Unfavorable Social Comparisons Research Articles

Conflict and Change: Testing a Life-cycle Derived Model of Larp Group Dynamics

This paper extends theoretical work on small group dynamics in live action role-play (larp; Leonard and Arango 2013), honing in on three challenges larps face that are anticipated by our unique integration of roleplay studies with small groups research. These challenges are: relative group embeddedness, which can cause splintering and unfavorable social comparison when a larp is situated in a dense network of other larp groups; bleed of relationship dynamics such that in-character conflicts can foster intragroup tension (Bowman 2013), especially under conditions of zero-sum competition; and principled conflicts in which players disagree on core values, ideas, and goals of the larp itself (Wheelan 1994). We analyzed 17,371 survey responses to explore the role of embeddedness, socially competitive play, and regional play-style “fit” in explaining larp satisfaction. We discuss implications of these hypothesis-driven analyses, both for their scholarly and practical value.

Status insecurity and temporality in world politics

International Relations scholars concerned with explaining status-seeking behavior in the international system draw heavily from social comparison theory and its observations that individuals judge their worth, and accordingly derive self-esteem, through social comparisons with others. According to this logic, states become status seekers because, like individuals, they have an innate desire for favorable social status comparisons relative to their peers. Thus, the great power status literature is often framed in the language of accommodation, and adjustment, which presupposes that status insecurities develop from unfavorable social comparisons and can be resolved through relative social improvements. This article challenges these assumptions by noting, as psychology has acknowledged for some time, that individuals use both social and temporal forms of comparison when engaging in self-evaluation. Where social comparisons cause actors to ask “How do I rank relative to my peers?” temporal comparisons cause actors to evaluate how they have improved or declined over time. This article advances a temporal comparison theory of status-seeking behavior, suggesting that many of the signaling problems associated with status insecurity emerge from basic differences in how states evaluate their status, and whether they privilege temporal over social comparisons. The implications are explored through China’s contemporary struggle for status recognition, situating this struggle within the context of China’s civilizational past and ongoing dispute over Taiwan.

Clarifying the link between mastery goals and social comparisons in classroom settings

Previous experimental studies have documented that competence evaluations are function of social comparison information pertaining to classmates' grades even among mastery-oriented students who are not supposed to base perceptions of competence on social comparisons. This study aimed to replicate this link between mastery goals and social comparisons by using a measure of achievement goals that captured the comparison standards that students intended to adopt in classroom settings. In addition, we examined whether mastery-oriented and performance-oriented students responded differently to social comparisons, particularly unfavourable social comparisons with more capable classmates. In a study that aimed to predict perceptions of competence among university students, we showed that mastery-oriented students who intended to adopt self-referenced standards of comparison based perceptions of competence on social comparisons. In addition, response surface analysis supported a “mastery goal advantage” effect whereby mastery goals yielded higher perceptions of competence than performance goals among students who engaged in unfavourable social comparisons. Findings suggest that mastery goals are adaptive not because they motivate students to not engage in social comparisons but because they lead students to respond to unfavourable social comparisons in an adaptive way.

Envy Mediates the Link Between Social Comparison and Appearance Enhancement in Women

Envy has recently been considered from an evolutionary perspective as an emotion which might motivate compensatory action following unfavorable social comparisons. In two studies, the role of envy in women’s motivation to enhance their physical appearance was examined. Study 1 explored the mediating role of dispositional envy on the relationship between social comparison and women’s resource spending on appearance-enhancing products, desired weight loss, and tanning intention in a cross-sectional sample of undergraduate women (N = 188). Controlling for age and self-perceived mate-value, results revealed that social comparison significantly predicted all three dependent variables, with mediation effects of envy on desired weight loss, consumer spending, and tanning intentions. Study 2 replicated and extended these findings via an experimental social comparison priming procedure. Women (N = 90) who made social comparisons toward attractive women in magazine advertisements (N = 45) reported greater state envy relative to women viewing advertisements featuring a product only (N = 45). Moreover, induced state envy subsequently predicted greater willingness to use facial cosmetics and to take a risky diet pill, and increased positive attitudes toward cosmetic surgery. These results support the role of envy, activated by unfavorable social comparisons, in motivating compensatory competitive appearance enhancement behaviors.

