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Self-activation increases social comparison.

D A Stapel1, A Tesser

  • 1Department of Social Psychology, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. d.a.stapel@ppsw.rug.nl

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
|October 20, 2001
PubMed
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Activating the self increases social comparison tendencies. This effect holds true even when self-certainty is controlled, suggesting self-activation is a key driver of social comparison interest.

Area of Science:

  • Social Psychology
  • Cognitive Psychology

Background:

  • Social comparison theory posits individuals evaluate themselves by comparing to others.
  • Self-certainty has been considered a primary driver of social comparison interest.
  • The role of self-activation in social comparison tendencies requires further investigation.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the causal relationship between self-activation and social comparison tendencies.
  • To determine if self-activation influences interest in social comparison information.
  • To examine the effect of self-activation on social comparison interest, independent of self-certainty.

Main Methods:

  • Studies employed both correlational and experimental designs.
  • Individual differences in self-activation were measured.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Self-activation was manipulated contextually in experimental settings.

    • Main Results:

    • Individual differences in self-activation correlated positively with interest in social comparison.
    • Experimental manipulations of self-activation led to significant changes in interest in social comparison.
    • Self-activation influenced social comparison interest even after controlling for self-certainty.

    Conclusions:

    • Activating the self is sufficient to increase social comparison tendencies.
    • Self-activation is a significant determinant of interest in social comparison.
    • Findings challenge the sole emphasis on self-certainty in explaining social comparison behavior.