“Close to me”: Effects of space organization and interpersonal distance on cognitive mindset

Psychological distance (temporal, spatial and social) is the subjective experience that something is close or far away from the self, here, and now (Trope & Liberman, 2010). It is related to different level of mental construal. High-level construals would be relatively abstract, coherent, and superordinate mental representations compared to low-level construals, thus affecting perception, evaluation, and action. Starting from these assumptions and from a more classic literature in social psychology on the effects of interpersonal distance (e.g., Amit, Wakslak, & Trope, 2012; Felipe & Sommer, 1966), the research investigated the influence of social distance on construal level and on language comprehension. More specifically the experimental studies explored how the distance between the individual and the information source affects the understanding of metaphoric texts (e.g., Dialogue between Nature and an Icelander by Giacomo Leopardi). Overall, the findings revealed that greater proximity fostered the access to a more abstract and symbolic meaning of the text; moreover the results showed that interpersonal closeness led participants toward a higher construal level when they were asked to interpret sentences describing actions (BIF; Vallacher & Wegner, 1989). These effects were moderated by individual variables and individual preferences for social proximity (e.g., Kaitz, Bar-Haim, Lehrer, & Grossman, 2004). This line of research may have relevant implications for the definition of architecture and design of learning environments.