Psychological Reports: Mental & Physical Health 2014, 115, 2, 526-536. © Psychological Reports 2014
THE EFFECT OF SOCIAL COMPARISON WITH PEERS ON SELF-EVALUATION1 CHIA-CHING TSAI
YUNG-KAI YANG
CHIA-HSIN CHENG
National Yunlin University of Science and Technology
National University of Kaohsiung
National Yunlin University of Science and Technology
Summary.—Social comparison refers to self-evaluation against other people. When people are outperformed by peers in a domain relevant (irrelevant) to them, it negatively (positively) affects how they evaluate themselves, compared to an irrelevant (relevant) domain. Whether a domain is self-relevant or self-irrelevant, the comparison direction and closeness should interact on how people evaluate themselves. Taiwanese undergraduates (N = 276) ages 19 to 22 years (M = 20.5, SD = 1.8), participated to assess whether the results from Western samples would be similar to those in an Asian sample, which were expected to be more collectivist.
People often engage in social comparisons as they evaluate their own opinions, situations, and abilities against others (Festinger, 1954; Suls & Mullen, 1982). Choices of comparison targets are dependent on the motivation for comparison: if people want to feel better about themselves, they may choose individuals who perform worse in the specific domain of the comparison. In contrast, people may choose a superior target if they want to improve themselves (Wood, 1989; Wood & Taylor, 1991; Lockwood, Sadler, Fyman, & Tuck, 2004; Lin & Tsai, 2006). The outcome of the comparison with others is dependent on the domain and the extent to which people know their comparison targets (Tesser & Campbell, 1982; Tesser, 1988; Tesser & Collins, 1988; Tesser, Millar, & Moore, 1988; Major, Testa, & Bylsma, 1991; Lockwood, et al., 2004). Extant research is almost entirely in Western samples, and evidence suggests that people from different cultural backgrounds may have different social comparison behaviors. People from more collectivistic cultures like China tend to compare themselves with superiors (Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Chung & Mallery, 1999). Similar patterns can be found even in Asian emigrants (White & Lehman, 2005). In Western cultures, others are the targets of social comparison; in contrast, in Eastern cultures, others might be considered an integral part of the setting, situation, or context to which the individual is connected, fitted, and assimilated. The current study is an empirical examination of how Asian people's reactions to comparisons may be influenced. Address correspondence to Chia-Ching Tsai, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, 123 University Road, Section 3, Douliou, Yunlin, Taiwan or e-mail (tsaichch@ yuntech.edu.tw). 1
DOI 10.2466/07.PR0.115c20z7
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Comparison Directions and Self-relevance According to Festinger (1954), social comparison refers to the human tendency to self-evaluate by measuring attributes against standards, or if objective standards are unavailable, comparing themselves to others. Social comparison can be multi-directional and have different implications. When people compare themselves with those who have achieved success, they engage in so-called upward comparison; and in contrast, when people compare themselves with those who are worse off or have experienced failure or misfortune, they engage in so-called downward comparison (Festinger, 1954; Lockwood & Kunda, 1997; Lockwood, 2002; Lockwood, et al., 2004; Lockwood, Dolderman, Sadler, & Gerchak, 2005). If people regard themselves as different from a superior target and similar to an inferior target, it will have a negative effect on how they see themselves. The opposite occurs when people regard themselves as similar to a superior target, leading to a better evaluation (Wills, 1991; Buunk & Gibbons, 2007). The influence of social comparison is magnified when people consider the comparison domains as relevant and important, because self-esteem is threatened if people are compared to a superior target in such a domain (Major, Testa, & Bylsma, 1991). In contrast, when people compare themselves with inferior targets in a domain they consider relevant, the result of self-evaluation will be more positive. Hypothesis 1. When making upward comparisons, self-evaluation is greater in the self-irrelevant domain than in the self-relevant domain, while self-evaluation is greater in the self-relevant domain than in the self-irrelevant domain for downward comparisons. Comparison Directions and Closeness Another factor influencing the result of social comparisons is the psychological closeness, referring to the extent to which two people are in relationship (Tesser & Campbell, 1982). Lockwood, et al. (2005) stated that being outperformed by someone in a close relationship threatens self-esteem more than being outperformed by someone less close. However, this argument was based in the context of romantic relationships across different types of partners (strong bonding vs. weak bonding). This differs from the context of friends and strangers, where relationships either exist or do not exist. Hypothesis 2. Self-evaluation is greater in upward comparisons with distant others than with close others, while self-evaluation is greater in downward comparisons with close others than with distant others.
