Distancing after group success and failure: Basking in reflected glory and cutting off reflected failure.

Two image-maintenance processes by which people manipulate their association with others were tested: the tendency to bask in reflected glory as a means of increasing one's association with successful others and the tendency to cut off reflected failure as a means of decreasing one's association with unsuccessful others. 102 undergraduates were initially involved in a group task and were then assigned to 1 of 3 group-performance feedback conditions: failure, no information, or success. Self-report and behavioral (taking and wearing of team badges) dependent measures of distancing showed that Ss in the failure group manifested less association with their group than did Ss in the no-information feedback and success groups; there was a tendency on behavioral but not self-report measures for Ss in the success group to manifest more association with their group than for Ss in the no-information feedback group. Therefore, more support was found for the cutting-off-reflected-failure process than for the basking-in-reflected-glory process as an image-maintenance tactic. Because Ss truly identified with their group's relative sense of failure or success, it is suggested that it was this identification process that appeared to have driven Ss' distancing behaviors in relation to their groups. (31 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

When better-than-others compare upward: Choice of comparison and comparative evaluation as independent predictors of academic performance.

Social comparison theory has linked improved performance to both the tendency to compare with others who are performing well and the tendency to view the self as better than others. However, little research has investigated the effects of either variable outside of a controlled laboratory environment. Moreover, there is reason to believe that the 2 tendencies would be in opposition to one another, because people who compare upward might subsequently view themselves as relatively less competent. The results of a longitudinal study of 876 students in their 1st year of secondary education indicated that both variables independently predicted improved academic performance and that these 2 tendencies did not conflict. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Motives for social comparison: The construction–validation distinction.

Suggests that informational social comparison can be motivated by 2 concerns: (a) an interest in obtaining from others any information about the entity that they have at their disposal and that the individual lacks or (b) an interest in obtaining information about the validity of one's judgment by determining if that judgment derives from one's personal biases or from the qualities of the entity. A comparison act motivated by the former concern is termed construction and by the latter is termed validation. The results of Exp I with 38 undergraduates suggest that a construction process occurs only when one's perceived level of information is low and others might possess additional information about the object. Two additional experiments with 39 undergraduates examined the impact of agreement and disagreement from sources similar or dissimilar on a relevant attribute. Exp II examined whether the judgments of each of these others are attributed largely to the other's similarity/dissimilarity or to the amount of information about the entity that the other is thought to possess. Exp III examined the implications of the attributional patterns obtained in Exp II for choice of comparison other under motives to construct vs validate. The 2 motives were found to lead to differing preferences regarding choice of comparison other. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

For better or worse: The impact of upward social comparison on self-evaluations.

Upward social comparison is generally regarded as ego deflating, yet people often compare themselves with those whose abilities and attributes are better than their own. Upward comparison provides useful information, which may partially account for this behavior. Furthermore, it is proposed that upward comparison only sometimes results in more negative self-evaluations; it can also be self-enhancing. A review of studies testing upward comparison effects on self-evaluations, self esteem, and affect is consistent with this conclusion. Thus, people may make upward comparisons in hopes of enhancing their self-assessment. It is concluded that upward comparison is not in conflict with the desire for positive self-regard and indeed serves it indirectly (through self-improvement) and sometimes directly (by enhancing the self). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A note on the use of the Rorschach in the assessment of analyzability.

Psychoanalytic treatment entails an intense exploration of one's beliefs about self and other as these are played out with significant others in one's life, including the therapist. This exploration requires that a person be capable of such intensive and extensive self-exploration. Ordinarily, this assessment is made by the clinician on the basis of interview. However, an interview does not match the emotional rigors of an actual psychoanalytic experience and, hence, can miss the detection of latent and subtle ego defects that can potentially have a deleterious effect on the patient and the analysis. The analysis of a person's response to the Rorschach blots can be a helpful adjunct in this assessment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The interplay of mastery and performance goals in social comparison: A multiple-goal perspective.

