External Validity, Why Art Thou Externally Valid? Recent Studies of Attraction Provide Three Theoretical Answers

Some studies have better external validity than others, but why? Recent studies in the domain of interpersonal attraction have been tackling this question by documenting how people respond differently to hypothetical versus live interactions. In live interactions, people tend to report their experienced emotions, they evaluate others using a low-level concrete construal, and they attempt to implement the goal of having a pleasant interaction. In hypothetical scenarios, people forecast their emotions, they evaluate others using a high-level abstract construal, and they deliberate about others’ positive and negative features. By situating the hypothetical versus live interaction distinction within the framework of strong preexisting theories (i.e., affective forecasting, construal-level theory, mindset theory), this research reinforces the idea that there is nothing inherently invalid about laboratory studies that are cosmetically dissimilar from real life. Nevertheless, it remains highly problematic to generalize findings to a setting that elicits a countervailing set of psychological processes.

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