ( ; 9 September 1890 – 12 February 1947) was a German-American psychologist, known as one of the modern pioneers of social, organizational, and applied psychology in the United States. During his professional career Lewin applied hi ...

's recognition of the importance of a subjective reality and its effect on one's personal significance;

Kurt Koffka Kurt Koffka (March 12, 1886 – November 22, 1941) was a German psychologist and professor. He was born and educated in Berlin, Germany; he died in Northampton, Massachusetts from coronary thrombosis. He was influenced by his maternal uncle, ...

's theories of

gestalt psychology Gestalt-psychology, gestaltism, or configurationism is a school of psychology that emerged in the early twentieth century in Austria and Germany as a theory of perception that was a rejection of basic principles of Wilhelm Wundt's and Edward ...

; Brunswik's emphasis on subjective distinction; Murray's discussion of "beta press"; Kelly's account of personal constructs;

Merleau-Ponty Maurice Jean Jacques Merleau-Ponty. (; 14 March 1908 – 3 May 1961) was a French phenomenological philosopher, strongly influenced by Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. The constitution of meaning in human experience was his main interest an ...

's reference to personal situations; and more recent discussions by personality theorists such as Endler and Pervin. Construal used to be viewed as an obstruction in one's perception of the world, but has evolved into a mechanism used to explain how or why people think the way do. Cognitive psychologists have been perhaps the most preoccupied with the idea of construal. This is evident in their emphasis on a human's formation of schemas "that help perceivers to resolve ambiguity, fill in the gaps, and generally perceive predictability and coherence." They focus on the idea that we rely on other sources to form our ideas of our surroundings.

Solomon Asch Solomon Eliot Asch (September 14, 1907 – February 20, 1996) was a Polish-American Gestalt psychologist and pioneer in social psychology. He created seminal pieces of work in impression formation, prestige suggestion, conformity, and many oth ...

presented an important concept in construal theory when he stated, "that the very meaning of a message can change as a function of the source to which it is attributed." His most classic example is the effect of the phrase "a little rebellion…is a good thing." This statement coming from

Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 18 ...

has a different meaning to the recipient than it does coming from V.I. Lenin. The meaning of the statement is dependent on not only who says it, but also on how the recipient of the message interprets it. There are three major sources of construal in human beings: the need to feel good about ourselves, the need to be accurate, and the need to belong. The American social psychologist

Leon Festinger Leon Festinger (8 May 1919 – 11 February 1989) was an American social psychologist who originated the theory of cognitive dissonance and social comparison theory. The rejection of the previously dominant behaviorist view of social psycholog ...

was one of the first to acknowledge that these needs may not always coincide (see

cognitive dissonance In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance is the perception of contradictory information, and the mental toll of it. Relevant items of information include a person's actions, feelings, ideas, beliefs, values, and things in the environmen ...

). The Austrian social psychologist

Fritz Heider Fritz Heider (19 February 1896 – 2 January 1988) was an Austrian psychologist whose work was related to the Gestalt school. In 1958 he published ''The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations'', which expanded upon his creations of balance theory ...

described the concept of construal when he said, "Generally, a person reacts to what he thinks the other person is perceiving, feeling, and thinking, in addition to what the other person may be doing."Aronson, Elliot, Timothy D. Wilson, and Robin M. Akert. Social Psychology. 7th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice-Hall, 2010. Print. In other words, a person bases his or her opinions and actions on the opinions and action of everybody else. For example, take this situation into consideration: Christopher likes Samantha and wants to ask her to the school prom. He is shy and concerned that Samantha may respond negatively. A social psychologist observes not only Samantha's behavior towards Christopher, but also how Christopher perceives and interprets her behavior toward him. An objective observer may perceive Samantha's smiling as friendly, but Christopher may think that she is laughing at something in his appearance, and as a result, he might not invite her. Contemporary views on construal include the concepts of

naïve realism In philosophy of perception and philosophy of mind, naïve realism (also known as direct realism, perceptual realism, or common sense realism) is the idea that the senses provide us with direct awareness of objects as they really are. When refer ...

, the accessibility principle, and a focus on the idea of self-construal.

Lee Ross Lee David Ross (August 25, 1942 – May 14, 2021) was a Canadian-American professor. He held the title of the Stanford Federal Credit Union Professor of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford University and was an influential social psychologist w ...

's concept of naïve realism is especially important in the context of construal. It is the conviction all of us have that we perceive things how they really are. Essentially, people acknowledge the fact that others experience the effects of construal, but personally think that they form their own thoughts without being affected by construal. Being blinded by this process often leads people to commit the

. Similar to Asch's theory, the accessibility principle suggests that "mental construals are based on the information that is most accessible at the time applies to how we make sense of new information as well as to how we form judgments based on information retrieved from memory." Lastly, self-construal is how a person views the self in comparison to the others. This would suggest that self-construal influences a person's self-esteem. Construal itself is a broad concept in the realm of social psychology and can be applied to many different situations that will be discussed later in this article.

