Yufeng Zhang

Recently researchers have paid increasing attention to how perception and cognition at the individual level affect innovation at work. The present research investigated whether and how construal level affects individuals' innovative intention at work. Four studies were conducted to examine the relationship between construal level and innovative intention, as well as the underlying mechanism. Study 1 ( N = 157) and Study 2 ( N = 167) examined the causal relationship between construal level and innovative intention by manipulating construal level by “why” versus “how” mindset and temporal distance, respectively. Study 3 ( N = 175) further tested the applicability of this causality in one specific innovative context in the workplace (i.e., teaching innovation) and replicated the findings of the previous two studies. Study 4 ( N = 171) explored the potential mediators in the relationship between construal level and innovative intention, and found that perceived importance of innovation rather than perceived difficulty of innovation mediated this relationship. The current research adds evidence to how construal level affects attitudes and behaviors in organizations and has significant practical implications for motivating individuals' innovation at work.

Extant research on social distance and decision-making under risk has mostly focused on how people reach different decisions for themselves than others under the same circumstances. This research adds to this literature by studying how the social distance between the decision-maker and people in danger influences risk preference in life-saving domain. We found that decision-makers tend to be more risk-seeking when the lives of close others are at stake than distant others regardless of whether the situation is framed in terms of loss or gain. However, the effect of social distance on risk preference was eliminated when it was the responsibility of the decision-makers rather than the chance to pick the potential victims to save. By analyzing the shape of value function, we provided preliminary evidence for the hypothesis that decision-makers engage in feeling-based evaluation when close others’ lives are at stake but calculation-based evaluation when distant others’ lives are at stake, which could account for the effect of social distance on risk preference documented in this research. A final experiment yielded direct evidence that evaluation mode mediates the relationship between social distance and risk preference.