Régner, Escribe, and Dupeyrat (2007) recently demonstrated that not only performance-approach and performance-avoidance goals (respectively, the desire to outperform others and not to be outperformed by others) but also mastery goals (the desire to acquire knowledge) were related to social comparison orientation (SCO, the tendency to search for social comparison information). In the present article, the possibility of a link between mastery goals and social comparison that depends on the level of performance-approach goals—a possibility supported by a multiple-goal perspective—was tested by examining the interaction effect between mastery and performance-approach goals. This is an important endeavor, as educational settings are rarely free from performance-approach goals, even when mastery goals are promoted. In Study 1, we tested self-set achievement goals (mastery, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance goals) as predictors of SCO; the interaction between mastery goals and performance-approach goals indicated that the higher the performance-approach goal endorsement, the stronger the link between mastery goals and SCO. In Study 2, we manipulated goal conditions; mastery goals predicted interest in social comparison in the performance-approach goal condition only. Results are discussed in terms of the importance of multiple-goal pursuit in academic settings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The imposter phenomenon: Recent research findings regarding dynamics, personality and family patterns and their implications for treatment.

Reviews research on the impostor phenomenon, an experience of feeling incompetent and of having deceived others about one's abilities. Impostor feelings are shown to be associated with such characteristics as introversion, trait anxiety, a need to look smart to others, a propensity to shame, and a conflictual and nonsupportive family background. The findings are discussed in terms of self psychological theory, with the impostor phenomenon seen as a result of seeking self-esteem by trying to live up to an idealized image to compensate for feelings of insecurity and self-doubt. Therapeutic approaches drawing on self psychology and cognitive therapy are suggested. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Fear and social comparison.

Schachter (1959) had found a positive relationship between fear and the desire to be with others (affiliation). Schachter concluded, following Festinger (1954), that a person will attempt to reduce cognitive dissonance with regard to his self-picture in terms of information obtainable from others. This investigation attempts to determine the validity of this hypothesis by focusing on the dimension of the intensity of the emotion. "If a person is uncertain as to the intensity of his emotional reaction, he should seek information from others that will help him measure it. To the extent that he has information from others regarding the intensity of their reactions, his desire to be with them prior to the impending experience should be reduced." The hypothesis was supported; however, factors such as sex and order of birth were seen to affect S's reaction to threat. From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4GE86G. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

So close, and yet so far: Does collectivism foster transparency overestimation?

The present research demonstrated that horizontal collectivism (HC), the tendency to emphasize social bonds and interdependence, is associated with overestimating the extent to which one's preferences, feelings, and behavioral inclinations are transparent to close others. The link between HC and felt transparency was mediated by self-other merging but was not significantly mediated by perceived similarity, behavioral closeness, or metaperception positivity. Evidence of a causal connection was obtained in an experiment where individuals for whom interdependence was primed exhibited greater transparency overestimation than did those for whom it was not. Additional results indicated that higher HC is associated with greater confidence but not greater accuracy in judgments about a friend. The authors argue that other perspective-taking deficits involving overuse of the self in judgments of others should also be exacerbated by the self-other merging that is associated with HC. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social comparison activity under threat: Downward evaluation and upward contacts.

Social comparison processes include the desire to affiliate with others, the desire for information about others, and explicit self-evaluation against others. Previously these types of comparison activities and their corresponding measures have been treated as interchangeable. We present evidence that in certain groups under threat, these comparison activities diverge, with explicit self-evaluation made against a less fortunate target (downward evaluation), but information and affiliation sought out from more fortunate others (upward contacts). These effects occur because downward evaluation and upward contacts appear to serve different needs, the former ameliorating self-esteem and the latter enabling a person to improve his or her situation and simultaneously increase motivation and hope. Implications for the concept, measurement, and theory of social comparison are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An extension of uncertainty management theory to the self: The relationship between justice, social comparison orientation, and antisocial work behaviors.

A multisource field study of 103 employees and their supervisors tested an extension of uncertainty management theory (E. A. Lind & K. Van den Bos, 2002; K. Van den Bos & E. A. Lind, 2002). According to this theory, persons high in social comparison orientation (F. X. Gibbons & B. P. Buunk, 1999) experience chronic uncertainty about the self. It was hypothesized that this should strengthen the effects of interactional and procedural justice perceptions on antisocial work behaviors. As predicted, the negative relationship between employee perceptions of interactional justice and supervisory ratings of antisocial work behaviors was stronger for people who are high as compared with low in social comparison orientation. Results provide evidence for an extension of uncertainty management theory to the self-domain. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social comparison and adjustment to breast cancer: An experimental examination of upward affiliation and downward evaluation.

