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Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/11375/21818
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DC FieldValueLanguage
dc.contributor.authorSnefjella, Bryor-
dc.contributor.authorKuperman, Victor-
dc.date.accessioned2017-08-04T18:45:20Z-
dc.date.available2017-08-04T18:45:20Z-
dc.date.issued2015-08-
dc.identifier.citationSnefjella, B., & Kuperman, V. (2015). Concreteness and Psychological Distance in Natural Language Use. Psychological Science, 26(9), 1449–60. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797615591771en_US
dc.identifier.otherhttps://doi.org/10.1177/0956797615591771-
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11375/21818-
dc.description.abstractExisting evidence shows that more abstract mental representations are formed and more abstract language is used to characterize phenomena that are more distant from the self. Yet the precise form of the functional relationship between distance and linguistic abstractness is unknown. In four studies, we tested whether more abstract language is used in textual references to more geographically distant cities (Study 1), time points further into the past or future (Study 2), references to more socially distant people (Study 3), and references to a specific topic (Study 4). Using millions of linguistic productions from thousands of social-media users, we determined that linguistic concreteness is a curvilinear function of the logarithm of distance, and we discuss psychological underpinnings of the mathematical properties of this relationship. We also demonstrated that gradient curvilinear effects of geographic and temporal distance on concreteness are nearly identical, which suggests uniformity in representation of abstractness along multiple dimensions.en_US
dc.description.sponsorshipThis research was supported by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Insight Development Grant No. 430-2012- 0488, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Discovery Grant No. 402395-2012, National Institutes of Health Grant No. R01 HD 073288 (principal investigator: Julie A. Van Dyke), and an Early Researcher Award from the Ontario Research Fund to the second author (Victor Kuperman).en_US
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.publisherAssociation for Psychological Scienceen_US
dc.subjectPsychological distanceen_US
dc.subjectConstrual-level theoryen_US
dc.subjectEmbodied cognitionen_US
dc.subjectSocial mediaen_US
dc.subjectTwitteren_US
dc.subjectAbstractionen_US
dc.subjectConcretenessen_US
dc.titleConcreteness and Psychological Distance in Natural Language Useen_US
dc.typePostprinten_US
dc.contributor.departmentNoneen_US
Appears in Collections:Representative Publications from ARiEAL

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