IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jobhdp/v147y2018icp16-25.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

From “me” to “we”: The role of construal level in promoting maximized joint outcomes

Author

Listed:
  • Stillman, Paul E.
  • Fujita, Kentaro
  • Sheldon, Oliver
  • Trope, Yaacov

Abstract

To minimize waste and inefficiencies, research has sought to understand under what circumstances decision-makers tasked with allocating outcomes to self and others maximize joint outcomes – making decisions that provide the greatest net gain across all vested stakeholders, irrespective of beneficiary. We explore construal level as a critical cognitive mechanism. We hypothesize that high-level construal – a representational process that expands mental scope by broadening attention to global, gestalt wholes – relative to low-level construal – a representational process that contracts mental scope by narrowing attention to local, idiosyncratic elements – should facilitate sensitivity to the welfare of the collective unit relative to specific individuals. Four experiments demonstrate that high-level relative to low-level construal promotes decisions that maximize joint outcomes, irrespective of beneficiary. These findings contribute to a growing literature examining factors that influence consideration of joint outcomes by highlighting construal level as a key cognitive antecedent, with theoretical and practical implications.

Suggested Citation

  • Stillman, Paul E. & Fujita, Kentaro & Sheldon, Oliver & Trope, Yaacov, 2018. "From “me” to “we”: The role of construal level in promoting maximized joint outcomes," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 16-25.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jobhdp:v:147:y:2018:i:c:p:16-25
    DOI: 10.1016/j.obhdp.2018.05.004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0749597815303022
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.obhdp.2018.05.004?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Okhuysen, Gerardo A. & Galinsky, Adam D. & Uptigrove, Tamara A., 2003. "Saving the worst for last: The effect of time horizon on the efficiency of negotiating benefits and burdens," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 91(2), pages 269-279, July.
    2. Camerer, Colin F & Hogarth, Robin M, 1999. "The Effects of Financial Incentives in Experiments: A Review and Capital-Labor-Production Framework," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 19(1-3), pages 7-42, December.
    3. Boyd, Harper Jr. & El Sherbini, Abdel Aziz & Sherif, Ahmed Fouad, 1961. "Egypt's need for marketing management," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 77-84.
    4. Rogers, Todd & Bazerman, Max H., 2008. "Future lock-in: Future implementation increases selection of 'should' choices," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 106(1), pages 1-20, May.
    5. Charles A. Holt & Susan K. Laury, 2002. "Risk Aversion and Incentive Effects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1644-1655, December.
    6. Joan Meyers-Levy & Rui (Juliet) Zhu, 2007. "The Influence of Ceiling Height: The Effect of Priming on the Type of Processing That People Use," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 34(2), pages 174-186, June.
    7. repec:cup:judgdm:v:8:y:2013:i:3:p:236-249 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Hyojin Lee & Xiaoyan Deng & H. Rao Unnava & Kentaro Fujita, 2014. "Monochrome Forests and Colorful Trees: The Effect of Black-and-White versus Color Imagery on Construal Level," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 41(4), pages 1015-1032.
    9. Hyojin Lee & Xiaoyan Deng & H. Rao Unnava & Kentaro Fujita, 2014. "Monochrome Forests and Colorful Trees: The Effect of Black-and-White versus Color Imagery on Construal Level," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 41(4), pages 1015-1032.
    10. Yanping Tu & Alex Shaw & Ayelet Fishbach, 2016. "The Friendly Taking Effect: How Interpersonal Closeness Leads to Seemingly Selfish Yet Jointly Maximizing Choice," Journal of Consumer Research, Oxford University Press, vol. 42(5), pages 669-687.
    11. Kivetz, Yifat & Tyler, Tom R., 2007. "Tomorrow I'll be me: The effect of time perspective on the activation of idealistic versus pragmatic selves," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 102(2), pages 193-211, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kulow, Katina & Kwon, Mina & Barone, Michael J., 2021. "Does seeing bad make you do good? How witnessing retail transgressions influence responses to cause marketing offers," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 680-692.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kelting, Katie & Berry, Christopher & van Horen, Femke, 2019. "The presence of copycat private labels in a product set increases consumers' choice ease when shopping with an abstract mindset," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 264-274.
