TY - JOUR
T1 - Effects of multiple psychological distances on construal and consumer evaluation
T2 - A field study of online reviews
AU - Huang, Ni
AU - Burtch, Gordon
AU - Hong, Yili
AU - Polman, Evan
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Society for Consumer Psychology
PY - 2016/10/1
Y1 - 2016/10/1
N2 - Through a large-scale field study of 166,215 online restaurant reviews, we found evidence of a distance boosting effect, whereby experiencing spatial distance (i.e., authoring a review about a geographically distant restaurant, rather than proximate one) and temporal distance (i.e., authoring a review after a lengthy delay, rather than immediately) jointly affect review positivity by amplifying consumers' high-level construals. Although past research has explored the relationship between psychological distance, construal and consumer evaluation, the effects of various dimensions of distance have only been considered in isolation. Our research contributes to past work by testing the effects of experiencing two dimensions of psychological distance simultaneously on construal and consumer evaluations. Moreover, because our data contain naturalistic observations, our research includes a wide range of temporal and spatial distances. We found that the effect of one distance increases the effect of the other. Metaphorically speaking, the effect of one distance is boosted by another.
AB - Through a large-scale field study of 166,215 online restaurant reviews, we found evidence of a distance boosting effect, whereby experiencing spatial distance (i.e., authoring a review about a geographically distant restaurant, rather than proximate one) and temporal distance (i.e., authoring a review after a lengthy delay, rather than immediately) jointly affect review positivity by amplifying consumers' high-level construals. Although past research has explored the relationship between psychological distance, construal and consumer evaluation, the effects of various dimensions of distance have only been considered in isolation. Our research contributes to past work by testing the effects of experiencing two dimensions of psychological distance simultaneously on construal and consumer evaluations. Moreover, because our data contain naturalistic observations, our research includes a wide range of temporal and spatial distances. We found that the effect of one distance increases the effect of the other. Metaphorically speaking, the effect of one distance is boosted by another.
KW - Construal level theory
KW - Consumer evaluation
KW - Online reviews
KW - Psychological distance
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jcps.2016.03.001
DO - 10.1016/j.jcps.2016.03.001
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84964647521
SN - 1057-7408
VL - 26
SP - 474
EP - 482
JO - Journal of Consumer Psychology
JF - Journal of Consumer Psychology
IS - 4
ER -