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Comparison Directions, Closeness, and Self-relevance Tesser and Smith (1980) found that when self-relevance of a task was high, people were more likely to assist a stranger than a friend, and when self-relevance was low, people were more likely to assist a friend than a stranger for maintaining self-evaluation. Hypothesis 3. When self-relevance is high, self-evaluation is greater for distant comparisons than for close ones, while self-evaluation is greater for close comparisons than for distant ones when selfrelevance is low. The Self-Evaluation Maintenance model (Tesser, 1988) emphasizes that in the high self-relevance domains upward comparisons with close others lower self-evaluation, while in the low self-relevance domains self-evaluation rises following downward comparisons with close individuals. Manion (1992) proposed the Self-Evaluation Maintenance model as a systemic model of interpersonal behavior and cognition with three variables—performance, self-relevance, and closeness—which interact to determine whether people will compare their performance with that of others or reflect in the glory of someone else's performance. Hypothesis 4. A three-way interaction between comparison direction, closeness, and self-relevance on self-evaluation is expected. Closeness and comparison direction will interact significantly with self-evaluation in the self-relevant and self-irrelevant domains. METHOD Experimental Design The study used a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial design to evaluate the effects of comparison direction, self-relevance of the comparison domain (henceforth self-relevance), and closeness between individuals and comparison targets (henceforth closeness) on self-evaluation. Comparison direction, closeness, and self-relevance were each divided into two levels. Comparison direction (upward vs. downward), self-relevance (self-relevant vs. self-irrelevant), and closeness (close vs. distant) were manipulated to yield eight cells. Manipulation A hypothetical role model named Rubby was described as an excellent undergraduate student for upward comparisons and as a poor undergraduate student for downward comparisons. For the close level, the respondents were told that “Rubby is a good friend of yours,” and for the distant level, respondents were told “Rubby is a person that you are not
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familiar with…” In the self-relevant condition, respondents were told that “Rubby's school work performance is in the same department,” whereas at the self-irrelevant level, respondents were given an impression that “Rubby's school work performance is in a different department.” As a result, eight hypothetical scenarios of the fictitious role model were created as experimental conditions. This “role-playing” approach has been frequently employed in social science research (Carlsmith, Ellsworth, & Aronson, 1976; Maxham, 2001) because it involves high realism, provided that the scenarios are applicable to the real world and appropriate for any sample (Brown, 1962; Kelman, 1968; Schultz, 1969; Maxham, 2001). Participants Taiwanese undergraduate business students (N = 276) who were enrolled in a marketing management course at a university in Taiwan participated in this study. Ages ranged from 19 to 22 years (M = 20.5, SD = 1.8), and duration of school attendance ranged from 1 to 4 years. The respondents were given small gifts (ball point pens) as a motivator, and guaranteed no penalty for non-participation. Each participant was randomly assigned to one of the eight scenarios. In total, 267 valid questionnaires were obtained from 127 men and 140 women. Nine questionnaires were excluded for missing one or more responses. The valid response rate was 96.7%. Procedure The experiment began with a greeting from the experimenter. Respondents were informed that they would be given a brief description about a person named Rubby, which they were expected to read carefully, and after reading the description they would fill out a questionnaire. The instructions and filling in of the questionnaire were conducted in the students' classroom 10 minutes before their normal lecture began. Measures There were four scales used to assess the three manipulated variables and the dependent variable. The measures relating to the three manipulated variables were used to validate the manipulations. All the material was written in Chinese. Self-relevance.—Based on Bers and Rodin (1984), Salovey and Rodin (1984), Lockwood and Kunda (1997), Lin and Tsai (2006), and Tsai (2010), three items were designed for this study: “Do you feel that academic performance is very relevant to you?”, “Do you feel that your academic performance is very important to you?”, and “Do you feel that your academic performance is connected to your plans for the future?” These three items assessed self-relevance of the comparison dimension, and were rated on a five-point Likert-type scale with 1: Not at all and 5: Extremely.