Major empirical evidence

In 1946,

directed one of the earliest known empirical studies of human construal. In this study, Asch focused on the formation of character impressions by asking each participant to study a list of personality traits and make judgments and/or inferences about the possessor of each of these listed traits. The results of this study demonstrated two different types of phenomena: the

primacy effect Serial-position effect is the tendency of a person to recall the first and last items in a series best, and the middle items worst. The term was coined by Hermann Ebbinghaus through studies he performed on himself, and refers to the finding that r ...

and the disproportionate effect of certain types of words. For the primacy effect, those personality traits that were listed earlier in the list seemed to have much more influence on the subject's impression of the person with that trait. However, Asch's finding that there was a variability in the effect of categorical terms such as "warmth" and "coldness" hint that those listed traits were "susceptible to variable interpretation or construal—and the specific meaning attached depended upon the more global impressions adopted by the subjects". In a study headed by Lee D. Ross, David Green, and Pamela House (1976), eighty

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is conside ...

undergraduates were asked if they were willing to walk around campus for at least thirty minutes while wearing a large sandwich board sign that read "Eat at Joe's" and record the responses of their peers to this novel situation. The subjects were not only asked to answer whether or not they would participate, but they were also asked to estimate other people's responses, and make inferences about the disposition of each group of people based on their agreement and disagreement to participate. Overall, the experimenters found that "those who agreed to participate thought that an average of 62% of their peers would agree"; but, those who disagreed with participating thought that an average 33% of their peers would agree to the job". Furthermore, those who agreed had more extreme inferences about the personal dispositions of those who disagreed, and vice versa. The results indicated that the subjects failed to recognize that their peer's construal or interpretation of the situation may be quite different from the perspective they personally take. (see also

) In 2004, Lee D. Ross developed a theory of a type of construal that he calls "

." In a simple experiment, Ross took peace proposals created by Israeli negotiators, labeled them as Palestinian proposals, and told Israeli citizens that the ideas in the proposal were the ideas that Palestinians wanted the Israeli to adopt. Then, he took the original proposals and told the Israeli subjects that ideas on the proposal were the ideas that the Israelis wanted the Palestinians to adopt. The Israeli citizens liked the proposals from the Israelis to the Palestinians more than the proposal from the Palestinians to the Israelis, even though they were the same proposal. Ross stated:

Self

Hazel Rose Markus Hazel June Linda Rose Markus (born 9 March 1949) is a social psychologist and a pioneer in the field of cultural psychology. She is the Davis-Brack Professor in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University in Stanford, California. She is also a ...

and

Shinobu Kitayama Shinobu Kitayama (born March 9, 1957) is a Japanese social psychologist and the Robert B. Zajonc Collegiate Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan. He is also the Social Psychology Area Chair and Director of the Culture & Cognition ...

argue that differences between independent and interdependent self-concepts lead to different consequences for a number of cognitive and motivational processes. They argue that the distinctions made regarding independent and interdependent construals should be viewed as general tendencies that may emerge when the members of the culture are considered as a whole. Also, "According to Markus and Kitayama (1991), those with an independent self-construal define themselves in terms of internal attributes such as traits, abilities, values, and preferences. In contrast, those with an interdependent self-construal define themselves in terms of their relationships with others." Many who argue these separate views of construal say that both views can strongly affect a person's experience. The following is a research study about the way in which a person's construal can affect his/her mental health status. Michael S. Christopher and Gemma D. Skillman conducted a study to test the link between self-construal and distress among African American and Asian American college students. Their research is primarily based on previous assertions that ethnic minorities are more likely to experience distress and express apprehension about the rigors of college. One body of literature has commonly viewed three major minority groups-African Americans, Asian Americans, and Latino Americans- as more likely to display traits of interdependent self-construal. It suggests that on the other hand White Americans were more likely to show traits of individualism or independent self-construal. Current research, however, has begun to move away from this view, and indicates African American students also show a more independent view of self. Therefore, to try and contrast these two views the researchers chose to study African Americans and Asian Americans. In their study they found "African American students reported greater independent construals than did Asian American students, whereas Asian American students reported greater interdependent self-construals than did African American students." In regard to whether self-construal contributed to reports of distress they found that viewing self-construal as independent or interdependent did not predict distress. A person reported to have a more interdependent view of self was more likely to experience distress symptoms. This type of research finding can have major effects on future counseling practices. These researchers encourage counselors to measure self-construals upon intake to help guide treatment. Markus and Kitayama's self-construal theory postulates that there are two basic ways of conceptualizing the human person and that cultures differ according to which of those they subscribe to. Egoism, individual pride, individual uniqueness, independent thinking, self-expression, self-reliance and self-enhancement are believed to be facets of one and the same coherent entity named the independent self-construal. On the other hand, altruism, modesty, belief in one's similarity with others, conformity to group norms, self-censorship for the sake of group harmony and cooperation are believed to be facets of the interdependent self-construal. However, the idea that there exists cultures that promote an independent or independent form of self construal has been severely criticized Vignoles et al.’s comparative study of 55 cultural groups shows that there are no such kind of culturally normative independent or interdependent self-contruals as predicted by Markus and Kitayama’s theory. At the cultural level of analysis, believing in and valuing uniqueness is postulated by this theory to be positively correlated with egoism, while in reality they are negatively correlated. Experiencing the self as emotionally detached and independent from social contexts was supposed to be positively related to self-reliance, while in reality the two concepts are negatively related. Independent thinking was supposed to be correlated positively with self-reliance, but in reality they are negatively correlated. The same is true for independent thinking and self-consistency across contexts as well as self-reliance and self-expression. Moreover, Japanese culture was found to promote individual uniqueness and independent thinking more than other human cultures in the sample, which directly contradicts Markus and Kitayama.

