Toward a deeper understanding of the ecological origins of distance construal

•Ecological correlations may explain positive correlations between all four distance aspects.•Distinct linguistic terms trigger similar distance construals in many different judges.•Negative verbs solicit more distant construals than positive action verbs and state verbs.•Nouns related to powerful, uncontrollable targets solicit distant construals.•These findings highlight the role language in distance regulation.

In the present research we elaborate on an ecological account (Fiedler, Jung, Wänke & Alexopoulos, 2012) for the unitary distance dimension postulated in construal-level theory, highlighting linguistic influences on distance regulation. We first replicate that distinct action verbs solicit similarly distant or close episodes in many judges, producing strong positive correlations between ratings of four distance aspects (time, space, probability, personal distance). A primary semantic–pragmatic dimension that accounts for a large part of the verb impact is valence: Negative action verbs trigger more distant episodes than positive verbs. Experiment 1 rules out an alternative explanation in terms of participants' mood. Experiment 2 cross-validates the valence effect with a new sample of affective state verbs. Consistent with implicit verb causality, state verbs solicit more distant episodes than action verbs, suggesting lack of intentional control and power as another semantic–pragmatic dimension. Experiment 3 supports this interpretation using high- and low-power nouns.