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Comparison directions.—The two items measuring comparison directions were designed according to Wills (1991), Heckhausen and Krueger (1993), Heidrich and Ryff (1993), VanderZee, Bunnk, and Sanderman (1996), and Tsai (2010). The first item (“The school work performance of Rubby in the story is…”) was rated on a five-point Likert-type scale with 5: Very outstanding and 1: Very poor. The second item began with, “The school work performance of Rubby in the story is…”; response anchors were 5: Better than you and 1: Worse than you. Closeness.—Based on Tesser and Collins (1988) and Tesser, Millar, and Moore (1988), one item (“Rubby is close to you”) was created and rated on a five-point Likert scale from 1: Very much disagree and 5: Very much agree. Self-evaluation.—The Self-Esteem Scale (Heatherton & Polivy, 1991) comprises three subscales for performance, social, and appearance. Only the subscale for performance was used to measure self-evaluation, and included five items: (1) “I feel frustrated about my school work performance,” (2) “I think my school work performance is as good as that of others,” (3) “I feel confident about my school work performance,” (4) “I think my school work performance is far behind that of others,” and (5) “I think my school work performance is not satisfactory.” Items 2 and 3 were rated on a scale with anchors 1: Very much disagree and 5: Very much agree, and responses for Items 1, 4, and 5 were reverse-coded as 5: Very much disagree to 1: Very much agree. RESULTS Reliability and Manipulation Checks Reliability analysis showed that the Cronbach's αs for self-relevance, comparison directions, and self-evaluation were .90, .89, and .83, respectively, indicating good reliability in this sample (DeVellies, 2003). A Student’s t test was used to ensure that self-relevance, comparison direction, and closeness were successfully manipulated. The mean of the self-relevant group (3.86) was significantly greater than that of the self-irrelevant group (3.05); the mean of the upward comparison group (4.18) was significantly greater than the mean of the downward comparison group (2.88); and the mean of the close level (3.85) was significantly greater than that of the distant level (2.59), indicating successful manipulations of these variables. Results of Normality Test and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) A Kolmogorov–Smirnov test (K–S test) evaluated the normality of the distribution, and a 2 × 2 × 2 ANOVA investigated the effects of self-relevance, comparison direction, and closeness on self-evaluation. The results of the K–S tests showed that all p values were smaller than .05, indicating that the data sets were normally distributed.
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The ANOVA results indicate the interaction between comparison directions and closeness on self-evaluation was not significant (F1, 259 = 3.44, ns), indicating Hypothesis 2 was not supported (Table 1). The results of the ANOVA demonstrate that there was a significant interaction between comparison directions and self-relevance. The simple main effects tests showed that in the case of upward comparison self-evaluation in the selfirrelevant domain (3.17) was significantly greater than in the self-relevant domain (2.64) (F1, 263 = 32.35, p < .05, ηp2 = 0.13). However, in the case of downward comparison, the mean of self-evaluation was significantly greater in the self-relevant domain (3.57) than in the self-irrelevant domain (3.32) (F1, 263 = 7.79, p < .05, ηp2 = 0.02). Thus, Hypothesis 1 was supported. TABLE 1 ANALYSIS OF VARIANCE FOR EFFECTS OF SELF-RELEVANCE, COMPARISON DIRECTION, AND CLOSENESS ON SELF-EVALUATION F
ηp2
1.269
5.31*
0.02
19.256
80.57‡
0.23
10.493
43.91‡
0.15
1, 259
10.357
43.33‡
0.14
S×C
1, 259
1.631
6.82*
0.03
D×C
1, 259
0.823
3.44
0.01
S×D×C
1, 259
1.128
4.72*
0.02
Source
df1, df2
Self-relevance (S)
1, 259
Comparison direction (D)
1, 259
Closeness (C)
1, 259
S×D
MS
*p < .05. ‡p < .001.
In the significant interaction between self-relevance and closeness, the simple main effects follow-up showed that in the self-relevant domain the mean of self-evaluation was significantly smaller for the close level (2.83) than for the distant level (3.38) (F1, 263 = 7.98, p < .05, ηp2 = 0.03). However, in the self-irrelevant domain, the mean of self-evaluation for the close level (3.13) did not differ from the mean for the distant level (3.37). Hypothesis 3 was partially supported. There was a significant three-way interaction between comparison direction, closeness, and self-relevance on self-evaluation. Therefore, post hoc tests of the eight cell means, as depicted in Table 2, were carried out to examine the simple interaction effect. This analysis confirmed that there was a nonsignificant interaction between comparison direction and closeness in the self-relevant domain (F1, 130 = 21.08, ns), and a significant interaction in the self-irrelevant domain (F1, 129 = 17.17, p < .05, ηp2 = 0.12). Hypothesis 4 was supported.
