Competence or morality? Investigating how psychological distance moderates individuals’ attitudes toward organizations’ behavioral ambivalence

Construal level theory (CLT) asserts that far psychological distances trigger abstract thoughts, whereas near psychological distances trigger concrete thoughts. Moreover, according to CLT, consumers prioritize the abstract perspective (e.g., the moral perspective) of an organization that is perceived to be distant. Thus, a moral-but-incompetent organization is favored over a competent-but-immoral one, although this trend reverses for an organization that is perceived to be near. Such an assertion has been corroborated by a previous study, albeit only with regard to the temporal and social dimensions of psychological distance. Therefore, the present study experimentally tested the other two dimensions of psychological distance—namely, the spatial dimension and the hypothetical dimension. The results revealed that the participants prioritized an organization’s moral performance over its competence in relation to a spatially distant organization, although the order of prioritization was reversed for a spatially near organization. By contrast, the participants’ prioritization of an organization’s moral or competence performance did not vary between the hypothetically near and hypothetically far conditions. These findings provide insights relevant to the development of an organization’s public relations and communications strategies concerning consumers.