Comparing You = Comparing Me: Social Comparisons of the Expanded Self

We examine whether individuals respond to comparisons involving romantic partners as they would to comparisons involving the self. Four studies (N = 2,210) using recalled (Studies 1-3) and actual (Study 4) comparisons about attractiveness (Study 1) and relationship skills (Studies 2-4) demonstrated that individuals high in self-other overlap decrease domain relevance following upward but not downward comparisons to protect their positive partner perceptions. This strategy was absent among those low in self-other overlap. Study 2 demonstrated that this effect extends to best friends, but not casual friends, due to the degree of self-other overlap. Furthermore, when reminded of their partner's inferiority in a domain, high overlap participants maintained positive global partner perceptions, whereas low overlap participants' global perceptions were negatively affected (Study 3). These results suggest that individuals do experience partner-other comparisons as if they were directly involved, but only if their partner is incorporated into their self-identity.