Ad Message Concrete Construal Level

1. Abstract

The Ad Message Concrete Construal Level (AMCL-C) scale is a specialized psychometric instrument operationalized to measure the extent to which recipients perceive an advertising communication as emphasizing low-level, concrete, and procedural information (i.e., the operational ‘how’ of an action) rather than high-level, abstract, and goal-oriented rationales (i.e., the teleological ‘why’). Developed within the theoretical architecture of Construal Level Theory (CLT), originally established by Yaacov Trope and Nira Liberman, the instrument was adapted by Ryoo, Hyun, and Sung (2017) from earlier foundational operationalizations by Yang and Kim (2012). The AMCL-C was engineered primarily as a focused manipulation check and diagnostic evaluation metric for empirical investigations assessing message framing, sustainable consumer behaviors, and environmental advertising campaigns. Structurally, the instrument consists of three unidimensional items administered via a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (‘Strongly disagree’) to 7 (‘Strongly agree’). Psychometric evaluations demonstrate strong internal consistency reliability, with reported Cronbach’s alpha coefficients routinely exceeding α = .80 across experimental samples. Factor analytic assessments confirm a robust single-factor structure with high, positive factor loadings and substantial item-to-total correlations. Construct, convergent, and discriminant validity analyses verify that the AMCL-C cleanly differentiates concrete procedural message execution from abstract aspirational messaging, demonstrating high sensitivity to experimental manipulations of psychological distance and structural message attributes. This article provides a comprehensive academic review of the scale’s theoretical foundations, psychometric architecture, procedural administration rules, structural validity evidence, and utility across contemporary consumer psychology, behavioral decision-making research, and public health communication campaigns.

2. Keywords

Ad Message Concrete Construal Level, Construal Level Theory, Concrete Construal, Psychological Distance, Message Framing, Consumer Behavior, Advertising Psychology, Manipulation Check, Sustainable Consumption, Psychometrics

3. Authors

The scale was adapted and formally operationalized in empirical advertising research by:

• Yuhosua Ryoo, Ph.D. — Department of Advertising and Public Relations, College of Communication, The University of Texas at Austin (currently affiliated with Southern Illinois University Carbondale). Focus areas: Green advertising, social norms, consumer psychology, and construal level applications.
• Na Kyung Hyun, Ph.D. — Department of Psychology, Korea University, Seoul, South Korea. Focus areas: Social psychology, human judgment, moral self-regulation, and cognitive heuristics.
• Yongjun Sung, Ph.D. — School of Media & Communication, Korea University, Seoul, South Korea. Contact: [email protected]. Focus areas: Digital marketing communications, consumer psychology, brand engagement, and cross-cultural media processes.

The underlying operationalization derives from developmental work conducted by Yang and Kim (2012) within the Korean advertising literature, assessing cognitive representation formats in consumer persuasion.

4. Purpose

The primary objective of the Ad Message Concrete Construal Level (AMCL-C) scale is to quantify an individual’s subjective perception of the degree of cognitive concreteness embedded within a persuasive communicative stimulus, specifically commercial, non-profit, or pro-environmental advertisements. In contemporary experimental and applied consumer research, investigators routinely construct experimental stimuli designed to elicit either a high-level (abstract, desirability-focused, ‘why’-driven) or a low-level (concrete, feasibility-focused, ‘how’-driven) mental model. Without a psychometrically rigorous, brief, and psychophysically sensitive manipulation check, researchers cannot definitively confirm whether differences in downstream consumer attitudes, intentions, and behaviors are truly attributable to experimental shifts in message construal rather than artifactual confounds such as visual complexity, emotional valence, semantic fluency, or general message credibility.

Beyond its utility as a manipulation check in controlled laboratory and online experimental designs, the AMCL-C serves vital diagnostic purposes in naturalistic and applied settings. In advertising copy-testing, brand strategists and public relations professionals frequently struggle to align promotional appeals with the temporal, spatial, or social distance of target consumers. If a marketing intervention promotes immediate consumer participation (e.g., flash sales, immediate curbside recycling, time-sensitive charitable donations), Construal Level Theory dictates that messaging emphasizing operational, low-level execution creates superior cognitive fluency and behavioral compliance. The AMCL-C allows marketing scientists and copy analysts to objectively assess whether newly drafted communications successfully communicate low-level procedural affordances (the specific steps and operational actions needed) rather than drifting into vague, abstract assertions of organizational purpose.

