Dominik Ebinger

2022

Construal Level Theory (CLT) reveals a connection between psychological distance and mental construal. Close (distant) psychological distance is associated with low (high) level construal. Ultimately, this association impacts the individual's evaluation, predictions, and behavior. CLT is now widely used in market research. This study examines the empirical application of CLT in the marketing field as provided in journal articles and reviews, which contain experiments based on CLT. This literature review aimed to identify common features in experimental information and provide experience to future researchers who want to undertake CLT-based experiments in the marketing field. The literature review covered 42 papers, and 60 experiments were extracted for analysis. 57 experiments contained independent variables related to CLT. 3 experiments contained dependent variables related to CLT. We also identified and classified the methods of manipulating the independent variables related to CLT. The dependent variables of 57 experiments that used CLT as the independent variable were classified into 2 categories. We then create a framework to demonstrate guidelines for designing experiments based on CLT, which will guide future researchers. In addition, we also found that: (1) current experimental studies in the market sector building on CLT are all aimed at the B2C marketing field. (2) The number of experiments conducted in the field is very small, far less than in the online and laboratory formats.