The Effect of Eating Disorder Memoirs in Individuals With Self-Identified Eating Pathologies.

As part of a larger, mixed-methods study, we posted an invitation to participate in a study on the effects of reading eating disorder memoirs on the website of an organization that provides support for people with eating disorders. Twenty-four women completed the questionnaire. Qualitative analysis of their responses indicated a recovery continuum, whereby the direction of memoir influence seemed to depend on an individual's recovery stage and motivation to recover. Individuals who reported that they were exposed to memoirs before, or during, their illness reported experiencing negative consequences including making unfavorable social comparisons, along with emulation and triggering of disordered behaviors, whereas those who reported being exposed when in recovery reported more positive outcomes including hope, validation, and social support. Findings have implications for the use of personal accounts as a means of facilitating patient recovery in eating disorder treatment settings. Future research should test the influence of memoirs using a larger eating disorder sample, and across different recovery stages.

Body image and college women's quality of life: The importance of being self-compassionate.

This study explored self-compassion as a mediator between body dissatisfaction, social comparison based on body image and quality of life in 662 female college students. Path analysis revealed that while controlling for body mass index, self-compassion mediated the impact of body dissatisfaction and unfavourable social comparisons on psychological quality of life. The path model accounted for 33 per cent of psychological quality of life variance. Findings highlight the importance of self-compassion as a mechanism that may operate on the association between negative body image evaluations and young women's quality of life.

Explaining rigid dieting in normal-weight women: the key role of body image inflexibility.

Restrictive dieting is an increasing behavior presented by women in modern societies, independently of their weight. There are several known factors that motivate diet, namely a sense of dissatisfaction with one's body and unfavorable social comparisons based on physical appearance. However, dieting seems to have a paradoxical effect and has been considered a risk factor for weight gain and obesity in women and for maladaptive eating. Nevertheless, the study of the emotional regulation processes that explain the adoption of inflexible and rigid eating behaviors still remains little explored. In this line, the present study aims to explore why normal-weight women engage in highly rigid and inflexible diets. We hypothesize that body and weight dissatisfaction and unfavorable social comparisons based on physical appearance explain the adoption of inflexible eating rules, through the mechanisms of body image inflexibility. The current study comprised 508 normal-weight female college students. Path analyses were conducted to explore the study's hypotheses. Results revealed that the model explained 43% of inflexible eating and revealed excellent fit indices. Furthermore, the unwillingness to experience unwanted events related to body image (body image inflexibility) mediated the impact of body dissatisfaction and unfavorable social comparisons on the adoption of inflexible eating rules. This study highlights the relevance of body image inflexibility to explain rigid eating attitudes, and it seems to be an important avenue for the development of interventions focusing on the promotion of adaptive attitudes towards body image and eating in young women.

When thought suppression backfires: its moderator effect on eating psychopathology.

Recently, several studies have pointed the importance of thought suppression as a form of experiential avoidance in different psychopathological conditions. Thought suppression may be conceptualized as an attempt to decrease or eliminate unwanted internal experiences. However, it encloses a paradoxical nature, making those thoughts hyper accessible and placing an extra burden on individuals. This avoidance process has been associated with several psychopathological conditions. However, its role in eating psychopathology remains unclear. The present study aims to explore the moderation effect of thought suppression on the associations between body image-related unwanted internal experiences (unfavorable social comparison through physical appearance and body image dissatisfaction) and eating psychopathology severity in a sample of 211 female students. Correlational analyses showed that thought suppression is associated with psychological inflexibility and eating disorders' main risk factors and symptoms. Moreover, two independent analyses revealed that thought suppression moderates, as it amplifies, the impact of unfavorable social comparisons through physical appearance (model 1) and body image dissatisfaction (model 2) on disordered eating attitudes and behaviors. Hence, for the same level of these body-related internal experiences, young females who reveal higher levels of thought suppression present higher eating psychopathology. Taken together, these findings highlight the key role of thought suppression in eating psychopathology and present important clinical implications.