Furthermore, in theoretical investigations spanning environmental sociology, behavioral economics, and preventive healthcare, the scale functions as an indispensable measurement tool to examine boundary conditions of message matching effects (also known as the construal congruence effect). By capturing concrete construal ratings on a continuous interval-like metric, researchers can deploy structural equation modeling (SEM) and moderated-mediation regression frameworks (e.g., Hayes PROCESS models) to determine whether perceived concreteness systematically mediates the relationship between message stimuli and prosocial compliance across diverse socio-demographic strata.

5. Psychological Construct

The psychological construct captured by the AMCL-C is perceived message concreteness, operationalized as low-level mental construal applied to promotional and persuasive discourse. Within cognitive psychology and mental representation paradigms, human cognitive schemas organize incoming sensory and communicative inputs at varying tiers of psychological abstraction:

High-Level versus Low-Level Mental Construal

High-level construals consist of abstract, schematic, decontextualized, and superordinate cognitive representations that convey the general meaning, global essence, and ultimate purpose of an object or action. For instance, when framing an environmental sustainability campaign at a high construal level, the narrative accentuates why one should preserve biodiversity, invoke ethical responsibilities, or embrace planetary stewardship. High-level construals omit contextual particulars, temporal intricacies, and fine-grained procedural specifications.

Conversely, low-level construals consist of concrete, contextualized, complex, and subordinate representations that specify the exact physical details, operational steps, and operational requirements governing execution. When applied to advertising stimuli, a concrete construal orientation focuses the recipient’s attention squarely on how an objective is translated into tangible human motor and cognitive behaviors. An advertisement characterized by high AMCL-C scores does not dwell upon abstract planetary preservation; instead, it illustrates the specific blue bin into which corrugated cardboard must be placed, delineates the precise hours the community recycling drop-off operates, and highlights the immediate manual routine necessary to conform with the program.

Dimensions of Concrete Message Construal

Although the AMCL-C evaluates perceived concreteness unidimensionally through an aggregate composite index, the theoretical construct embodies three tightly integrated communicative facets:

• Procedural Focus (The ‘How’ Orientation): The structural emphasis on operational mechanics and execution protocols rather than overarching motivational rationales.
• Behavioral Specificity (Actionable Directives): The degree to which message copy supplies granular, unambiguous pathways for consumer participation, minimizing behavioral ambiguity.
• Explanatory Detail (Contextual Granularity): The presence of rich, circumstantial, and pragmatic data points (such as dates, locations, physical objects, and explicit sequences) that anchor the communication within proximate psychological reality.

Consequently, an ad receiving high ratings on the AMCL-C stimulates the formation of an episodic, subordinate mental model in the observer’s mind, activating motor schemas and feasibility considerations while mitigating cognitive ambiguity regarding consumer self-efficacy.

6. Theoretical Framework

The primary theoretical foundation supporting the AMCL-C is Construal Level Theory (CLT), an overarching socio-cognitive framework formulated by psychologists Yaacov Trope and Nira Liberman (Trope & Liberman, 2003, 2010; Liberman & Trope, 1998, 2008). CLT posits that human beings negotiate their interactions with objects, events, and individuals based upon their degree of psychological distance from the self in the direct ‘here and now’.

Psychological Distance Dimensions

Psychological distance encompasses four interconnected psychological dimensions:

1. Temporal Distance: How far into the future or the past an event resides.
2. Spatial Distance: The geographic or physical proximity of an event.
3. Social Distance: The degree of perceived distinction between the self and others (e.g., ingroup vs. outgroup members, close friends vs. unfamiliar strangers).
4. Hypotheticality (Probabilistic Distance): The subjective likelihood or certainty that an event will materialize.

Trope and Liberman established that as psychological distance increases across any of these dimensions, mental representations become progressively more abstract, superordinate, and decontextualized (high-level construal). Conversely, as an event approaches the self in physical space, immediate time, social familiarity, or objective certainty, mental representations shift into subordinate, contextualized, and concrete operational structures (low-level construal).

Action Identification and Feasibility vs. Desirability

CLT builds fundamentally upon Action Identification Theory (Vallacher & Wegner, 1987), which demonstrates that any human action can be identified at higher levels (the meaning or effect of the action) or lower levels (the physical mechanics of how it is executed). In consumer judgment, high-level construals trigger evaluations centered around desirability (the valence of the end-state goals), whereas low-level construals activate evaluations dominated by feasibility (the ease, resources, and tactical steps necessary to achieve that state).

