The influence of social comparison on self-deception and its neural mechanism

Abstract

When people feel that they are inferior to others or lack money and resources, there is an unconscious self-preservation. Self-protection theory suggests that the greater the threat, the more likely people are to protect themselves through self-deception. Event-related potentials were used to explore the influence of social comparison on self-deception and its internal psychological mechanism. In experiment 1, the social comparison situation was induced by the hierarchical order paradigm. The forward-looking paradigm was used to measure the occurrence of self-deception. The results indicated that the upward comparison group was more prone to self-deception than the control group. In Experiment 2, the social comparison task was changed to“Raven intelligence test”. The results reveal that the large gap conditions had higher predicted scores than small gap conditions under upward conditions. In experiment 3, participants’ behavioral data were collected while the event-related potential data was collected. The results showed that the large gap group induced smaller N2 and N400 amplitudes and larger P300 amplitudes. The large gap group induced a larger LPP component in the upward comparison situation. These results suggest that individuals in the upward comparison group were found to be more prone to self-deception. Large gap conditions can increase the self-deception of individuals with upward comparisons. The addition of authority would change the influence of social comparison on self-deception. This study will provide direct evidence for the influence of social comparison on self-deception and its neural mechanism, and enrich the relevant research results.