In a study designed to evaluate the divergence of social comparison activities under health threat, breast cancer patients (n?=?94) were assigned randomly to listen to an audiotaped interview in which the target's psychological adjustment and disease prognosis were manipulated to reflect good, poor, and unspecified psychological and physical health status. Results supported hypotheses regarding downward self-evaluative and upward affiliative comparison activity, as well as predictions regarding the influences of comparison dimension. With regard to desire for affiliation, participants demonstrated a greater desire for information and emotional support from the well-adjusted target than from the poorly adjusted target. Self-evaluation of adjustment and prognosis varied as a function of target characteristics, although a pervasive tendency toward downward comparison in self-evaluation also was noted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Error and bias in comparative judgment: On being both better and worse than we think we are.

People believe that they are better than others on easy tasks and worse than others on difficult tasks. In previous attempts to explain these better-than-average and worse-than-average effects, researchers have invoked bias and motivation as causes. In this article, the authors develop a more parsimonious account, the differential information explanation, in which it is assumed only that people typically have better information about themselves than they do about others. When one's own performance is exceptional (either good or bad), it is often reasonable to assume others' will be less so. Consequently, people estimate the performance of others as less extreme (more regressive) than their own. The result is that people believe they are above average on easy tasks and below average on difficult tasks. These effects are exacerbated when people have accurate information about their performances, increasing the natural discrepancy between knowledge of the self and knowledge of others. The effects are attenuated when people obtain accurate information about the performances of others. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The undesired self: A neglected variable in personality research.

Personality theorists have given a great deal of attention to the relation between the real self and the ideal self with the implication that they are contrasting entities. The concept of an undesired self is introduced as a more compelling contrast with the ideal self. It is argued that the undesired self, in comparison with the ideal self, is the preferred reference point for making judgments of present-day life satisfaction. Hypotheses derived from this theoretical perspective were tested by using Identities?×?Features matrices generated by 45 college subjects. The distance between the real self and the ideal self and the distance between the real self and the undesired self were calculated. It is shown that the latter distance correlates more highly with ratings of life satisfaction than does the distance between the real and ideal selves, which suggests that satisfaction (in both male and female subjects) is more a function of one's subjective distance from unwanted affects and circumstances than a function of one's proximity to ideal states of existence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adult attachment, working models, and relationship quality in dating couples.

Three studies examined correlates of adult attachment. In Study 1, a scale to measure adult attachment style dimensions (ASDs) was developed based on C. Hazan and P. Shaver's (see record 1987-21950-001) categorical measure. Factor analyses revealed 3 dimensions underlying this measure: the extent to which an individual (1) is comfortable with closeness, (2) feels he or she can depend on others, and (3) is anxious or fearful about such things as being abandoned or unloved. Study 2 explored the relation between ASDs and working models of self and others. ASDs were related to self-esteem, expressiveness, instrumentality, trust in others, beliefs about human nature, and styles of loving. Study 3 explored the role of ASDs in 3 aspects of ongoing dating relationships: partner matching on ASDs; similarity between the attachment of one's partner and caregiving style of one's parents; and relationship quality. Evidence was obtained for partner matching and for similarity between one's partner and one's parents, particularly the opposite-sex parent. ASDs were related to how each partner perceived the relationship. For women, Dimension 1 was the best predictor of relationship quality; and the best predictor for men was Dimension 3. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Environmental contingency in life history strategies: The influence of mortality and socioeconomic status on reproductive timing.

Why do some people have children early, whereas others delay reproduction? By considering the trade-offs between using one's resources for reproduction versus other tasks, the evolutionary framework of life history theory predicts that reproductive timing should be influenced by mortality and resource scarcity. A series of experiments examined how mortality cues influenced the desire to have children sooner rather than later. The effects of mortality depended critically on whether people grew up in a relatively resource-scarce or resource-plentiful environment. For individuals growing up relatively poor, mortality cues produced a desire to reproduce sooner—to want children now, even at the cost of furthering one's education or career. Conversely, for individuals growing up relatively wealthy, mortality cues produced a desire to delay reproduction—to further one's education or career before starting a family. Overall, mortality cues appear to shift individuals into different life history strategies as a function of childhood socioeconomic status, suggesting important implications for how environmental factors can influence fertility and family size. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)