Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T20:27:02.027Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

I'm “better” than you: Social comparison language suggests quantitative differences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2014

Amber N. Bloomfield  and
Jessica M. Choplin
Amber N. Bloomfield
Affiliation:
University of Maryland DePaul University
Jessica M. Choplin*
Affiliation:
University of Maryland DePaul University
*
Correspondence addresses: Amber N. Bloomfield, University of Maryland, 7005 52ndAvenue, College Park, MD 20742. E-mail: abloomfield@casl.umd.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Comparison-induced distortion theory (Choplin 2007; Choplin and Hummel 2002) describes how comparison words like “better” suggest quantitative differences between compared values. When a comparison word is used to contrast a personal attribute value with some standard (e.g. “Your score is better than average”), the comparison-suggested difference for the word may bias estimates or recall of personal attribute values. Three studies investigated how comparison-suggested differences determine the effect of social comparison on estimates or recall of personal attribute values. The first study demonstrated that estimates of attributes are biased towards (assimilation) or away from (contrast) a comparison standard depending on whether the difference between the compared attribute values exceeds or falls below the comparison-suggested difference. The second study showed that the comparison language selected by participants (through the difference suggested by the language) mediated the effect of standard similarity on attribute estimates following a social comparison. The third study demonstrated concurrent assimilation and contrast effects in recall of attribute values due to the size of the observed difference between the self and the standard for the attribute. Unlike in previous research on social comparison, assimilation and contrast patterns in these studies can be explained through a single process.

