construal

Our research thus moves beyond simplistic explanations of the direct linkage between psychological distance, construal level, and judgments and decisions to a more nuanced understanding of interactions between construal mindsets and overload, stress, and fear.”

Instead, Dong and Zhong posit that the reduction in perceived risk of contagion results from changes in construal levels, or the way that we perceive and think about the world.

Since all perception arises from neuronal processing in the brain, Lotto argues, we don’t experience reality directly, but rather the brain’s construal of reality.

One prominent explanation of this behavior is called “construal level theory,” says Sudeep Bhatia, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania who studies how people make choices.

The problem of construal in social inference and social psychology.