The Roles of Praise and Social Comparison Information in the Experience of Pride

Abstract

The authors examined the roles of social comparisons, publicity of success, and praise on the experience of pride in an experiment in which college students successfully completed a timed intelligence task in private and later received 1 of 4 types of feedback from the experimenter: no feedback (private), mere public acknowledgment of completion, general praise containing both a public and an evaluative component, or praise containing explicit comparison information. Half of the participants also received written normative information suggesting they performed at a high level. Participants then completed a number of dependent measures, including a key measure of pride. Overall, results suggest that the public aspect of a performance, together with the superior standing suggested by any praise accompanying this publicity, is important in the experience of pride.     

Social Comparison Orientation Moderates the Effects of Group Membership on the Similarity-Attraction Relationship

ABSTRACT

The present study examined how the similarity-attraction relationship is affected by a combination of the tendency to compare oneself to other people (Social Comparison Orientation, SCO) and group membership. We expected that high-SCO individuals would prefer similar to dissimilar others only when the target belonged to their in-group and was relevant for the evaluation of their self-concept. It was also expected that among low-SCO individuals who are more certain about the self and less concerned about “being evaluated,” a main effect of attitude similarity would appear, regardless of the group membership of the target. Results partially support these predictions and suggest that further research should be carried out into the combined effects of individual and group variables in the attraction literature.     

The harmful and beneficial impacts of weight bias on well-being: the moderating influence of weight status

Weight bias is evident among normal weight and obese individuals. This weight bias may be associated with comparisons to others, which may enhance feelings of self-worth. However, the ego-enhancing versus ego-diminishing influence of these evaluations may be moderated by the individual's weight status, and the strength of these effects may be moderated by gender. Eight-five participants completed the Implicit Associations Test, questionnaires assessing explicit weight bias, body image, and self-esteem, and height and weight assessments. Implicit weight bias was prevalent among all individuals, p < .001, and was associated with a more positive body image, ps < .05, and higher self-esteem, ps < .01, for thinner individuals but a more negative body image and lower self-esteem for heavier individuals. Gender moderation effects were not observed. It is arguably problematic that the positive benefits to normal weight individuals’ self-esteem and body image appear to come via negative comparisons with overweight individuals.     

Comparisons and advertising: the route from comparisons to effective advertising

In this study, we investigate what conditions cause subjects to make comparisons and the comparison patterns that influence effective advertising. People make social or temporal-past or temporal-future comparisons, or may not make any comparisons when facing a choice of purchase situation. Unlike past research, we investigate four comparison patterns, and propose a general comparison model that leads to greater advertising effectiveness.     

Testing equality of correlated proportions with incomplete data on both responses

Two test statistics are proposed for testing the equality of two correlated proportions when some observations are missing on both responses. The performance of these tests in terms of size and power is compared with other tests by means of Monte Carlo simulations. The proposed tests are easily computed and compare favorably with other tests.     

Correspondence analysis and optimal structural representations

Many well-known measures for the comparison of distinct partitions of the same set ofn objects are based on the structure of class overlap presented in the form of a contingency table (e.g., Pearson's chi-square statistic, Rand's measure, or Goodman-Kruskal'sτ _b ), but they all can be rephrased through the use of a simple cross-product index defined between the corresponding entries from twon ×n proximity matrices that provide particular a priori (numerical) codings of the within- and between-class relationships for each of the partitions. We consider the task of optimally constructing the proximity matrices characterizing the partitions (under suitable restriction) so as to maximize the cross-product measure, or equivalently, the Pearson correlation between their entries. The major result presented states that within the broad classes of matrices that are either symmetric, skew-symmetric, or completely arbitrary, optimal representations are already derivable from what is given by a simple one-dimensional correspondence analysis solution. Besides severely limiting the type of structures that might be of interest to consider for representing the proximity matrices, this result also implies that correspondence analysis beyond one dimension must always be justified from logical bases other than the optimization of a single correlational relationship between the matrices representing the two partitions.     

The social environments of early infancy in Japan and the United States

The social environments of early infancy in Japan and the United States were compared in terms of the context of caregiving and the quality of the month-infant interaction. Mothers of 17 Japanese infants and 17 infants in the United States were interviewed in their homes about the experiences that they provided for their 4-month-old infants, and mother-infant interactions were recorded on videotape. Levels of parents' education were similar in both countries. The context of the infant's development varied substantially with culture. Mothers in the United States provided a greater variety of experiences on the HOME and care of Japanese infants tended to be more exclusively provided by mothers whereas care of infants in the United States was shared by fathers and other caregivers to a greater extent. Examination of behaviour frequencies during mother-infant interaction indicated that mothers in Japan provided their infants with more vocal input and more physical play than mothers in the United States and Japanese mothers were more vocally responsive to their infants' vocalizations.     

Self-enhancement in Japan and America

North Americans view themselves in more positive terms than they view most other people. In the present paper, we report three studies showing that this bias is also found in Japan. For highly valued traits and abilities, Japanese students rated themselves and their best friends in more positive terms than they rated most other students (Study 1 and Study 2) and most other Japanese (Study 2). In Study 3, a sample of older Japanese displayed the same tendency when evaluating themselves and a member of their family. We discuss the theoretical importance of the findings.     

8～11岁儿童解决加法等值问题的策略发展特点

本研究选取142名8～11岁儿童进行了加法等值问题测试,采用口头报告的方法考察了儿童解决加法等值问题的策略发展特点。研究表明:(1)儿童在解决加法等值问题中,策略具有多样性;(2)儿童在策略使用的数量上没有显著的年级差异,但在不同学习成绩的被试之间存在明显的不同;(3)总体上看儿童对正确策略的使用基本上都是随着年级的增加在逐渐提高,而对错误策略的使用却相反。     

Cognitive and social comparison processes in brainstorming

This brainstorming experiment assessed the extent to which idea exposure produced cognitive stimulation and social comparison effects. One hundred and sixty participants were exposed to either a high or low number of common or unique ideas. The participants’ likelihood of engaging in social comparison processes (high or low) was also manipulated through instructional sets. The results indicated both cognitive stimulation and social comparison effects. Exposure to a high number of ideas and to common ideas enhanced the generation of additional ideas. The effects of exposure to a high number of ideas was greater under high than under low social comparison conditions. Finally, recall of exposed ideas was related to enhanced idea generation. These results are consistent with the social/cognitive influence model of group brainstorming (Paulus, Dugosh, Dzindolet, Putman, & Coskun, 2002).