Keywords

social comparisonassimilationcontrastcomparison language
Type
Research Article
Information
Language and Cognition , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , March 2011 , pp. 15 - 43
Copyright
Copyright © UK Cognitive Linguistics Association 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alicke, M. D., Klotz, M. L., Breitenbecher, D. L., Yurak, T. J. & Vredenburg, D. S.. 1995. Personal contact, individuation, and the better-than-average effect. Interpersonal Relations and Group Processes 68(5). 804–825.Google Scholar
Bloomfield, A. N. & Choplin, J. M.. 2008. Comparison-induced evaluations around a reference point. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Chicago, IL.Google Scholar
Brown, J. D., Novick, N. J., Lord, K. A. & Richards, J. M.. 1992. When Gulliver travels: Social context, psychological closeness, and self-appraisals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 62. 717–727.Google Scholar
Buunk, A. P. & Gibbons, F. X.. 2007. Social comparison: The end of a theory and the emergence of a field. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 102. 3–21.Google Scholar
Byrne, D. 1997. An overview (and underview) of research and theory within the attraction paradigm. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 14(3). 417–431.Google Scholar
Cash, T. F., Cash, D. Walker & Butters, J. W.. 1983. “Mirror, mirror on the wall …?”: Contrast effects and self-evaluations of physical attractiveness. Personality and Social Psychology 9. 359–364.Google Scholar
Chambers, J. & Windschitl, P.. 2004. Biases in social comparative judgments: The role of nonmo-tivated factors in above-average and comparative-optimism effects. Psychological Bulletin 130(5). 813–838.Google Scholar
Chambers, J., Windschitl, P. & Suls, J.. 2003. Egocentrism, event frequency, and comparative optimism: When what happens frequently is “more likely to happen to me.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 29(11). 1343–1356.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Choplin, J. M. 2007. Toward a comparison-induced distortion theory of judgment and decision making. In Elsworth, J. A. (ed.), Psychology of decision making in education, 55–86. Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science Publishers, Inc.Google Scholar
Choplin, J. M. 2010. I am “fatter” than she is: Language-expressible body-size comparisons bias judgments of body size. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 29. 55–74.Google Scholar
Choplin, J. M. & Hummel, J. E.. 2002. Magnitude comparisons distort mental representations of magnitude. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 131(2). 270–286.Google Scholar
Choplin, J. M. & Hummel, J. E.. 2005. Comparison-induced decoy effects. Memory and Cognition 33(2). 332–343.Google Scholar
Choplin, J. M. & Motyka, L.. 2007. The interaction of food-quantity differences and temporal presentation on the amount of food people consume. Proceedings of the Twenty-Ninth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. 447–452.Google Scholar
Choplin, J. M. & Tawney, M. W.. 2005. Comparison-induced anchoring effects. Proceedings of the Twenty-Seventh Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. 881–886.Google Scholar
Festinger, L. 1954. A theory of social comparison processes. Human Relations 7. 117–140.Google Scholar
Grice, H. P. 1975. Logic and conversation. In Cole, P. & Morgan, J. L. (eds.), Syntax and semantics 3: Speech acts, 26–40. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Higgins, E. T. & Lurie, L.. 1983. Context, categorization, and memory: The “change of standard” effect. Cognitive Psychology 15. 525–547.Google Scholar
Higgins, E. T. & Stangor, C.. 1988. A “change of standard” perspective on the relations among context, memory and judgment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 54(2). 181–192.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoffman, P., Festinger, L. & Lawrence, D.. 1954. Tendencies toward group comparability in competitive bargaining. Human Relations 7(2). 141–159.Google Scholar
Huttenlocher, J., Hedges, L. V. & Vevea, J. L.. 2000. Why do categories affect stimulus judgment? Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 129(2). 220–241.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kruglanski, A. W. & Mayseless, O.. 1990. Classic and current social comparison research: Expanding the perspective. Psychological Bulletin 108(2). 195–208.Google Scholar
Lockwood, P. & Kunda, Z.. 1997. Superstars and me: Predicting the impact of role models on the self. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 73. 91–103.Google Scholar
Miller, R. L. & Suls, J.. 1977. Affiliation preferences as a function of attitude and ability similarity. In Suls, J. & Miller, R. L. (eds.), Social comparison processes: Theoretical and empirical perspectives, 103–124. New York: Hemisphere.Google Scholar
Mussweiler, T. 2001. ‘Seek and ye shall find’: Antecedents of assimilation and contrast in social comparison. European Journal of Social Psychology 31(5). 499–509.Google Scholar
Mussweiler, T. 2003. Comparison processes in social judgment: Mechanisms and consequences. Psychological Review 110. 472–489.Google Scholar
Mussweiler, T., Ruter, K. & Epstude, K.. 2004. The ups and downs of social comparison: Mechanisms of assimilation and contrast. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 87(6). 832–844.Google Scholar
Mussweiler, T. & Strack, F.. 1999. Hypothesis-consistent testing and semantic priming in the anchoring paradigm: A Selective Accessibility model. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 35. 136–164.Google Scholar
Mussweiler, T. & Strack, F.. 2000. The ‘relative self’: Informational and judgmental consequences of comparative self-evaluation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 79(1). 23–38.Google Scholar
Pelham, B. W. & Wachsmuth, J. O.. 1995. The waxing and waning of the social self: Assimilation and contrast in social comparison. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69. 825–838.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rusiecki, J. 1985. Adjectives and comparison in English. New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Schwarz, N. & Bless, H.. 1992. Scandals and the public's trust in politicians: Assimilation and contrast effects. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 18. 574–579.Google Scholar
Schwarz, N. & Bless, H.. 2007. Mental construal processes: The inclusion/exclusion model. In Stapel, D. A. & Suls, J. (eds.), Assimilation and contrast in social psychology, 119–142. Philadelphia: Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Seta, J. J. 1982. The impact of comparison processes on coactors' task performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 42. 281–291.Google Scholar
Seta, J. J., Seta, C. E. & Donaldson, S.. 1991. The impact of comparison processes on coactors' frustration and willingness to expend effort. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 17. 560–568.Google Scholar
Stapel, D. & Winkielman, P.. 1998. Assimilation and contrast as a function of context-target similarity, distinctness, and dimensional relevance. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 24(6). 634–646.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Suls, J., Martin, R. & Wheeler, L.. 2002. Social comparison: Why, with whom, and with what effect? Current Directions in Psychological Science 11(5). 159–163.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Svenson, O. 1981. Are we less risky and more skillful than our fellow drivers? Acta Psychologica 47. 143–151.Google Scholar
Windschitl, P., Kruger, J. & Simms, E. Nus. 2003. The influence of egocentrism and focalism on people's optimism in competitions: When what affects us equally affects me more. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 85(3). 389–408.Google Scholar
Wood, J. V. 1989. Theory and research concerning social comparisons of personal attributes. Psychological Bulletin 106(2). 231–248.Google Scholar