Expansive versus contractive relational scope

与我们交往的其他人可能在社交上、地理上或时间上与我们保持距离。个人可以以最小的方式跨越这段距离，将他们的社会关系限制在那些心理上接近他们的人身上，或者他们可以扩大视野，包括更多样化、心理上疏远的人。关系范围是指一个人的社会关系延伸到离自己很远的人的程度。这项研究探讨了人们如何超越将他们与他人分开的距离。研究人员考察了促使关系范围扩大和关系范围缩小的心理过程，认为更大程度的抽象允许关系范围扩大。他们预测，远距离（相对于近距离）接收者的交流将更多地关注核心方面，将使用更抽象的媒介，并且将更少地依赖于肢体动作。此外，当通信在这些维度上更加抽象时，发送者应该更广泛，并与更远的接收者进行通信。目前关于关系范围的研究有望揭示我们何时会扩大或缩小我们的关系范围，将我们的互动限制在离我们最近的人身上，或将我们的关系扩大到包括那些更远的人。此外，通过强调心理解释过程用于跨越心理距离的方式，本研究强调了他人的距离影响我们与他们互动的戏剧性方式。在这样做的过程中，它最终为促进日益多样化的个人群体之间的有效沟通和学习提供了建议。该提案涉及研究生和本科生的培训和发展。研究结果将通过研究会议和传统出版物（经验性期刊文章）传播。南加州大学商业专业的本科生也将被纳入研究，这可以将基础心理学扩展到通常不会参与其中的学生。

Other people with whom we interact can be distanced from us socially, geographically, or temporally. Individuals can cross this distance in a minimal way, confining their social relationships to those individuals who are psychologically close to them, or they may expand their horizons to include a more diverse and psychologically distant set of individuals. Relational scope refers to the extent to which one's social relationships extend to people who are distant from oneself. This research explores how people transcend the distance that separates them from others. The researchers examine the psychological processes that prompt expansive relational scope and contractive relational scope, arguing that greater degrees of abstraction allow more expansive relational scope. They predict that communication intended for a distant (vs. proximal) recipient will focus to a greater extent on core aspects, will use a more abstract medium, and will be less grounded in physical gestures. Moreover, when communications are more abstract along these dimensions, senders should be more expansive and communicate with more distant recipients. The present research on relational scope promises to shed light on when we will expand or contract the scope of our relations, limiting our interactions to those that are proximal to us or expanding our relationships to include those that are more distant. Furthermore, by highlighting the way that mental construal processes are used to traverse psychological distance, this research emphasizes the dramatic way that the distance of others shapes our interaction with them. In so doing, it ultimately offers suggestions for facilitating effective communication and learning among the increasingly diverse groups of individuals. The proposal addresses training and development of graduate students and undergraduate students. The research findings would be disseminated through research conferences and traditional publications (empirical journal articles). Undergraduates in the business program at USC would also be incorporated into the research, which could extend basic psychological to students who would not normally be involved in it.