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C-C. TSAI, ET AL. TABLE 2 MEAN SCORES FOR SELF-EVALUATION BY CLOSENESS, SELF-COMPARISON, AND SELF-RELEVANCE Closeness
Self-relevance
Comparison Direction
Self-relevant
Upward Downward
3.32
0.64
4.82
0.58
Self-irrelevant
Upward
2.88
0.72
3.46
0.48
Downward
3.38
0.70
3.28
0.50
Close
Distant
M
SD
M
SD
2.34
0.52
2.94
0.69
DISCUSSION The current results support the observations from Western samples: when making upward comparisons, self-evaluation was greater in the self-irrelevant domain than in the self-relevant domain, while self-evaluation was greater in the self-relevant domain than in the self-irrelevant domain when making downward comparisons. In the self-relevant domain, comparisons with distant others caused self-evaluation to be greater than with close others, but closeness did not yield any significant difference in the self-irrelevant domain. The three-way interaction between comparison direction, closeness, and self-relevance on self-evaluation was also observed; that is, irrespective of domain relevance, the comparison direction interacted with closeness on self-evaluation. Major, et al. (1991) reported that upward comparisons caused more threats to self-esteem than downward comparisons in the high self-relevant domain, so making comparisons with superiors in an important domain would threaten self-esteem and thus produce lower self-evaluations. The reverse results can be observed when making comparisons with inferior others in the less important domain. Self-evaluation was significantly greater when these Taiwanese students compared themselves with an unfamiliar peer than with a familiar one in the self-relevant domain, but such difference was not found in the non self-relevant domain. That is, regardless of the target of the comparison, people felt better when they compared themselves with a stranger than with a friend in a self-relevant domain; no such differences were observed between strangers or friends as targets in a non self-relevant domain. Taiwanese students, influenced by a more collectivist culture (Hofstede, 1993), might be more afraid of negative effects on friendships. They might have more negative feelings when comparing themselves with friends within the self-relevant domain because it was more important to them (Tesser, 1988). However, further evidence is needed (Hofstede, 1993).
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Closeness, on the other hand, did not have a significant effect on individuals' self-evaluations. This result is different from Lockwood, et al. (2004), who found that closeness in romantic relationships moderated the effect of upward comparisons, but did not moderate the effect of downward comparisons. The current study focused on comparisons with peers and found that regardless of whether comparing with close or distant peers, people evaluated themselves worse when they compared themselves with superior peers, because the latters were regarded as a stronger threat to self-esteem (Major, et al., 1991). Comparison directions, closeness, and self-relevance had a significant three-way interaction on self-evaluation; that is, there was an interaction between comparison direction and closeness in self-relevant and self-irrelevant domains. Limitations and Conclusion A limitation of this study was that it used hypothetical scenarios to test the different hypotheses. Although Brown (1962), Kelman (1968), Schultz (1969), and Maxham (2001) indicated that hypothetical scenarios are appropriate for any kind of sample, no actual relationship exists between the participant and the hypothetical peer. It might be adviseable to employ a retrospective study in future research. Personal characteristics have an effect on results of social comparison, such as self-esteem (Buunk, Collins, Tayler, & VanYperen, 1990; Jussim, Yen, & Aiello, 1995), self-concept (Kemmelmeier & Oyserman, 2001), sex (Guimond, Martinot, & Chatard, 2006), and narcissism (Nicholls & Stukas, 2011). Thus, personal characteristics should be included in future studies. Markus and Kitayama (1991) suggested that the process of social comparison varies as a function of cultural differences. Lockwood, Marshall, and Sadler (2005) found that individuals from collectivistic cultures were more motivated by negative role models for preventing failure, while those from individualistic cultures were more motivated by positive role models for pursuing success. However, this connection needs further exploration in comparisons among peers. White and Lehman (2005) also found that immigrants from Asian cultures (e.g., Asian Canadians) tended to make more upward comparisons than immigrants from Europe. However, they did not examine the effects of different comparison directions on individuals' evaluations of themselves. The current study investigated how three variables (comparison direction, closeness, and self-relevance) interacted simultaneously and thus provides a more complete picture of social comparison. REFERENCES
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WOOD, J. V., & TAYLOR, K. L. (1991) Serving self-relevant goals through social comparison. In J. Suls & T. A. Wills (Eds.), Social comparison: contemporary theory and research. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Pp. 23-49. Accepted August 6, 2014.
