Expansive versus contractive relational scope

与我们互动的其他人可能在社会上、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一距离，将他们的社会关系限制在那些心理上与他们关系密切的人身上，或者他们可能会扩大他们的视野，包括一组更多样化、心理上更遥远的个人。关系范围指的是一个人的社会关系延伸到与自己相距遥远的人的程度。这项研究探索了人们如何跨越他们与他人之间的距离。研究人员考察了促使扩张关系范围和收缩关系范围的心理过程，认为抽象程度越高，关系范围就越扩张。他们预测，面向远距离(与近距离)接收者的交流将在更大程度上集中在核心方面，将使用更抽象的媒介，并将较少以肢体手势为基础。此外，当通信在这些维度上变得更加抽象时，发送者应该更加宽泛，与更远的接收者进行交流。目前对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，或者将我们的关系扩大到包括那些更远的人。此外，通过强调心理建构过程被用来跨越心理距离的方式，本研究强调了他人的距离以戏剧性的方式塑造了我们与他人的互动。通过这样做，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养和发展。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这项研究，这可能会将基本心理学扩展到那些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.