Abstract
The present study examined the effect of social comparison orientation (SCO) on the responses to a victim. Participants (n = 87) were exposed to an interview with the alleged victim of a traffic accident, that was either an unfamiliar or a close other. A close other induced more feelings of oneness and more personal distress, but not more empathy, than an unfamiliar other. Higher levels of SCO resulted in more feelings of oneness and more helping behavior only in response to an unfamiliar other. The results suggest that those high in SCO tend to perceive more identification with others they do not know than those low in SCO.
Highlights
Comparing oneself with others seems a universal feature of the social life of humans
We examined the role of social comparison orientation (SCO) and different perspectives in affecting the res
Whereas those low in SCO experienced more closeness with a close than with an unfamiliar other, those high in SCO experienced as much closeness with an unfamiliar as with a close other. These results seem in line with the interpretation that those high in SCO tend in general to perceive the fate of others as their own possible fate and tend to try to recognize themselves in others, and that, as Mussweiler (2001, 2003) has demonstrated, social comparison implies primarily searching for similarities between oneself and the comparison target
Summary
Comparing oneself with others seems a universal feature of the social life of humans. Individuals high in SCO have a stronger interpersonal and communal orientation (Gibbons & Buunk, 1999), i.e., tend to be more interested in what others experience and in caring for others in need (Swap & Rubin, 1983; Clark, Ouellette, Powell, & Milberg, 1987) Those high in SCO will, in general, view the fate of a victim as a situation that might happen to oneself, and will be emotionally relatively more affected by that fate, both in terms of empathy as well as personal distress. We would expect women high in SCO to be more willing to engage in helping behavior than women low in SCO, but after taking the perspective of an unfamiliar other
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