1. Method Results and discussion Fig. 1. Percentages of offered sums saved in high- and low-level construal conditions. Fig. 2. The amount of money ascribed to saving in high- and low-level construal conditions. The effect of shifts in levels of construal on people’s propensity to save money was examined. Across two experiments those with an abstract mind-set showed an increased willingness to save when compared to those with a concrete mind-set. The experiments show that levels of construal might play an important role when deciding about a personal budget. Saving money is very important, but at the same time very difficult for the majority of consumers. The research was inspired by a lack of experimental work examining what psychological factors influence saving behaviour. It is proposed that the Construal Level Theory (CLT) (Trope & Liberman, 2003) approach might fill this gap. CLT suggests that any action can be construed at varying levels of cognitive abstraction (Liberman, Trope, & Stephan, 2007). It has been shown that adopting an abstract construal may result in greater self-control (Fujita, Trope, Liberman, & Levin-Sagi, 2006). This also allows people act in line with their values and beliefs (Eyal, Liberman, & Trope, 2008). Therefore, it is proposed that adopting high-level construals would lead to greater savings. In the first experiment, either high- or low-levels of construal were induced and subsequently participants’ propensities to save and spend money were assessed. It was predicted that participants in a high-level condition would ascribe more to saving than would participants in a low-level condition. Participants and design 80 saving participants randomly assigned to one of two experimental groups (low- vs high-level condition). Construal level manipulation A Survey on saving (Freitas, Gollwitzer &Trope, 2004): High-level condition: Why do you save money? Low-level condition: How do you save money? Saving/spending task ’ Imagine that you have just received a certain amount of money you didn’t expect to get. Decide how much money would you save out of it and how much would you spend immediately’ (100 zł, 500 zł, 1000 zł, 2000 zł) Participants primed to high-level construals decided to save more money than participants primed to low-level construals F(1, 77) = 10.417 p < 0.01; η p 2 = 0.119. The result suggests that shifts in levels of construal influence participants’ propensities to save. Abstract Theoretical Background Experiment 1 Method Results and discussion In the second study, replication of the results obtained in the first experiment was expected. A different mind-set manipulation was employed and the dependent variable was operationalised differently Participants and design 74 university students randomly assigned to one of two experimental groups (low- vs high-level condition).. Construal level manipulation A category versus exemplar task (Fujita et al., 2006): 40 words (e.g. dog, car, castle) High-level condition: superordinate categories Low-level condition: subordinate exemplars Saving/spending task ’ You have just received a windfall of 10.000zł. Divide it between: long-term savings; immediate-access savings; everyday expenses and luxury, pleasurable consumption ’ (Zaleskiewicz, Gasiorowska, & Kesebir, 2013) There was a significant difference between the amount of money saved in high-level and low-level conditions, t (71) = -2.041, p <.05. The result suggests that people in an abstract mind-set tend to save more than people in a concrete mind-set. Experiment 2 summed up to form one variable reflecting total money saved High-level construal Low- level construal The findings suggest that psychological states, such as current mind-sets, influence financial decisions. It contributes to previous findings showing that financial decisions are based not only on objective financial data, but are influenced by cognitive representations of them (e.g. Soman, 2001). A growing body of research suggests that our decisions reflect subjective construals of events rather than those events’ objective features (Trope & Liberman, 2010). The experiments presented above show that financial decisions, and saving in particular, are no exceptions. Conclusions Literature cited Joanna Rudzińska-Wojciechowska: jrudzinska-wojciechowska@swps.edu.pl Eyal, T., Liberman, N., & Trope, Y. (2008). Judging near and distant virtue and vice. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44, 1204-1209. Freitas, A. L., Gollwitzer, P., & Trope, Y. (2004). 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