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

Paul E. Stillman, Kentaro Fujita, Oliver Sheldon and Yaacov Trope

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 2018, vol. 147, issue C, 16-25

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.

Keywords: Maximizing joint outcomes; Efficiency; Mixed-motive social dilemmas; Construal level theory; Psychological distance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jobhdp:v:147:y:2018:i:c:p:16-25

DOI: 10.1016/j.obhdp.2018.05.004

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