Current theories of social comparison processes deriving from Festinger lack predictive validity largely because the central construct (social comparison) has been left undefined. This paper offers a definition of social comparison which implies that people can compare their abilities in numerous different ways. An experiment is described which varied interpersonal similarity in ability and measured three forms of ability comparison-competition, cooperation, and conformity. Both competition and cooperation were found to vary as a function of interpersonal similarity. Some suggestions are tendered for a reformulated theory of social comparison processes.
The present study tested the hypothesis that perseverance of discredited self-perceptions after debriefing varies with subjects' opportunity to engage in causal explanation. Subjects were presented with false feedback indicating that they had either succeeded or failed at a novel discrimination task. Four information processing conditions varied subjects' opportunity to explain their outcomes to themselves. Subjects who, through distraction, were prevented from generating explanations showed no evidence of perseverance, while perseverance increased with increasing opportunity to engage in causal explanation.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.