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THE EFFECT OF SOCIAL COMPARISON WITH PEERS ON SELF-EVALUATION1 CHIA-CHING TSAI
YUNG-KAI YANG
CHIA-HSIN CHENG
National Yunlin University of Science and Technology
National University of Kaohsiung
National Yunlin University of Science and Technology
Summary.—Social comparison refers to self-evaluation against other people. When people are outperformed by peers in a domain relevant (irrelevant) to them, it negatively (positively) affects how they evaluate themselves, compared to an irrelevant (relevant) domain. Whether a domain is self-relevant or self-irrelevant, the comparison direction and closeness should interact on how people evaluate themselves. Taiwanese undergraduates (N = 276) ages 19 to 22 years (M = 20.5, SD = 1.8), participated to assess whether the results from Western samples would be similar to those in an Asian sample, which were expected to be more collectivist.
People often engage in social comparisons as they evaluate their own opinions, situations, and abilities against others (Festinger, 1954; Suls & Mullen, 1982). Choices of comparison targets are dependent on the motivation for comparison: if people want to feel better about themselves, they may choose individuals who perform worse in the specific domain of the comparison. In contrast, people may choose a superior target if they want to improve themselves (Wood, 1989; Wood & Taylor, 1991; Lockwood, Sadler, Fyman, & Tuck, 2004; Lin & Tsai, 2006). The outcome of the comparison with others is dependent on the domain and the extent to which people know their comparison targets (Tesser & Campbell, 1982; Tesser, 1988; Tesser & Collins, 1988; Tesser, Millar, & Moore, 1988; Major, Testa, & Bylsma, 1991; Lockwood, et al., 2004). Extant research is almost entirely in Western samples, and evidence suggests that people from different cultural backgrounds may have different social comparison behaviors. People from more collectivistic cultures like China tend to compare themselves with superiors (Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Chung & Mallery, 1999). Similar patterns can be found even in Asian emigrants (White & Lehman, 2005). In Western cultures, others are the targets of social comparison; in contrast, in Eastern cultures, others might be considered an integral part of the setting, situation, or context to which the individual is connected, fitted, and assimilated. The current study is an empirical examination of how Asian people's reactions to comparisons may be influenced. Address correspondence to Chia-Ching Tsai, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, 123 University Road, Section 3, Douliou, Yunlin, Taiwan or e-mail (tsaichch@ yuntech.edu.tw). 1
DOI 10.2466/07.PR0.115c20z7
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Comparison Directions and Self-relevance According to Festinger (1954), social comparison refers to the human tendency to self-evaluate by measuring attributes against standards, or if objective standards are unavailable, comparing themselves to others. Social comparison can be multi-directional and have different implications. When people compare themselves with those who have achieved success, they engage in so-called upward comparison; and in contrast, when people compare themselves with those who are worse off or have experienced failure or misfortune, they engage in so-called downward comparison (Festinger, 1954; Lockwood & Kunda, 1997; Lockwood, 2002; Lockwood, et al., 2004; Lockwood, Dolderman, Sadler, & Gerchak, 2005). If people regard themselves as different from a superior target and similar to an inferior target, it will have a negative effect on how they see themselves. The opposite occurs when people regard themselves as similar to a superior target, leading to a better evaluation (Wills, 1991; Buunk & Gibbons, 2007). The influence of social comparison is magnified when people consider the comparison domains as relevant and important, because self-esteem is threatened if people are compared to a superior target in such a domain (Major, Testa, & Bylsma, 1991). In contrast, when people compare themselves with inferior targets in a domain they consider relevant, the result of self-evaluation will be more positive. Hypothesis 1. When making upward comparisons, self-evaluation is greater in the self-irrelevant domain than in the self-relevant domain, while self-evaluation is greater in the self-relevant domain than in the self-irrelevant domain for downward comparisons. Comparison Directions and Closeness Another factor influencing the result of social comparisons is the psychological closeness, referring to the extent to which two people are in relationship (Tesser & Campbell, 1982). Lockwood, et al. (2005) stated that being outperformed by someone in a close relationship threatens self-esteem more than being outperformed by someone less close. However, this argument was based in the context of romantic relationships across different types of partners (strong bonding vs. weak bonding). This differs from the context of friends and strangers, where relationships either exist or do not exist. Hypothesis 2. Self-evaluation is greater in upward comparisons with distant others than with close others, while self-evaluation is greater in downward comparisons with close others than with distant others.