    2. Wang, Lili & You, Yanfen & Yang, Chun-Ming, 2020. "Restrained by resources: The effect of scarcity cues and childhood socioeconomic status (SES) on consumer preference for feasibility," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 557-571.
    3. Kevin L. Sample & Henrik Hagtvedt & S. Adam Brasel, 2020. "Components of visual perception in marketing contexts: a conceptual framework and review," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 48(3), pages 405-421, May.
    4. Herrmann, Tabea & Hübler, Olaf & Menkhoff, Lukas & Schmidt, Ulrich, 2016. "Allais for the poor," Kiel Working Papers 2036, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    5. Howard Kunreuther & Erwann Michel-Kerjan, 2015. "Demand for fixed-price multi-year contracts: Experimental evidence from insurance decisions," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 51(2), pages 171-194, October.
    6. Kerri Brick & Martine Visser & Justine Burns, 2012. "Risk Aversion: Experimental Evidence from South African Fishing Communities," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 94(1), pages 133-152.
    7. Ranganathan, Kavitha & Lejarraga, Tomás, 2021. "Elicitation of risk preferences through satisficing," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(C).
    8. Sarah Jacobson & Ragan Petrie, 2009. "Learning from mistakes: What do inconsistent choices over risk tell us?," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 38(2), pages 143-158, April.
    9. Sophie Massin & Antoine Nebout & Bruno Ventelou, 2018. "Predicting medical practices using various risk attitude measures," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 19(6), pages 843-860, July.
    10. Alejandro Arrieta & Ariadna García‐Prado & Paula González & José Luis Pinto‐Prades, 2017. "Risk attitudes in medical decisions for others: An experimental approach," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(S3), pages 97-113, December.
    11. Chetan Dave & Catherine Eckel & Cathleen Johnson & Christian Rojas, 2010. "Eliciting risk preferences: When is simple better?," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 41(3), pages 219-243, December.
    12. Christoph Huber & Christian König-Kersting, 2022. "Experimenting with Financial Professionals," Working Papers 2022-07, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    13. Cloos, Janis & Greiff, Matthias & Rusch, Hannes, 2020. "Geographical Concentration and Editorial Favoritism within the Field of Laboratory Experimental Economics (RM/19/029-revised-)," Research Memorandum 014, Maastricht University, Graduate School of Business and Economics (GSBE).
    14. Lefebvre, Mathieu & Vieider, Ferdinand M. & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2010. "Incentive effects on risk attitude in small probability prospects," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 109(2), pages 115-120, November.
    15. Caliendo, Marco & Cobb-Clark, Deborah A. & Obst, Cosima & Uhlendorff, Arne, 2023. "Risk preferences and training investments," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 205(C), pages 668-686.
    16. Mohammed Abdellaoui & Han Bleichrodt & Hilda Kammoun, 2013. "Do financial professionals behave according to prospect theory? An experimental study," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 74(3), pages 411-429, March.
    17. El Harbi, Sana & Bekir, Insaf & Grolleau, Gilles & Sutan, Angela, 2015. "Efficiency, equality, positionality: What do people maximize? Experimental vs. hypothetical evidence from Tunisia," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 77-84.
    18. Falk, Armin & Fehr, Ernst, 2003. "Why labour market experiments?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(4), pages 399-406, August.
    19. Yuanqiong He & Junfang Zhang & Yuanyuan Zhou & Zhilin Yang, 2019. "“Monkey See, Monkey Do?”: The Effect of Construal Level on Consumers’ Reactions to Others’ Unethical Behavior," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 156(2), pages 455-472, May.
    20. Fidanoski, Filip & Johnson, Timothy, 2023. "A z-Tree implementation of the Dynamic Experiments for Estimating Preferences [DEEP] method," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jobhdp:v:147:y:2018:i:c:p:16-25. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/obhdp .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.