Title: Confidence Focuses You on the Forest, Doubt Turns You to the Tree: Confidence, Construal Frame, and Information Processing

Speaker: Prof. Echo Wen Wan, University of Hong Kong

Time: 1:30-3:00pm, May 25, 2011

Location: Room 215, New Building of GSM, Peking University

Abstract

A large literature demonstrates that a state of confidence reduces consumer information processing compared to a state of doubt. This paper presents an alternative formulation that either confidence or doubt can increase or decrease information processing based on how information to be processed is construed. We argue that feeling relatively confident activates an abstract level of construal, whereas feeling relatively doubtful activates a concrete level of construal. Because of these different construals, we propose a matching effect such that states of doubt increase processing when information is framed in a concrete manner, whereas states of confidence increase processing when information is framed in an abstract manner. We further posit that this matching effect is driven by perceived personal relevance of the message. Five experiments test these hypotheses.

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