Social Comparisons and Deception Across Workplace Hierarchies: Field and Experimental Evidence

We examine how unfavorable social comparisons differentially spur employees of varying hierarchical levels to engage in deception. Drawing on literatures in social psychology and workplace self-esteem, we theorize that negative comparisons cause senior employees to seek to improve reported relative performance measures via deception. In a first study, we use deceptive self-downloads on the Social Science Research Network, the leading working paper repository in the social sciences, to show that employees higher in a hierarchy are more likely to engage in deception, particularly when the employee has enjoyed a high level of past success. In a second study, we confirm this finding in two scenario-based experiments. Our results suggest that longer-tenured and more successful employees face a greater loss of self-esteem from negative social comparisons, and they are more likely engage in deception in response to reported performance that is lower than that of peers.

Dispositional Hope as a Moderator of the Link Between Social Comparison With Friends and Eighth-Grade Students’ Perceptions of Academic Competence

We examined the link between social comparison with friends and self-perceptions of academic competence during adolescence and how personality may play a role in this link. Participants were 193 eighth-grade students who attended a rural, mid-Atlantic middle school. We used difference scores to measure the extent to which students’ nominated and reciprocated friends had higher academic performance in math and reading than the students themselves. Regression analyses revealed that, as students’ friends had higher math test scores than the students themselves, students’ academic self-competence decreased. For reading, however, a similar result only held for students with higher levels of dispositional hope. The role that hope plays in how students interpret unfavorable social comparisons, and in how they view their academic competence, may not be straightforward. The implications of social comparison may also vary across academic domains.

Turning eating psychopathology risk factors into action. The pervasive effect of body image-related cognitive fusion

Body image dissatisfaction and unfavourable social comparisons are significant risk factors to eating psychopathology. Nevertheless, the impact of these negative experiences depends on the cognitive and emotional processes involved. Previous research has shown that cognitive fusion is a nuclear process linked to psychological inflexibility, but its role on body image and eating difficulties remains unclear. This study aims to explore a model of the mediational role of body image-related cognitive fusion (CF-BI) on the relationship between body dissatisfaction, unfavourable social comparisons, and eating psychopathology in a sample of 345 female students. Results from path analyses show that the impact of unfavourable social comparisons on eating psychopathology is fully mediated by CF-BI. Moreover, CF-BI also revealed a mediational effect on the relationship between body image dissatisfaction and the severity of eating symptoms, in spite of the fact that a direct effect of body dissatisfaction still exists. The tested model highlights the crucial role that cognitive fusion, in the specific domain of body image, plays in the relationship between risk factors and the severity of disordered eating attitudes and behaviours. Furthermore, these findings present empirical support for the relevance of addressing acceptance and cognitive defusion techniques to prevent and treat eating disorders.

Rethinking Psychological Contracts in the Context of Organizational Change

The employee–employer relationship is said to be affected by extensive workplace transitions, and yet little is known about how employees make sense of these changes while deciding on their responses to them. Our study investigated two factors, social comparison and the nature of the exchanges, as moderators of the effects of psychological contract (i.e., employee beliefs regarding the terms of exchange between the employee and the organization) and psychological contract fulfillment (i.e., employee beliefs regarding the extent to which the employer is fulfilling these terms of exchange) on employee performance. Analysis of data before and after organizational change showed that unfavorable social comparison is associated with lower employee performance for transactional, relational, and balanced psychological contracts. Employees’ perception of the social nature of exchange was associated with lower performance in response to relational and balanced psychological contract fulfillments.