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Comparison Directions, Closeness, and Self-relevance Tesser and Smith (1980) found that when self-relevance of a task was high, people were more likely to assist a stranger than a friend, and when self-relevance was low, people were more likely to assist a friend than a stranger for maintaining self-evaluation. Hypothesis 3. When self-relevance is high, self-evaluation is greater for distant comparisons than for close ones, while self-evaluation is greater for close comparisons than for distant ones when selfrelevance is low. The Self-Evaluation Maintenance model (Tesser, 1988) emphasizes that in the high self-relevance domains upward comparisons with close others lower self-evaluation, while in the low self-relevance domains self-evaluation rises following downward comparisons with close individuals. Manion (1992) proposed the Self-Evaluation Maintenance model as a systemic model of interpersonal behavior and cognition with three variables—performance, self-relevance, and closeness—which interact to determine whether people will compare their performance with that of others or reflect in the glory of someone else's performance. Hypothesis 4. A three-way interaction between comparison direction, closeness, and self-relevance on self-evaluation is expected. Closeness and comparison direction will interact significantly with self-evaluation in the self-relevant and self-irrelevant domains. METHOD Experimental Design The study used a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial design to evaluate the effects of comparison direction, self-relevance of the comparison domain (henceforth self-relevance), and closeness between individuals and comparison targets (henceforth closeness) on self-evaluation. Comparison direction, closeness, and self-relevance were each divided into two levels. Comparison direction (upward vs. downward), self-relevance (self-relevant vs. self-irrelevant), and closeness (close vs. distant) were manipulated to yield eight cells. Manipulation A hypothetical role model named Rubby was described as an excellent undergraduate student for upward comparisons and as a poor undergraduate student for downward comparisons. For the close level, the respondents were told that “Rubby is a good friend of yours,” and for the distant level, respondents were told “Rubby is a person that you are not
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familiar with…” In the self-relevant condition, respondents were told that “Rubby's school work performance is in the same department,” whereas at the self-irrelevant level, respondents were given an impression that “Rubby's school work performance is in a different department.” As a result, eight hypothetical scenarios of the fictitious role model were created as experimental conditions. This “role-playing” approach has been frequently employed in social science research (Carlsmith, Ellsworth, & Aronson, 1976; Maxham, 2001) because it involves high realism, provided that the scenarios are applicable to the real world and appropriate for any sample (Brown, 1962; Kelman, 1968; Schultz, 1969; Maxham, 2001). Participants Taiwanese undergraduate business students (N = 276) who were enrolled in a marketing management course at a university in Taiwan participated in this study. Ages ranged from 19 to 22 years (M = 20.5, SD = 1.8), and duration of school attendance ranged from 1 to 4 years. The respondents were given small gifts (ball point pens) as a motivator, and guaranteed no penalty for non-participation. Each participant was randomly assigned to one of the eight scenarios. In total, 267 valid questionnaires were obtained from 127 men and 140 women. Nine questionnaires were excluded for missing one or more responses. The valid response rate was 96.7%. Procedure The experiment began with a greeting from the experimenter. Respondents were informed that they would be given a brief description about a person named Rubby, which they were expected to read carefully, and after reading the description they would fill out a questionnaire. The instructions and filling in of the questionnaire were conducted in the students' classroom 10 minutes before their normal lecture began. Measures There were four scales used to assess the three manipulated variables and the dependent variable. The measures relating to the three manipulated variables were used to validate the manipulations. All the material was written in Chinese. Self-relevance.—Based on Bers and Rodin (1984), Salovey and Rodin (1984), Lockwood and Kunda (1997), Lin and Tsai (2006), and Tsai (2010), three items were designed for this study: “Do you feel that academic performance is very relevant to you?”, “Do you feel that your academic performance is very important to you?”, and “Do you feel that your academic performance is connected to your plans for the future?” These three items assessed self-relevance of the comparison dimension, and were rated on a five-point Likert-type scale with 1: Not at all and 5: Extremely.
