Stability of Related Attributes and the Inference of Ability through Social Comparison

Smith, William P.; Arnkelsson, Guðmundur B.

doi:10.1007/978-1-4615-4237-7_3

Cited by 17 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…While the meaning of similarity has been subject to considerable debate in classic social comparison theory (e.g. Goethals & Darley, 1977; Mussweiler & Strack, 2000; Smith & Arnkelsson, 2000), Study 1 suggests that in real‐life settings such as serious diseases, individuals tend to compare themselves with others who are in a similar situation. This is in line with the early experimental literature on social comparison under stress that considered affiliation with others in a similar situation as fostered by social comparison motives (Schachter, 1959).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In fact, however, as noted previously, the role of similarity in social comparison choice has been widely debated (e.g. Goethals & Darley, 1977; Mussweiler & Strack, 2000; Smith & Arnkellson, 2000). We assumed that similarity in the present context concerned primarily having the same affliction.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…First, we examined the choice of comparison targets . Although Wood (1989) observed that previous social comparison research had emphasized target selection to the neglect of other issues, since the mid‐1980s, target selection has not been studied systematically (Smith & Arnkelsson, 2000). With the exception of a substantial number of studies on the preference for upward versus downward targets (for a review, see Tennen, McKee, & Affleck, 2000), little information exists as to whether individuals facing serious diseases compare themselves with similar or dissimilar others.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…But who are these similar others? Social comparison theorists have suggested that in this context similarity may reside primarily in personality characteristics (Miller & Zimbardo, 1966), in the intensity of one's emotions (Dabbs & Helmreich, 1972), in the social group to which one belongs (Smith & Arnkelsson, 2000) or in the standing on the comparison dimension under consideration (Mussweiler & Strack, 2000). But we would like to suggest, in line with the early experimental literature on stress and affiliation, that those under stress will primarily focus on situational similarity; that is, they will compare themselves with others facing the same stressor.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Targets and dimensions of social comparison among people with spinal cord injury and other health problems

Buunk

Zurriaga

González

et al. 2006

British J Health Psychol

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The present research examined comparison targets and comparison dimensions among two Spanish samples of individuals facing serious illnesses and diseases. In Study 1, 90 older patients (mean age 66.36) with various age-related diseases, particularly cardiovascular diseases and diabetes, indicated that they compared themselves most often with others with the same disease, next with others with another disease and least with people without health problems. They compared themselves more often on their mental state, symptoms and physical activities than on their social activities. Social comparison orientation (SCO) as an individual difference characteristic was associated with more frequent comparisons with particularly similar targets, and with more frequent comparisons of one's symptoms and physical activities. Neuroticism was correlated only with more comparisons of one's symptoms. Study 2 was conducted in a sample of 70 relatively young patients (mean age 43.97) with spinal cord injury (SCI). Overall, they compared themselves more often with others than the participants in Study 1, and they compared themselves to a similar extent with people with SCI as with people with another disease and with people without health problems. While they felt on average better off than people with other diseases and other people with SCI, people with SCI felt on average worse off than people without health problems. They compared themselves more often on physical activities than on any other dimension. Higher levels of stress and uncertainty were associated with more frequent comparisons with people without SCI, and with more frequent comparisons of one's mental state, one's symptoms and one's future perspectives. The discussion focuses on the theoretical relevance of the results for social comparison theory, and on the practical relevance of the findings for interventions.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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Targets and dimensions of social comparison among people with spinal cord injury and other health problems

Buunk

Zurriaga

González

et al. 2006

British J Health Psychol

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“…Smith and Arnkelsson (2000) explain that ability evaluation refers to person performance at specific task. Festinger himself provided a link between ability and performance: "abilities are of course manifested only through performance which is assumed to depend upon the particular ability" (Festinger 1954, p. 118).…”

Section: Do People Engage In Surface Comparisonsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modeling pedestrian crowd behavior based on a cognitive model of social comparison theory

Fridman

Kaminka

2010

Comput Math Organ Theory

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Modeling crowd behavior is an important challenge for cognitive modelers. Models of crowd behavior facilitate analysis and prediction of human group behavior, where people are close geographically or logically, and are affected by each other's presence and actions. Existing models of crowd behavior, in a variety of fields, leave many open challenges. In particular, psychology models often offer only qualitative description, and do not easily permit algorithmic replication, while computer science models are often not tied to cognitive theory and often focus only on a specific phenomenon (e.g., flocking, bi-directional pedestrian movement), and thus must be switched depending on the goals of the simulation. We propose a novel model of crowd behavior, based on Festinger's Social Comparison Theory (SCT), a social psychology theory known and expanded since the early 1950's. We propose a concrete algorithmic framework for SCT, and evaluate its implementations in several pedestrian movement phenomena such as creation of lanes in bidirectional movement and movement in groups with and without obstacle. Compared to popular models from the literature, the SCT model was shown to provide improved results. We also evaluate the SCT model on general pedestrian movement, and validate the model against human pedestrian behavior. The results show that SCT generates behavior more intune with human crowd behavior then existing non-cognitive models.Keywords Cognitive modeling · Modeling pedestrian crowd behavior · Model of social comparison theory N. Fridman ( ) · G.A. Kaminka

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Social Comparisons Under Pandemic Stress: Income Reference Groups, Comparison Patterns, and the Subjective Well-Being of German Students

Jantsch,

Buchenrieder,

Dufhues

et al. 2024

J Happiness Stud

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People use social comparisons to reduce uncertainty when facing new or stressful situations. This study explores how a stressful experience, the COVID-19 pandemic, changed how people compare their income. It relates these changes to subjective well-being (SWB). We use a repeated cross-sectional dataset of students at two German universities from before and during the pandemic. A novel survey instrument is employed to identify individualized reference groups used for income comparison and to analyze whether the comparison pattern changed. Our results reveal that, while there was little change in the size of the reference groups, there was some difference in the group composition. During the pandemic, survey respondents were more likely to select two types of individuals into their reference groups: relatives and people they only knew from social media. Income comparisons were beginning to have a negative association with SWB, while the relation had been positive before the pandemic. Moreover, upward income comparisons increased.

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Stability of Related Attributes and the Inference of Ability through Social Comparison

Cited by 17 publications

References 55 publications

Targets and dimensions of social comparison among people with spinal cord injury and other health problems

Targets and dimensions of social comparison among people with spinal cord injury and other health problems

Modeling pedestrian crowd behavior based on a cognitive model of social comparison theory

Social Comparisons Under Pandemic Stress: Income Reference Groups, Comparison Patterns, and the Subjective Well-Being of German Students

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