How to seem telepathic: enabling mind reading by matching construal

Psychol Sci. 2010 May;21(5):700-5. doi: 10.1177/0956797610367754. Epub 2010 Mar 31.

Abstract

People can have difficulty intuiting what others think about them at least partly because people evaluate themselves in more fine-grained detail than observers do. This mismatch in the level of detail at which people construe themselves versus others diminishes accuracy in social judgment. Being a more accurate mind reader requires thinking of oneself at a higher level of construal that matches the observer's construal (Experiments 1 and 2), and this strategy is more effective in this context than perspective taking (Experiments 3a and 3b). Accurately intuiting how others evaluate themselves requires the opposite strategy-thinking about others in a lower level of construal that matches the way people evaluate themselves (Experiment 4). Accurately reading other minds to know how one is evaluated by others-or how others evaluate themselves-requires focusing one's evaluative lens at the right level of detail.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Beauty
  • Humans
  • Interpersonal Relations*
  • Intuition*
  • Judgment*
  • Self Concept*
  • Sex Factors
  • Social Perception*
  • Speech Perception
  • Telepathy*