Social Comparison Direction

1
Social Comparison Direction

• Upward social comparison- compare to someone who
  is better than you.
• Downward social comparison- compare to someone
  who is worse than you.

2
Contrast

• Contrast effect self is contrasted to the
  target of comparison and thus self-evaluations
  move away from the target.

3
Contrast Effect Results

• Upward social comparison- compare to someone who
  is better than you.
• Downward social comparison- compare to someone
  who is worse than you.

Feel worse
Feel better
4
Assimilation effects

• Assimilation effect- Self-evaluations move
  towards the target of comparison.

5
Assimilation Effect Results

• Upward social comparison- compare to someone who
  is better than you.
• Downward social comparison- compare to someone
  who is worse than you.

Feel better
Feel worse
6
Predicting Contrast vs. Assimilation

• Tessers Self-Evaluation Maintenance Model
• Results depend on
• Psychological closeness
• Relevance of the dimension

7
Self-Evaluation Maintenance
Ratings of Positivity in Perception
8
Predicting Assimilation vs. Contrast

• Lockwood Kunda (1997)
• Results depend on
• Relevance
• Attainability

9
Lockwood Kunda (1997)
10
Automaticity

• Automatic processes are well learned and require
  little or no conscious attention.
• Is social comparison an automatic process?
• If so, people should be able to compare even
  under cognitive load.

11
Gilbert et al. (1995)

• Schizophrenia detection task
• First watched confederate perform well (16/18) or
  poorly (4/18)
• But confederate was deliberately trained or
  misinformed, so the comparison is non-diagnostic.
• Half of the participants are under cognitive
  load.
• All participants took test and got 10/18

12
Gilberts theory
No Cognitive load
Correction Comparison is non-diagnostic
Compare to confederate
No effect On self-evaluation
Cognitive load
Unable to correct
Effect on Self-evaluation
Compare to confederate
13
Gilbert et al. (1995)

• Results (self-evaluations of performance)
• Not busy No significant effect of comparison
  direction.
• Busy Significant contrast effect.