Year: 2017
Type: dissertation
Abstract: For more than 60 years, researchers have assumed that social comparisons (i.e., comparisons that occur between the self and another person) must involve the self directly. The self, however, can also include close others. In the present research, I examine whether individuals respond to comparisons involving close others as they would to comparisons involving the self. Four studies (N = 2210) 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 (i.e., the close other is outperformed by another person) but not downward comparisons (i.e., the close other outperforms another person) 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). Studies 5-8 (N = 884) examined whether this effect extends to children and parents, who are also included in the self (Study 5), using recalled comparisons about parents (Study 6) and children (Studies 7-8). Study 6 demonstrates that this effect extends to mothers but not fathers. Parents, however, decreased domain relevance when their child was inferior regardless of overlap (Studies 7 8). Moreover, parents and high overlap children demonstrated an attributional bias for their family member’s comparison outcomes: They protected family members by attributing less responsibility to them after upward comparisons and enhanced them by attributing more responsibility to them after downward comparisons. Finally, I examined the causal attributions individuals make following these comparisons to test whether they engage in these strategies to protect themselves, rather than the close other, because they feel personally responsible for the close other’s comparison outcomes. These results suggest that individuals do experience comparisons involving a close other and another person as if they were directly involved, but only if their close other is incorporated into their self-identity.
Source: TSpace (University of Toronto)
Author: Sabrina Thai
Language: English
Subfield: Social Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2767470909