Tab here is acting as an auto complete, all it does is search for relevant files and directories there to complete your command.
As far as I know, in bash you can not tell it to do other wise, you can try using other shells, maybe they can.
However there isn't really a difference. since both commands will get you to the same directory...
update
According to here you can use this to cd to the parenting directory:
Here is a way of changing to the target of the given symbolic link:
cd -P .
Here is how it works
user@host:~/tmp$ ls
@a b
user@host:~/tmp$ file a
a: symbolic link to `b/c'
user@host:~/tmp$ cd a
user@host:~/tmp/a$ cd .
user@host:~/tmp/a$ cd -P .a
user@host:~/tmp/b/c$
You can alias it to
cdl='cd -P'
From the bash manual:
The -P option says to use the physical directory structure instead of following symbolic links