能力社会比较与归因反馈对不诚实行为的影响

社会比较作为认识自我的一种方式,对个体心理与行为的诸多方面产生影响,但对于社会比较如何影响不诚实行为以及归因反馈在其中的作用,目前尚不清楚。在3项实验中操纵了不同方向的能力社会比较,探讨其对不诚实行为的影响(研究1)以及归因反馈在其中的调节作用(研究2)。结果发现:(1)相比于向下比较和无比较,向上比较会增加个体的不诚实行为;(2)归因反馈调节上述影响:向上比较后,相比于给予能力反馈,给予努力反馈可以减少个体的不诚实行为。本研究拓展了社会比较后效研究,对如何减少社会比较引起的不诚实行为具有重要启示。

The Influences of Social Comparison and Attribution Feedback on Individual Dishonest Behavior

As a way of people to know themselves, social comparison plays an important role in social life. Previous studies have found that social comparison can extremely affect individual psychology and behavior, such as self-concept and self-esteem. However, it is still unclear how social comparison in different directions affects individual dishonesty because most of these studies just focus on intrapersonal consequences. In addition, in the process of receiving social comparison information, people also receive different types of feedback about their performances. Studies have detected that when individuals attribute the success or failure to their ability, their subsequent performances are more affected. Will the different types of attribution feedback (ability vs. endeavor) modulate the effect of social comparison on dishonesty? The present study aims to explore the impact of social comparison on individual dishonest behavior, and whether attribution feedback modulates this effect. The results showed that: (1) different directions of social comparison significantly affect individual dishonest behavior. Specifically, relative to downward and no comparison, upward comparison increased individual subsequent dishonest behavior; (2) attribution feedback modulated the effect of social comparison on dishonest behavior. Especially, after upward comparison, receiving endeavor feedback decreased individual subsequent dishonest behavior, compared with receiving ability feedback. In sum, the results of this study demonstrated that upward social comparison could increase individual subsequent dishonest behavior, and attribution feedback modulated this effect. Therefore, theresults not only expand and enrich the related areas which aim to investigate the influence of social comparison on behavior, but also have important implications on how to reduce the occurrence of dishonest behavior. When individuals experience social comparison, especially upward comparison, giving them more feedback about their endeavor and allowing them to experience controllability can, to some extent, reduce their subsequent dishonesty.