Construal Matching and Communicative Fit

In advertising literature, Ryoo, Hyun, and Sung (2017) utilized CLT to demonstrate that the persuasiveness of social norms (such as descriptive versus injunctive norms) depends critically upon construal level compatibility. When consumers confront close psychological distance or immediate descriptive behavioral evidence, concrete procedural messaging (e.g., detailing exactly how to recycle or conserve energy) establishes regulatory fit and processing fluency. Messages that correctly align construal framing with contextual distance diminish cognitive friction, elevate perceived consumer efficacy, and accelerate behavioral enactment. The AMCL-C provides the empirical apparatus required to verify whether the structural stimulus successfully stimulated this precise low-level feasibility schema.

7. Validity

The validity of the AMCL-C as a psychometric measure of low-level advertising framing has been corroborated through rigorous experimental and psychometric methodologies:

Construct and Manipulation Validity

In the empirical studies conducted by Ryoo, Hyun, and Sung (2017), the scale underwent rigorous testing as a focal manipulation check across controlled between-subjects experimental designs. Participants exposed to advertisements manipulated to emphasize concrete procedural steps (e.g., specific instructions, physical methods, and logistical arrangements for participating in an environmental program) reported significantly higher scores on the AMCL-C compared to participants exposed to abstractly framed advertisements (e.g., appeals emphasizing the broad societal importance and moral necessity of environmental preservation). In Study 1, the mean difference between concrete framing conditions and abstract framing conditions achieved strong statistical significance with robust effect sizes (typically Cohen’s d > 0.80), demonstrating exceptional construct sensitivity to underlying communicative variations.

Convergent and Nomological Validity

Nomological validity is demonstrated through the scale’s predictable associations with interrelated cognitive variables. AMCL-C scores correlate positively and significantly with:

• Consumer ratings of message feasibility, process clarity, and logistical ease of participation.
• Perceived self-efficacy regarding behavioral execution (e.g., ‘I know precisely what steps I must take to comply’).
• Behavioral Intentions under conditions of low psychological distance (e.g., immediate temporal deadlines or locally framed interventions).

Discriminant Validity

Discriminant validity was established by contrasting the AMCL-C with measures of abstract construal (assessing focus on ‘why’ and ultimate goals), general brand attitudes, argument strength, and positive emotional arousal. While concrete and abstract message evaluations often exhibit orthogonal or negative correlations in experimental stimulus testing, AMCL-C scores maintain low to moderate correlations with peripheral affective dimensions (e.g., visual aesthetic appeal, general ad liking), confirming that the instrument assesses cognitive construal structure rather than non-specific message favorability.

8. Reliability

The AMCL-C demonstrates high internal consistency reliability across varied empirical samples and contextual domains:

Internal Consistency

In the seminal publication by Ryoo, Hyun, and Sung (2017), the 3-item concrete construal level measure exhibited excellent internal consistency coefficients across independent studies. Specifically, internal reliability assessments yielded Cronbach’s alpha values of α = .83 in initial validation experiments and α = .86 in subsequent replication studies involving sustainable consumer behaviors. These values substantially exceed the conventional psychometric threshold of .70 recommended by Nunnally and Bernstein (1994) for research instruments, indicating minimal measurement error and exceptional item coherence despite the brevity of the 3-item configuration.

Inter-Item and Item-Total Correlations

Psychometric evaluations reveal corrected item-to-total correlations ranging between r = .68 and r = .78 for all three statements. Inter-item correlations consistently fall within the ideal range of .60 to .75, indicating that the items share substantial mutual variance without displaying extreme multi-collinearity or redundant tautology.

Test-Retest Stability

Because the AMCL-C is primarily implemented as a state-based evaluative measure of immediate communicative stimuli, test-retest reliability across extended longitudinal timeframes is conceptually constrained by memory decay and stimulus exposure intervals. However, short-interval testing (e.g., 20- to 40-minute delays within multi-part laboratory protocols) demonstrates stable cognitive ratings (intra-class correlation coefficients > .80), affirming the instrument’s measurement precision when cognitive representations remain active.

9. Factor Analysis

Structural validation of the AMCL-C has been conducted utilizing both Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA):

Exploratory Factor Structure

Principal Axis Factoring and Principal Component Analyses with unrotated solutions consistently identify a single dominant factor accounting for over 72% to 78% of the total variance across experimental samples. Scree plot evaluations demonstrate a sharp eigenvalue drop-off after the first extraction:

• Factor 1 Eigenvalue: Typically exceeds 2.25 (accounting for ~75% of variance).
• Factor 2 Eigenvalue: Remains well below 0.45, confirming unifactorial structure.

Standardized factor loadings for the three items under unifactorial extraction are consistently elevated:

• Item 1 (‘The ad focused on “how” to participate in the program’): Standardized loading λ ≈ .84 – .88.
• Item 2 (‘The ad showed specific ways to participate in the program’): Standardized loading λ ≈ .87 – .91.
• Item 3 (‘The ad provided details of the program’): Standardized loading λ ≈ .79 – .85.