Rank perception and self‐evaluation in eating disorders

Heightened sensitivity to social comparison and negative self-evaluation have been implicated in the development and maintenance of eating disorders (EDs). This study used behavioral tasks, as well as self-report measures, to examine processing of social rank-related cues and implicit self-concept in participants with EDs. Fifty healthy participants (HCs), 46 people with an ED, and 22 people recovered from an ED (REC) undertook an attentional bias task using social rank-related cues and an implicit self-evaluation task. In addition, they completed self-report measures of social comparison, submissive behavior, and shame. People with EDs showed vigilance toward social rank-related stimuli and lower implicit positive self-evaluation than HCs. Self-report data confirmed the behavioral findings and showed that people with EDs had higher levels of unfavorable social comparison, submissive behaviors, and external and internal shame than HCs. People who had recovered from an ED showed an intermediate profile between the two groups. People with EDs have heightened sensitivity to social rank-related cues and impaired self-evaluation at an automatic level of processing. Some of these biases remain in people who have recovered. Interventions which aim to remediate social threat sensitivity and negative bias about self and others might be of benefit in EDs.

Social defeat andPTSDsymptoms following trauma

Research indicates that constructs relevant to social rank predict a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), including mental defeat, alienation, and shame. However, no studies have yet explored a social rank view explicitly. This was a community-based study carried out online. Analyses were both cross-sectional and longitudinal over 6 months. Participants were recruited online for a cross-sectional study (Study 1, n = 194) and a 6-month longitudinal study (Study 2, n = 81). Measures included self-report measures of PTSD symptoms (the Post-Traumatic Diagnostic Scale) and social rank (including measures of unfavourable social comparison, social defeat, and internal/external entrapment). Cross-sectional analysis showed that social defeat, but not other aspects of social rank, was independently predictive of a diagnosis of PTSD. Longitudinal analysis showed that greater social defeat at baseline predicted less improvement in PTSD symptoms, whereas greater reduction in social defeat over the 6-month follow-up predicted greater improvement in PTSD symptoms. In addition to the implications for understanding the role of social (rather than individual mental) defeat in the aetiology of PTSD, interventions could usefully incorporate methods that either increase social status or else minimize the impact of low status (e.g., through the use of compassion-focused approaches).

Women’s perceptions and experiences of group cognitive behaviour therapy and other group interventions for postnatal depression: a qualitative synthesis

This paper is a report of a systematic review that aimed to synthesize qualitative evidence relating to women's perceptions and experiences of group cognitive behaviour therapy and other group interventions for postnatal depression. Postnatal depression may occur in women following childbirth, resulting in a range of distressing symptoms such as sadness, fatigue, and feelings of inability to look after their baby. Women tend to prefer psychological interventions. However, access to individual psychological therapy is limited by cost, waiting times, and availability of therapists. A comprehensive literature search was conducted in 17 major psychological, medical, health-related and health economics electronic bibliographic databases. A qualitative evidence synthesis was conducted using thematic synthesis. Databases were searched from 1966-January 2008. A total of 116 full papers were screened against the inclusion criteria. Included papers were quality assessed. The original review protocol was restricted to evidence on group cognitive behaviour therapy. However, due to the paucity of evidence, the inclusion criteria were broadened to include other group interventions. A thematic synthesis was undertaken of the data extracted from the included papers. Six studies were included. Specific benefits were that treatment enabled women to develop better relationships with their baby and understand postnatal depression. Negative aspects of treatment included difficulties in applying cognitive behavioural techniques, and unfavourable social comparisons with other group members. Women have contrasting perceptions and experiences of group treatment. This suggests that greater attention should be focused on identifying those most likely to benefit from these treatments in a group environment.

