Clicksuasion

According to the Construal-Level Theory of psychological distance (Trope and Liberman 2010), hypothetical distance refers to the likelihood of an event and having access to or possessing an object. Hypothetical distance is a customer-centric measurement. The reference point is a customer’s current situation and the previous experiences associated with it. Hypothetical distance is said to be close for likely and certain events and distant for unlikely and uncertain events. Customers’ uncertainty evaluations can be measured with a hypothetical distance in language. The prediction is that for events the customer deems likely, s/he will use concrete and detailed words in the written message. For events deemed unlikely, s/he will use abstract and vague words. Hence, if the writer thinks it is likely that COVID-19 will impact his or her life, concrete words are likely to be used. Otherwise, abstract words are likely to be used. Hypothetical distance measures uncertainty. It is one of the four distance dimensions, e