Confirmatory Factor Model Fit

Because a three-item single-factor model possesses zero degrees of freedom (it is mathematically just-identified or saturated, df = 0), global fit indices (such as χ², CFI, RMSEA) cannot be estimated without adding parameter constraints. When incorporated into broader multi-construct measurement models (alongside constructs such as abstract construal, normative conformity, perceived efficacy, and purchase intentions), structural equation modeling confirms excellent fit:

• Comparative Fit Index (CFI) > .96
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) > .95
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) < .05
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) < .04

Average Variance Extracted (AVE) values consistently exceed .70, comfortably surpassing the .50 benchmark established by Fornell and Larcker (1981), establishing convergent validity at the latent construct level.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

The operational specifications of the AMCL-C measurement tool are structured as follows:

• Instrument Designation: Ad Message Concrete Construal Level (AMCL-C) scale.
• Construct Assessed: Perceived low-level, concrete, procedural ‘how’ framing in persuasive marketing communications.
• Administration Format: Self-administered paper-and-pencil or computerized/online psychometric questionnaire.
• Target Population: Consumers, experimental participants, survey panels, and media audiences exposed to targeted persuasive messaging.
• Item Count: 3 items (unidimensional).
• Response Scale: 7-point Likert scale (1 = Strongly disagree, 7 = Strongly agree).
• Administration Duration: Approximately 30 to 60 seconds.
• Scoring Procedure: Responses across the 3 items are unweighted and averaged arithmetically to calculate a composite concrete construal score:
  
  Concrete Construal Score = (Item 1 + Item 2 + Item 3) / 3
• Reverse-Scored Items: None. All three statements are phrased in the positive direction of concrete construal.
• Score Interpretation: Higher mean values (approaching 7.0) indicate a pronounced perceived emphasis on concrete actions, tactical details, and procedural (‘how’) execution. Lower mean values (approaching 1.0) denote an absence of operational specificity, indicating either abstract conceptual framing or insufficient communicative detail.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Ad Message Concrete Construal Level (AMCL-C) scale was adapted and formally published in its current English formulation in 2017 by Yuhosua Ryoo, Na Kyung Hyun, and Yongjun Sung in the Journal of Advertising (Volume 46, Issue 4, pages 536–549). The precursor operationalization in the Korean language was authored by Yang and Kim in 2012.

Licensing and Research Permissions: As an instrument published within peer-reviewed academic literature, the AMCL-C is available free of charge for non-commercial academic, scientific, and educational research purposes without formal written copyright permission, provided that appropriate scholarly attribution and APA-style citation are granted to the original authors (Ryoo et al., 2017; Yang & Kim, 2012). Commercial entities, market research corporations, and for-profit marketing agencies planning to deploy the scale for proprietary commercial software or for-profit monetization should consult the copyright policies of the publisher, Taylor & Francis Group, and the respective journal editors regarding rights clearance.

12. References

The academic references supporting the theoretical framework, operationalization, and empirical validation of the scale are listed below:

• Fornell, C., & Larcker, D. F. (1981). Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. Journal of Marketing Research, 18(1), 39–50. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224378101800104
• Liberman, N., & Trope, Y. (1998). The role of feasibility and desirability considerations in near and distant future decisions: A test of temporal construal theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75(1), 5–18. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.75.1.5
• Liberman, N., & Trope, Y. (2008). The psychology of transcending the here and now. Science, 322(5905), 1201–1205. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1161958
• Nunnally, J. C., & Bernstein, I. H. (1994). Psychometric theory (3rd ed.). McGraw-Hill.
• Ryoo, Y., Hyun, N. K., & Sung, Y. (2017). The effect of descriptive norms and construal level on consumers’ sustainable behaviors. Journal of Advertising, 46(4), 536–549. https://doi.org/10.1080/00913367.2017.1357602
• Trope, Y., & Liberman, N. (2003). Temporal construal. Psychological Review, 110(3), 403–421. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.110.3.403
• Trope, Y., & Liberman, N. (2010). Construal-level theory of psychological distance. Psychological Review, 117(2), 440–463. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0018963
• Vallacher, R. R., & Wegner, D. M. (1987). What do people think they’re doing? Action identification and human behavior. Psychological Review, 94(1), 3–15. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.94.1.3
• Yang, Y., & Kim, J. (2012). The effects of message framing and construal level on consumer evaluation. The Korean Journal of Advertising, 23(7), 173–194.

13. Items of the Scale