Augmentation and discounting in affective reactions to upward and downward social comparisons

Abstract

Two studies were conducted to investigate how the related attributes of a comparison target influence affective reactions to both upward and downward social comparisons. Participants received false feedback on an intelligence test and then were given information about an ostensible other's performance who had performed either better or worse than the participant. The age of the comparison other was manipulated such that she was younger, the same age, or older than the participant. Consistent with the related attributes perspective, a younger comparison other led to relatively low levels of positive affect regardless of feedback condition; however, the results for the older comparison others were less clear. Differential reactions to same age and older comparisons were limited to failure conditions.

Notes

1. Ouwerkerk and Ellemers (2002) suggest that positive and negative affective reactions to social comparison information should be studied separately rather than in a single composite. We, therefore, separately examined pre-test and, subsequently, post-test positive and negative affective reactions. We found little difference from a single affect composite score. Pre-test measures remained invariant across conditions regardless of approach. When examining post-test positive and negative affective reactions separately, no new significant planned comparisons were obtained.

2. These are the same items that Kulik and Gump (1997) used in their research. These items were the polar opposites of those used in the pre-manipulation measure.

3. Initial analyses used participants' age as a covariate; however, given the relatively restricted age range of participants and the fact that the general pattern of results were unchanged, final analyses for Studies 1 and 2 did not include a statistical control for this variable.

4. At the suggestion of a reviewer, the relationship between self-evaluation and affect was more thoroughly examined. In both studies, self-evaluation and affect were significantly correlated; however, subsequent analyses found that self-evaluation did not mediate the relationship between comparison information and affective reactions.