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Comparison directions.—The two items measuring comparison directions were designed according to Wills (1991), Heckhausen and Krueger (1993), Heidrich and Ryff (1993), VanderZee, Bunnk, and Sanderman (1996), and Tsai (2010). The first item (“The school work performance of Rubby in the story is…”) was rated on a five-point Likert-type scale with 5: Very outstanding and 1: Very poor. The second item began with, “The school work performance of Rubby in the story is…”; response anchors were 5: Better than you and 1: Worse than you. Closeness.—Based on Tesser and Collins (1988) and Tesser, Millar, and Moore (1988), one item (“Rubby is close to you”) was created and rated on a five-point Likert scale from 1: Very much disagree and 5: Very much agree. Self-evaluation.—The Self-Esteem Scale (Heatherton & Polivy, 1991) comprises three subscales for performance, social, and appearance. Only the subscale for performance was used to measure self-evaluation, and included five items: (1) “I feel frustrated about my school work performance,” (2) “I think my school work performance is as good as that of others,” (3) “I feel confident about my school work performance,” (4) “I think my school work performance is far behind that of others,” and (5) “I think my school work performance is not satisfactory.” Items 2 and 3 were rated on a scale with anchors 1: Very much disagree and 5: Very much agree, and responses for Items 1, 4, and 5 were reverse-coded as 5: Very much disagree to 1: Very much agree. RESULTS Reliability and Manipulation Checks Reliability analysis showed that the Cronbach's αs for self-relevance, comparison directions, and self-evaluation were .90, .89, and .83, respectively, indicating good reliability in this sample (DeVellies, 2003). A Student’s t test was used to ensure that self-relevance, comparison direction, and closeness were successfully manipulated. The mean of the self-relevant group (3.86) was significantly greater than that of the self-irrelevant group (3.05); the mean of the upward comparison group (4.18) was significantly greater than the mean of the downward comparison group (2.88); and the mean of the close level (3.85) was significantly greater than that of the distant level (2.59), indicating successful manipulations of these variables. Results of Normality Test and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) A Kolmogorov–Smirnov test (K–S test) evaluated the normality of the distribution, and a 2 × 2 × 2 ANOVA investigated the effects of self-relevance, comparison direction, and closeness on self-evaluation. The results of the K–S tests showed that all p values were smaller than .05, indicating that the data sets were normally distributed.
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The ANOVA results indicate the interaction between comparison directions and closeness on self-evaluation was not significant (F1, 259 = 3.44, ns), indicating Hypothesis 2 was not supported (Table 1). The results of the ANOVA demonstrate that there was a significant interaction between comparison directions and self-relevance. The simple main effects tests showed that in the case of upward comparison self-evaluation in the selfirrelevant domain (3.17) was significantly greater than in the self-relevant domain (2.64) (F1, 263 = 32.35, p < .05, ηp2 = 0.13). However, in the case of downward comparison, the mean of self-evaluation was significantly greater in the self-relevant domain (3.57) than in the self-irrelevant domain (3.32) (F1, 263 = 7.79, p < .05, ηp2 = 0.02). Thus, Hypothesis 1 was supported. TABLE 1 ANALYSIS OF VARIANCE FOR EFFECTS OF SELF-RELEVANCE, COMPARISON DIRECTION, AND CLOSENESS ON SELF-EVALUATION F
ηp2
1.269
5.31*
0.02
19.256
80.57‡
0.23
10.493
43.91‡
0.15
1, 259
10.357
43.33‡
0.14
S×C
1, 259
1.631
6.82*
0.03
D×C
1, 259
0.823
3.44
0.01
S×D×C
1, 259
1.128
4.72*
0.02
Source
df1, df2
Self-relevance (S)
1, 259
Comparison direction (D)
1, 259
Closeness (C)
1, 259
S×D
MS
*p < .05. ‡p < .001.
In the significant interaction between self-relevance and closeness, the simple main effects follow-up showed that in the self-relevant domain the mean of self-evaluation was significantly smaller for the close level (2.83) than for the distant level (3.38) (F1, 263 = 7.98, p < .05, ηp2 = 0.03). However, in the self-irrelevant domain, the mean of self-evaluation for the close level (3.13) did not differ from the mean for the distant level (3.37). Hypothesis 3 was partially supported. There was a significant three-way interaction between comparison direction, closeness, and self-relevance on self-evaluation. Therefore, post hoc tests of the eight cell means, as depicted in Table 2, were carried out to examine the simple interaction effect. This analysis confirmed that there was a nonsignificant interaction between comparison direction and closeness in the self-relevant domain (F1, 130 = 21.08, ns), and a significant interaction in the self-irrelevant domain (F1, 129 = 17.17, p < .05, ηp2 = 0.12). Hypothesis 4 was supported.
