Jing Wu

Jing Wu

November 28, 2025

Construal Level Theory, Psychological distance, Abstraction, Consumer behavior, Health communication.

Construal Level Theory (CLT) proposes that people mentally represent objects and events at varying levels of abstraction and that perceived psychological distance—temporal, spatial, social, and hypothetical—systematically shifts these “levels of construal.” This review synthesizes core CLT propositions and tracks the theory’s evolution from temporal construal to a general account of psychological distance. We organize the literature along three questions: (a) how distance shapes construal (and vice versa), (b) how distance dimensions covary and sometimes dissociate, and (c) when construal‐level shifts change judgment, emotion, and behavior. We then map applications in persuasion, consumer and health behavior, prosocial decisions, and sustainability communication, highlighting robust effects (e.g., desirability vs. feasibility, abstract vs. concrete language) and emerging debates (e.g., partial failures to replicate cross-dimension interchangeability). We close by outlining methodological recommendations (multi-method distance manipulations, preregistered replications), conceptual clarifications (distinguishing distance from uncertainty and arousal), and integrative opportunities with affect regulation and self-regulation frameworks. Taken together, CLT remains a compact and generative framework for explaining preference change, self–other asymmetries, and intervention design across communication contexts.

© 2025, the Authors. Published by ISCCAC

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license