Time orientation and construal level: effects on eating and exercising behaviour and preferences

Eating and exercising behaviour are both characterized by immediate and future consequences. Consequently, consideration of these consequences (i.e. time orientation) predicts eating and exercising behaviour. We investigate whether construal level acts as an underlying mechanism of these relations. Students (N = 101) completed measures of consideration of immediate and future consequences (i.e. CFC‐food and CFC‐exercise), construal level, eating and exercising behaviour and preferences. For self‐reported eating and exercising behaviour, only direct effects of consideration of immediate and future consequences were found. For eating preferences, however, there was evidence of an indirect effect through construal level. A stronger tendency to consider future consequences led to a stronger preference for utilitarian (as compared with hedonic) food products through a more abstract construal level. All in all, construal level partially explains the differential relations between consideration of immediate and future consequences and eating and exercising behaviour and preferences.