The man who wasn't there: Subliminal social comparison standards influence self-evaluation

Life provides an endless stream of social comparison information. Because opportunities to compare with others are so abundant, social comparison theory traditionally assumes that people are selective in their comparison activities and primarily compare with deliberately selected standards. Recent research, however, demonstrates that social comparisons often occur spontaneously, even if no standard is explicitly provided or deliberately selected. We examined whether comparisons are so spontaneous that they are even engaged if people are fleetingly exposed to a potential standard—so fleetingly that they remain unaware of the standard. In three studies, participants were subliminally primed with moderate versus extreme, high versus low standards during self-evaluation. Results demonstrate that self-evaluations are influenced by subliminally presented standards. Specifically, self-evaluations are assimilated towards moderate standards and contrasted away from extreme standards. These self-evaluative consequences of subliminal standards, however, were only obtained if participants engaged in self-reflection during standard exposure. These findings emphasize that social comparisons are truly ubiquitous processes that are engaged even for fleeting exposure to standard information.     

你们要什么

耶稣问门徒：“你们要什么?”要清楚我们要什么,不妨先问问自己：我可以不要什么?我可以不要什么呢?细观你现在所拥有的,你会发现,从前你拼命想要得到的很多东西,今天是你所不需要的。当我们决定告诉上帝,我要什么时,不妨先清楚我可以不要什么;当我们决定向上帝要什么时,不妨先下定决心我要为此舍弃什么!     

The social supports of suicide attempters: The different roles of family and friends

The social support patterns of a sample of 101 suicide attempters were compared with the patterns of a control sample on the basis of structured interview data. Network characteristics and the extent of support in different functional categories were examined as to their absolute and relative power to discriminate between the suicide attempters and the controls. A clear separation of the functions of kin and of friends/acquaintances emerged. The crucial difference between the attempters and the controls lay in the number of friends with whom the subjects had agreeable everyday interactions and in the number of kin that provided crisis support, both psychological and instrumental. Other support differences between the two groups were of secondary importance. While there was no overall difference in the frequency of social interactions between the two groups, the size of the social network differed greatly. Consequences for the conceptualization and measurement of social support as well as for the prevention of suicidal behavior are discussed.     

Locomotor experience and use of social information are posture specific

The authors examined the effects of locomotor experience on infants' perceptual judgments in a potentially risky situation--descending steep and shallow slopes--while manipulating social incentives to determine where perceptual judgments are most malleable. Twelve-month-old experienced crawlers and novice walkers were tested on an adjustable sloping walkway as their mothers encouraged and discouraged descent. A psychophysical procedure was used to estimate infants' ability to crawl/walk down slopes, followed by test trials in which mothers encouraged and discouraged infants to crawl/walk down. Both locomotor experience and social incentives affected perceptual judgments. In the encourage condition, crawlers only attempted safe slopes within their abilities, but walkers repeatedly attempted impossibly risky slopes, replicating previous work. The discourage condition showed where judgments are most malleable. When mothers provided negative social incentives, crawlers occasionally avoided safe slopes, and walkers occasionally avoided the most extreme 50 degrees increment, although they attempted to walk on more than half the trials. Findings indicate that both locomotor experience and social incentives play key roles in adaptive responding, but the benefits are specific to the posture that infants use for balance and locomotion.     

What they want and what they get: The social goals of boys with ADHD and comparison boys

Twenty-seven boys diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and 18 comparison boys participated in a competitive tetradic interaction task. Boys were individually interviewed before the game about their goals for the interaction, and adult observers inferred boys' social goals from videotapes of the interaction. Social acceptance was determined by combining positive and negative sociometric nominations collected through individual interviews at the end of the summer research program in which the interaction was held. In their self-reports, ADHD-high aggressive boys prioritized trouble-seeking and fun at the expense of rules to a greater extent than did both ADHD-low aggressive and comparison boys. Observers judged ADHD-high-aggressive boys to seek attention more strongly and seek fairness less strongly than the other two groups. Self-reported goals of defiance and cooperation predicted boys' end-of-program social standing, even with interactional behaviors and subgroup status controlled statistically. Observer-inferred goals were differentially associated with social acceptance for ADHD and comparison boys, suggesting discontinuities in peer interaction processes. Differentiation of goals from behavior and the integral role of children's goals in peer acceptance are discussed.This research received primary support from National Institute of Mental Health Grant RO1 MH45064, awarded to Stephen P. Hinshaw. Special acknowledgments are due to the child participants and the many dedicated interviewers and behavior observers who made this study possible.     

The powerful disregard social comparison information

Social comparisons are important because other people can serve as benchmarks to determine one's own capabilities and act as sources for inspiration. Despite this, people do not always fully utilize social comparison information. The present paper demonstrates that feelings of power may reduce use of social comparison information. In three experiments, participants were first induced to feel high or low in power, or were in a control condition. Then, they were exposed to either upward or downward comparison targets. In all three experiments, low power participants responded to targets with contrast or assimilation, whereas high power participants did not. This has important implications for our understanding of how people's positions in the social and organizational hierarchies affect their basic psychological functioning.     

Pupillometry system for use in social psychology

It is now relatively easy to implement pupillometry in social psychological research. We describe a system in which a Macintosh computer presents visual and auditory stimuli to subjects while monitoring an infrared pupillometer. The computer records information on subject, task, and pupil diameter into a data file for input into standard statistical analysis programs. Pupil diameter is measured continuously while subjects respond to stimuli that last for several seconds or minutes. A demonstration experiment verifies the usefulness of the system. The ability of the Macintosh computer to easily handle visual and auditory stimuli and to record responses lasting a considerable length of time makes the system well suited for studying pupil responses to complex social stimuli. This system is also well suited for the researcher initiating a research program using pupillometry. Ease of operation makes using a large number of subjects feasible.     

