Social presence and psychological distance: A construal level account for online distance learning

Online distance learning presents unique psychosocial characteristics due to the inherent distance between learners. Social presence -the sense of being with others- is key to mitigating this distance. However, our understanding of social presence remains limited, despite its potential to reduce social isolation and cultivate a conducive social space in online education. A gap in our understanding relates to how social presence aligns with more general accounts of interpersonal representations under conditions of psychological distance, as presented in Construal Level Theory. We conducted a vignette-based experiment (N = 194) to examine how psychological distance in online learning affects the mental construal level of a hypothetical partner and, thus, social presence perceptions. Findings suggest that increased psychological distance leads to higher-level construals, resulting in a perception of conversation partners as non-descript and homogenous. Importantly, this affects social presence perceptions, with certain nuances. These findings can inform novel approaches to enhance social presence in online learning.