A Preliminary Study On The Application Of Construction Level Theory In Interpersonal Attraction

Blind dates are becoming more and more popular in China nowadays due to the increasing number of "leftovers". It is psychologists’interest to enhance interpersonal attraction between young people during these result-oriented meetings. In this research, we investigated the relationship between construal level and interpersonal attraction among college students according to "Construal Level Theory, CLT" with a combination of simulated situational method, questionnaire method (computer based) and IAT implicit association test method. There are two experiments in this study. Experiment1examined the subjects’ psychological distance and interpersonal attraction to the target person when some subjects are manipulated to have high construal level and the others low construal level by15sentences. Experiment2simulated the situation of online dating, when subjects have to choose one from two persons of the opposite sex:target person A (described in high construal level, more abstract) and target person B (described in low construal level, more concrete). The social distance and interpersonal attraction of subjects to the target persons are compared. The results showed that (1) The psychological distance becomes smaller in the low construal level no matter the information is constructed by the subject himself or represented to him after construction.(2) The construal level could be manipulated easily by asking different questions like "why/how" or "dispositional reasons/situational reasons", however, the "big category/small category" method would only be effective when the presentation fits the culture and cognition habits of the subjects.(3)When the description of the target person is not negative, lower construal level will increase the interpersonal attraction to the target person by shortening the psychological distance.(4) In the online dating situation, when presented with target person A (by high construal level) and target person B (by construal level), the apparent interpersonal attraction to A and B is similar while the implicit interpersonal attraction are significantly different:subjects in the senior grade (average age:25)prefer A while subjects in the junior grade(average age:19) prefer B.(5) There is significantly sexual difference between the implicit interpersonal attraction to target person A and target person B, the difference between senior grade and junior grade is significant in girls while the difference is not so significant in boys.