Comparisons at Work: The Role of Culture, Context, and Gender

Buunk, Abraham P.; Rodríguez, Carmen Carmona; Peíró, José M.; Dijkstra, Arie

doi:10.1037/e518572013-465

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

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“…The research we draw on to build the present framework principally used participants from Western, more individualistic cultures, raising the possibility that this framework is culture specific and may not apply to Eastern cultures that construe the self as part of a larger network (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). We think it plausible, however, that some dynamics underlying competitiveness may be common across cultures (Tang, 1999;Toda, Shinotsuka, McClintock, & Stech, 1978), though both the base rates of social comparison and competitiveness and the impact of certain variables we identify may be culture dependent (A. P. Buunk, Carmona, Peiró, Dijkstra, & Dijkstra, 2011). For example, Chinese precollege students use competitive strategies, whereas American precollege students use cooperative strategies in the realm of test taking (Tang, 1999).…”

Section: Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Psychology of Competition

Garcia

Tor

Schiff

2013

Perspect Psychol Sci

375

100

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Social comparison-the tendency to self-evaluate by comparing ourselves to others-is an important source of competitive behavior. We propose a new model that distinguishes between individual and situational factors that increase social comparison and thus lead to a range of competitive attitudes and behavior. Individual factors are those that vary from person to person: the relevance of the performance dimension, the similarity of rivals, and their relationship closeness to the individual, as well as the various individual differences variables relating to social comparison more generally. Situational factors, conversely, are those factors on the social comparison landscape that affect similarly situated individuals: proximity to a standard (i.e., near the number 1 ranking vs. far away), the number of competitors (i.e., few vs. many), social category fault lines (i.e., disputes across vs. within social categories), and more. The distinction between individual and situational factors also helps chart future directions for social comparison research and generates new vistas across psychology and related disciplines.

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