No abstract

Being inferior to someone else can be hurtful. But what exactly happens when we found ourselves in such situations? We first address why and when upward comparison can be self‐threatening and later review the effects of such threatening social comparison. We argue that two main kinds of disturbances can ensue: affective disturbances and attentional disturbances. Second, three ways to deal with self‐threatening social comparison are reviewed: proactive regulation, defensive regulation, and regulation by avoidance. For each of these disturbances and regulation modes, we review empirical findings and later discuss the impact of upward comparison on performance. We conclude by going back to the very need behind the need for a positive evaluation.

International audienceCould it be that walking toward (vs. away) someone else changes your self-evaluation in the direction of what this person is? We answer positively and argue that approach movements lead to self-evaluative assimilation (a higher self-evaluation with a high vs. a low standard), while avoidance movements lead to self-evaluative contrast (a lower self-evaluation with a high vs. a low standard). Hence, we predict that approach/avoidance moderates the impact of comparison information on self-evaluation. To test this idea, participants were either primed with approach or avoidance before processing comparison information (Study 1) or physically had to walk toward or away from this information (Studies 2 and 3). Results on selfevaluated adjustment (Studies 1 and 2) and self-evaluated attractiveness measures (Study 3) confirmed our predictions. These studies suggest ways to behave to self-evaluate positively when hearing about others

No abstract

Previous research has shown that being ostracized by members of a despised outgroup is as hurtful as being ostracized by ingroup members ( Gonsalkorale & Williams, 2007 ). In the current study, we conduct a direct replication of the Gonsalkorale and Williams’s study and also investigate whether this (lack of) effect is due to the way negative consequences of ostracism were measured. To do so, we created a new measure that directly assesses whether people were hurt from being ostracized (or not). Our results and a small-scale meta-analysis including Gonsalkorale and Williams’s results show that ostracism effects are not significantly diminished when the source of ostracism is a despised outgroup. We discuss theoretical and methodological implications.