An exploration of competitiveness and caring in relation to psychopathology

Social mentality theory outlines how specialist systems have evolved to facilitate different types of social behaviour such as caring for offspring, forming alliances, and competing for resources. This research explored how different types of self-experience are linked to the different social mentalities of competitive social ranking (focusing on gaining and defending one's social position/status/rank) in contrast to caring (being helpful to others). Perceived low social rank (with feelings of being inferior and unfavourable social comparison, SC) has been linked to depression, but a caring sense of self has less so. We hypothesized therefore that depression, in both clinical and non-clinical populations, would be primarily linked to competitive and rank focused sense of self rather than a caring sense of self. Students (N = 312) and patients with depression (N = 48) completed self-report scales measuring: self-experience related to competitiveness and caring; social rank; social safeness; and depression, anxiety, and stress. The data suggest that in students, and particularly in patients, competitiveness (and feeling unsuccessful in competing for resources) is strongly associated with depression. Although caring shares a small correlation with depression in students, and with depression, anxiety, and stress in patients, when controlling for the rank variable of submissive behaviour this relationship ceases to be significant. Submissive behaviour was found to be a full mediator between caring and depression. We also found that how safe and comfortable one feels in one's social relationships (social safeness), was a full mediator between competitiveness and depression. So, it is the feeling of being unable to compete where one does not feel secure in one's social environment that is particularly linked to depression. The results of this study suggest that self-experience is complex and multifaceted and is linked to different social roles that are socially contextualized. In addition, perceived low social rank and perceived failures in being able to 'attract' others and compete for social resources, are strongly linked to depression, whereas experiencing oneself as caring and helpful is not when submissiveness is controlled for.

Relative Deprivation and Adolescent Outcomes in Iceland: A Multilevel Test

The theory of relative deprivation emphasizes that social comparisons contextualize how people experience impoverishment. An important application of this theory argues that relative deprivation that stems from unfavorable social comparisons can result in anger, normlessness and an increased likelihood of deviant behavior. We test this theory in a new societal setting – Iceland. Specifically, we test the proposition that the effects of economic deprivation on individual outcomes are contingent on the standard of living enjoyed by the person's reference groups. Using multilevel data on 5,491 Icelandic adolescents in 83 school-communities, we find consistent support for the theory. We show that the effects of economic deprivation on adolescent anger, normlessness, delinquency, violence and subjective relative family status are weak in school-communities where economic deprivation is common, while the effects are significantly stronger in school-communities where economic deprivation is rare.

Demographics, Career Concerns or Social Comparison: Who Games SSRN Download Counts?

We examine how unfavorable social comparisons differentially spur employees of varying hierarchical levels to engage in deception. Drawing on literatures in social psychology and workplace self-esteem, we theorize that negative comparisons with peers could cause either junior or senior employees to seek to improve reported relative performance measures via deception. In a first study, we use deceptive self-downloads on SSRN, the leading working paper repository in the social sciences, to show that employees higher in a hierarchy are more likely to engage in deception, particularly when the employee has enjoyed a high level of past success. In a second study, we confirm this finding in two scenario-based experiments. Our results suggest that longer-tenured and more successful employees face a greater loss of self-esteem from negative social comparisons, and are more likely engage in deception in response to reported performance that is lower than that of peers.

The Specificity of Social Rank in Eating Disorder Versus Depressive Symptoms

It has been proposed that an evolutionary approach to understanding rank and social status may contribute to our understanding of eating disorder symptoms. The present study sought to explore the degree to which rank might be related to eating pathology independently of its known association with depression. A non-clinical sample of 74 women completed rank-relevant measures of social defeat, entrapment, submissive behavior and social comparison as well as measures of depressive and eating disorder symptoms. Independently of depressive symptoms, submissive behavior and an unfavorable social comparison predicted eating pathology while social defeat and internal entrapment predicted depressive symptoms. There appears to be a specific role for social rank in relation to eating pathology. However, further research is required to determine precisely what this role is and the degree to which it relates to risk or recovery.

Entrapment and perceived status in graduate students experiencing a recurrence of major depression.

The present study used a prospective design to test the role of involuntary subordination as a predictor of major depression. Involuntary subordination is a construct derived from social rank theory and has been implicated as a cause of major depression. Its most salient features include feelings of entrapment and unfavourable social comparisons (i.e., low perceived status). An initial sample of 146 graduate students underwent a diagnostic interview to confirm a history of major depression and also completed measures of entrapment and social comparison. After 16 months, participants were assessed for a recurrence of major depression. Participants who experienced a recurrence of depression had significantly higher levels of involuntary subordination (as measured by factor scores of entrapment and social comparison). A logistic regression analysis also showed that involuntary subordination predicted recurrence of depression, even when controlling for current major depression and the number of previous episodes. The present study demonstrates the advantages of adopting a social rank perspective in modeling major depression.