In the classroom

Rebecca wing-yi Cheng and Shui-fong Lam measured the effects of self-construal in the classroom. They studied the "role of self-construal as a moderator of the social comparison effects in authentic classrooms." With the use of 96 Chinese seventh grade students they compared independent and interdependent views of self-construal to

upward social comparison Social comparison theory, initially proposed by social psychologist Leon Festinger in 1954, centers on the belief that there is a drive within individuals to gain accurate self-evaluations. The theory explains how individuals evaluate their own o ...

and

downward social comparison Social comparison theory, initially proposed by social psychologist Leon Festinger in 1954, centers on the belief that there is a drive within individuals to gain accurate self-evaluations. The theory explains how individuals evaluate their own o ...

. They noted that "self comparison is commonly used when people are uncertain of their self-evaluation. It allows an individual to gain information about where they stand." The students participated in an Abstract Reasoning Test and reading comprehension task. They manipulated construal by telling the students they were either being compared to others within their school (independent self-construal) or between their school and another school (interdependent self-construal). The results showed that the school children who performed very well experienced negative self-evaluation while those who did not experienced negative self-evaluation. However, those in the interdependent self construal condition always reported positive self-evaluation showcasing a term known as basking-in-reflected-glory. The hope of this study is to encourage classrooms to ensure that interdependent self-construal is being emphasized.

In social marketing

Research drawing on self-construals now shows ways to reduce the intentions of people to binge drink or engage in dangerous driving. An article by Martin, Lee, Weeks and Kaya (2013) suggests that understanding consumer personality and how people view others is important. People were shown ads talking of the harmful effects of binge drinking. People who valued close friends as a sense of who they are, were less likely to want to binge drink after seeing an ad featuring them and a close friend. People who were loners or who did not see close friends important to their sense of who they were reacted better to ads featuring a person. A similar pattern was shown for ads showing a person driving at dangerous speeds. This suggests ads showing potential harm to citizens from binge drinking or dangerous driving are less effective than ads highlighting a person's close friends.

Mammography

Some researches have believed that construal can have major implications on self-perception of health status. As cited by a Times article "women ages 20–49 should have a physical examination by a health professional every one or two years." Specifically, in relation to breast cancer, women should do monthly self-examinations. However, after about age 40 women should begin

mammograms Mammography (also called mastography) is the process of using low-energy X-rays (usually around 30 kVp) to examine the human breast for diagnosis and screening. The goal of mammography is the early detection of breast cancer, typically through d ...

, an effective low-radiation screening method for breast cancer. Although the age and frequency of which women should begin breast exams are highly debated the general consensus is that those over age 50 should be examined annually. Unfortunately, the number of women partaking in regular screenings is still not as high as it should be. Consequently, one study of construal conducted by Gallagher and colleagues looked at the link between message framing and perceptions about

breast cancer Breast cancer is cancer that develops from breast tissue. Signs of breast cancer may include a lump in the breast, a change in breast shape, dimpling of the skin, milk rejection, fluid coming from the nipple, a newly inverted nipple, or ...

susceptibility. The research is primarily based on the assumption that "people's responses to framed messages may not always be a simple reflection of the presumed risky nature of screening behaviors, but rather shaped by beliefs about risk." Therefore, in this particular study they "assessed women's illness-detecting v. health-affirming construal of mammography." They found "that among women who have a family history of breast cancer, their construal of

mammography Mammography (also called mastography) is the process of using low-energy X-rays (usually around 30 kVp) to examine the human breast for diagnosis and screening. The goal of mammography is the early detection of breast cancer, typically through ...

moderates their responses to framed messages. Such that, loss-framed messages are more effective in promoting screening for those with illness-detecting construals, but gain-framed messages are more effective for those with health-affirming construals." Their research shows that the perception of susceptibility to the development of breast cancer was not directly associated with a person's construal of the function of mammography.

Market research

Researchers are trying to establish links between construal, self and economics. In 2007, Liberman and colleagues discussed the links between

construal level theory Construal level theory (CLT) is a theory in social psychology that describes the relation between psychological distance and the extent to which people's thinking (e.g., about objects and events) is abstract or concrete. The core idea of CLT i ...

and consumer choice, better decision making, the nature of regret and choice set management.