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C-C. TSAI, ET AL. TABLE 2 MEAN SCORES FOR SELF-EVALUATION BY CLOSENESS, SELF-COMPARISON, AND SELF-RELEVANCE Closeness
Self-relevance
Comparison Direction
Self-relevant
Upward Downward
3.32
0.64
4.82
0.58
Self-irrelevant
Upward
2.88
0.72
3.46
0.48
Downward
3.38
0.70
3.28
0.50
Close
Distant
M
SD
M
SD
2.34
0.52
2.94
0.69
DISCUSSION The current results support the observations from Western samples: when making upward comparisons, self-evaluation was greater in the self-irrelevant domain than in the self-relevant domain, while self-evaluation was greater in the self-relevant domain than in the self-irrelevant domain when making downward comparisons. In the self-relevant domain, comparisons with distant others caused self-evaluation to be greater than with close others, but closeness did not yield any significant difference in the self-irrelevant domain. The three-way interaction between comparison direction, closeness, and self-relevance on self-evaluation was also observed; that is, irrespective of domain relevance, the comparison direction interacted with closeness on self-evaluation. Major, et al. (1991) reported that upward comparisons caused more threats to self-esteem than downward comparisons in the high self-relevant domain, so making comparisons with superiors in an important domain would threaten self-esteem and thus produce lower self-evaluations. The reverse results can be observed when making comparisons with inferior others in the less important domain. Self-evaluation was significantly greater when these Taiwanese students compared themselves with an unfamiliar peer than with a familiar one in the self-relevant domain, but such difference was not found in the non self-relevant domain. That is, regardless of the target of the comparison, people felt better when they compared themselves with a stranger than with a friend in a self-relevant domain; no such differences were observed between strangers or friends as targets in a non self-relevant domain. Taiwanese students, influenced by a more collectivist culture (Hofstede, 1993), might be more afraid of negative effects on friendships. They might have more negative feelings when comparing themselves with friends within the self-relevant domain because it was more important to them (Tesser, 1988). However, further evidence is needed (Hofstede, 1993).
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Closeness, on the other hand, did not have a significant effect on individuals' self-evaluations. This result is different from Lockwood, et al. (2004), who found that closeness in romantic relationships moderated the effect of upward comparisons, but did not moderate the effect of downward comparisons. The current study focused on comparisons with peers and found that regardless of whether comparing with close or distant peers, people evaluated themselves worse when they compared themselves with superior peers, because the latters were regarded as a stronger threat to self-esteem (Major, et al., 1991). Comparison directions, closeness, and self-relevance had a significant three-way interaction on self-evaluation; that is, there was an interaction between comparison direction and closeness in self-relevant and self-irrelevant domains. Limitations and Conclusion A limitation of this study was that it used hypothetical scenarios to test the different hypotheses. Although Brown (1962), Kelman (1968), Schultz (1969), and Maxham (2001) indicated that hypothetical scenarios are appropriate for any kind of sample, no actual relationship exists between the participant and the hypothetical peer. It might be adviseable to employ a retrospective study in future research. Personal characteristics have an effect on results of social comparison, such as self-esteem (Buunk, Collins, Tayler, & VanYperen, 1990; Jussim, Yen, & Aiello, 1995), self-concept (Kemmelmeier & Oyserman, 2001), sex (Guimond, Martinot, & Chatard, 2006), and narcissism (Nicholls & Stukas, 2011). Thus, personal characteristics should be included in future studies. Markus and Kitayama (1991) suggested that the process of social comparison varies as a function of cultural differences. Lockwood, Marshall, and Sadler (2005) found that individuals from collectivistic cultures were more motivated by negative role models for preventing failure, while those from individualistic cultures were more motivated by positive role models for pursuing success. However, this connection needs further exploration in comparisons among peers. White and Lehman (2005) also found that immigrants from Asian cultures (e.g., Asian Canadians) tended to make more upward comparisons than immigrants from Europe. However, they did not examine the effects of different comparison directions on individuals' evaluations of themselves. The current study investigated how three variables (comparison direction, closeness, and self-relevance) interacted simultaneously and thus provides a more complete picture of social comparison. REFERENCES
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