In psychology, the term “high-level construal” or “abstract construal” means thinking in supercategories (mammals), and the term “low-level construal” or “concrete construal” means thinking in subcategories (poodles). Being in a high level construal helps you focus on goals, and being in a low level construal helps you focus on methods and specifics, IIRC.
When testing construal effects, one way psychologists induce low-level construals is to ask an iterative set of “How” questions.
For example: Subject- I want to get fit! Psychologist- How can you get fit? S- I will eat healthy P- How will you eat healthy? S- I will stop eating unhealthy foods. P-How will you stop eating unhealthy foods? S- I won’t buy them in the grocery store.
These questions do NOT have to relate to the subject you are trying to be specific about! (for example, you could run an “Eat healthy” set, like above, in order to focus on specifics of a programming problem.) The question set is designed to INDUCE a thought method that focuses on specifics, not to solve a problem itself. I don’t know how long an induced construal level lasts, but I would say just run through this exercise immediately before a time when you are going to have to be specific about something.
To utilize this as an exercise, people can team up and take turns being the Psychologist and the Subject. To utilize it in real life, they will have to play both roles (i.e. Ask YOURSELF “How?”)
This particular exercise probably isn’t the most exciting, but there’s a lot of research out there, if someone wants to mine it. Off the top of my head, Kentaro Fujita does a lot of work on construal levels. I’ll go through the effort of linking papers, but only if people are interested.
In psychology, the term “high-level construal” or “abstract construal” means thinking in supercategories (mammals), and the term “low-level construal” or “concrete construal” means thinking in subcategories (poodles). Being in a high level construal helps you focus on goals, and being in a low level construal helps you focus on methods and specifics, IIRC.
When testing construal effects, one way psychologists induce low-level construals is to ask an iterative set of “How” questions.
For example:
Subject- I want to get fit!
Psychologist- How can you get fit?
S- I will eat healthy
P- How will you eat healthy?
S- I will stop eating unhealthy foods.
P-How will you stop eating unhealthy foods?
S- I won’t buy them in the grocery store.
These questions do NOT have to relate to the subject you are trying to be specific about! (for example, you could run an “Eat healthy” set, like above, in order to focus on specifics of a programming problem.) The question set is designed to INDUCE a thought method that focuses on specifics, not to solve a problem itself. I don’t know how long an induced construal level lasts, but I would say just run through this exercise immediately before a time when you are going to have to be specific about something.
To utilize this as an exercise, people can team up and take turns being the Psychologist and the Subject. To utilize it in real life, they will have to play both roles (i.e. Ask YOURSELF “How?”)
This particular exercise probably isn’t the most exciting, but there’s a lot of research out there, if someone wants to mine it. Off the top of my head, Kentaro Fujita does a lot of work on construal levels. I’ll go through the effort of linking papers, but only if people are interested.