ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the psychological mechanisms that allow people to learn and acquire meaningful knowledge from others across diverse and divergent contexts. It examines a parallel between the challenges people face in learning from others in highly variable contexts and the challenges the species faced surviving extended periods of environmental variability. The chapter shows that the human capacity for abstract thought is adaptive in modern times for learning across variable contexts and was adaptive evolutionarily for humans' continued survival through variable environmental conditions. Humans' evolutionary history is marked by success and thriving during extended periods of environmental fluctuation, and in modern social life people are increasingly exposed to ideas and experiences originating in diverse and highly variable contexts. The chapter describes construal level theory by suggesting that contextual variability plays a mediating role in the link between psychological distance and higher-level construal.
