Kyung Ellie J, Menon Geeta, Trope Yaacov
New York University, USA.
J Exp Soc Psychol. 2010 Jan;46(1):217-220. doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2009.09.003.
The vast majority of work in construal level theory focuses prospectively on the future. Through a series of studies controlling for knowledge about an event, we look retrospectively at the past and demonstrate that construal mindsets can materially influence how a past event is reconstructed in memory. Specifically, an event recalled in a more concrete mindset feels subjectively closer than when recalled in an abstract mindset (Studies 1-3). We present evidence suggesting this is because a concrete mindset actually makes people feel as though they know more, even if they were initially exposed to the same set of information-perceived information accessibility mediates the effect of construal level on temporal distance (Study 2). The effect of construal level on memory reconstruction extends to judgments of blame, where judgments of greater temporal distance drive a greater propensity to blame parties for negative events and temporal distance mediates these judgments (Study 3). Together, these studies are the first to demonstrate that the mindset employed when recalling an event shapes its remembrance.
解释水平理论的绝大多数研究都前瞻性地聚焦于未来。通过一系列控制对某一事件了解程度的研究，我们回顾过去，证明了解释思维模式会在很大程度上影响过去事件在记忆中的重构方式。具体而言，以更具体的思维模式回忆起的事件，主观上感觉比以抽象思维模式回忆时更近（研究1 - 3）。我们提供的证据表明，这是因为具体的思维模式实际上会让人们感觉自己知道得更多，即便他们最初接触的是相同的信息集——感知到的信息可及性介导了解释水平对时间距离的影响（研究2）。解释水平对记忆重构的影响延伸到了责任判断，在责任判断中，更大的时间距离判断会导致更倾向于因负面事件而指责各方，且时间距离介导了这些判断（研究3）。这些研究共同首次证明，回忆事件时所采用的思维模式塑造了对该事件的记忆。