When ambiguity hurts: social standards moderate self-appraisals in generalized social phobia

Thirty-nine individuals with generalized social phobia (social anxiety disorder) and 39 nonclinical controls performed a public speech after receiving cues about social standards. Using a novel video manipulation paradigm, one third of participants received cues indicating that standards for performance were high, one third received cues that standards were low, and the remaining third were given no explicit information about expected standards (i.e., standards were ambiguous). Individuals with social phobia performed objectively worse than controls in all conditions, but rated their performance as being worse only in the high and ambiguous standards conditions. These results suggest that in social phobia, negative self-perception is context-dependent. Implications for the cognitive model and treatment are discussed.     

When you and I are "we," you are not threatening: the role of self-expansion in social comparison

Many theories of self-evaluation emphasize the power of social comparison. Simply put, an individual is thought to gain esteem whenever she or he outperforms others and to lose esteem when he or she is outperformed. The current research explored interdependent self-construal as a moderator of these effects. Two studies used a priming task to manipulate the level of self-construal and investigate effects of social comparison in dyadic (Study 1) and group situations (Study 2). Both studies demonstrated that when the target for comparison is construed as part of the self, his or her successes become cause for celebration rather than costs to esteem. Additionally, gender differences in chronic relational and collective self-construals moderated the patterns of social comparison in a form similar to that of priming relational and collective self-construals.     

Tainted recommendations: The social comparison bias

The present analysis reveals the social comparison bias – a bias that emerges from the social comparison process and taints recommendations. We hypothesize that people who have high standing on a relevant dimension (e.g., quantity of publications) begin to protect their social comparison context by making recommendations that prevent others, who might surpass them on the relevant dimension, from entering their comparison context. Studies 1 and 2 instantiate this effect in both hypothetical and real decision situations, showing that people tend not to recommend individuals who surpass them on the relevant dimension on which they have high standing. Finally, Study 3, in a sample of real employees, links the effect to one’s concern for protecting self-esteem. Theoretical and organizational implications are discussed.     

Toward mindful social comparison: When subjective and objective selves are mutually exclusive

Although mindless evaluations typically accompany social comparisons, they are not necessary, and may be costly. We describe how mindlessness enters the social comparison process at two points. First, during the social comparison both self and other are mindlessly de-contextualized, through (1) biased selection of relevant behaviors, (2) biased selection of criteria along which behaviors are compared, (3) lack of knowledge of intent behind behavior, (4) lack of knowledge about representativeness of behavior, (5) lack of knowledge about typicality of future behavior as moderated by learning, (6) improper understanding of the meaning of behavior, and (7) lack of knowledge about motivations generating the comparisons. Second, the affective results of the social comparison are often mindlessly generalized to the global self, while the breadth and complexity of the network of attributes that constitute to the ‘self’ is ignored. Global-self-evaluative social comparisons forfeit the potential of gaining accurate and usable information about personal attributes.     

The effect of social comparison on mathematics self-concept

Implicit in the frame of reference hypothesis is the assumption that social comparison is one of the causal determinants of self-concept. The present study of Norwegian sixth-grade elementary school students showed that students of low-, medium-, and high-achievement classes did not differ in mathematics self-concept. Mathematics self-concept was, however, significantly influenced by the students’ within-class-room position in mathematics. The results support the frame of reference hypothesis, and the support was consistent over gender.     

The effects of social comparison on inaction inertia

In this paper, we examine inaction inertia in a social context where the decision-maker is among others who are faced with similar current and past opportunities. We specifically investigate whether the likelihood of taking advantage of a current opportunity after having missed a previous, relatively superior opportunity depends on whether a referent other did or did not take advantage of the previous opportunity. We report results from three studies that provide evidence for the interplay between the past actions and inactions of a referent other and the extent of inaction inertia displayed by a focal decision-maker. We also show that the proximity of the other and the valence of the relationship between the decision-maker and the other influence the extent to which the decision of the other impacts the likelihood to take action. And, finally, we show that regret mediates the relationship between the decision of the other with respect to the past opportunity and the decision-maker's likelihood of taking advantage of the current opportunity.     

The effects of social comparison on ability evaluations

Investigated the effects of comparisons with similar and dissimilar performances on estimates of relative ability. Male and female undergraduates (n = 162) took a test of analogy-making ability, and received veridical feedback about their own performance and manipulated feedback about the scores of other college students. Supporting Festinger's similarity hypothesis, variations within a range of small discrepancies between self and others' scores produced significant changes in ability estimates, while variations within a range of large discrepancies had no significant impact. This pattern of results only held for discrepancies relative to the modal score of others, and not relative to their highest or lowest scores. There were also indications that subjects with average performances were less influenced by the comparison feedback than were subjects with low or high scores. The discussion focused on the similarities and contrasts between seeking comparison information versus being influenced by it.     

Experience and expression of jealousy: comparison between friends and romantics

A survey was administered to assess the differences between friends and romantics regarding the experience and expression of jealousy. The first hypothesis predicted that the perceived appropriateness of the expression of jealousy would be greater in romantic relationships than in friendships. Therefore, the second hypothesis predicted that the expression of jealousy would be greater in romantic relationships than in friendships. Third, it was expected that the intensity of jealousy would be a stronger predictor of expression for romantics than for friends. The first two hypotheses were confirmed; however, the last hypothesis received only tenuous support. While t tests yielded no significant differences on the intensity of the experience of jealousy between friends and romantics, the difference on expression is explained in terms of social or normative influences.     

The use of “failure models”: An application of social comparison theory to changing maladaptive attitudes

Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy -