Comparison: Monitoring how one is doing and adjusting one’s behavior accordingly in an effort to be liked by important others
Self-Evaluation Maintenance Model (SEM): Postulates that a person typically only makes social comparisons when this will improve her or his self-evaluation
Self-Reflection 4.1
Measuring Your Self-Esteem (Part 1)
As you see in the main text, self-esteem is how we feel about or evaluate our self. One of the most frequently used self-esteem measures is the 10-item scale published by Morris Rosenberg (1965). This scale is primarily used to measure global, as opposed to specific, self-esteem (see text). To get a rough idea as to your self-esteem, take a minute and answer the following questions, and then turn the page to interpret your score.
Table 4.2
Source: Adapted from Rosenberg, M. (1989). Society and the adolescent self-image (Rev. ed.). Middletown, CT England: Wesleyan University Press.
Self-Reflection 4.2
Measuring Your Self-Esteem (Part 2)
Scoring key: for items 1, 3, 4, 7, and 10, SA = 3, A = 2, D = 1, SD = 0; for items 2, 5, 6, 8 and 9: SA = 0, A = 2, D = 2, SD = 3. To calculate your score, write the number corresponding to your answer to the right of each item. Next add up all of the scores to obtain your total score. The higher the score, the higher you self-esteem is. Your score should fall between 0 and 30. The average score for an adult is about 22, and the majority of people score between 15 and 25. (Please note that your score is simply a rough estimate and does not constitute a clinical diagnosis.)
Social Comparison: Looking Up and Looking Down
An important postulate of SEM is that people manage their social comparisons in order to maintain a positive self-image (Strickhouser & Zell, 2015; Tesser, 2003). We decide who to compare ourselves to based on whether or not the comparison will enhance our self-worth. When people engage in downward social comparison, they contrast their own performance, ability, or situation with individuals who did less well, have weaker abilities, or are in worse situations (Johnson & Knobloch-Westerwick, 2014; Ross & Bowen, 2010). Say you drive a rusty 1988 Volkswagen with numerous dings, scratches, dents, and malfunctioning controls, and occasionally think “I drive such a crappy, ugly car.” But then you may remember that your best friend has no car at all, and as a result, you feel a bit better (Buunk & Oldersma, 2001). Even cancer patients may contrast the severity of their disease with that of others who are worse off as a way of feeling better about their own situation (Wood, Taylor, & Lichtman, 1985). Another self-enhancing comparison people often make is with their former selves, typically believing that they have improved over the years (Kanten & Teigen, 2008).
In contrast to downward comparison, you may instead engage in upward social comparison, in which you evaluate your performance, ability, or situation with a superior person’s (Crusius & Mussweiler, 2012; Tesser, 1988). Perhaps you look at the “A” a classmate received on an exam and compare it to your “B.” Or maybe you notice how an acquaintance keeps beating you at Wii tennis. Using these comparisons to motivate yourself to work hard and perform better would be a beneficial result of upward comparison (Blanton, Buunk, Gibbons, & Kuyper, 1999). In this case, your motive is neither accurate self-evaluation nor self-enhancement but rather self-improvement. In contrast, a negative result of such upward comparison occurs when you allow the comparison to demoralize you by focusing your thoughts on what you haven’t achieved (Dunn, Ruedy, & Schweitzer, 2012). Both upward and downward social comparisons are most useful when you compare yourself to people who are similar to you on relevant characteristics (Tiggemann & Polivy, 2010). For instance, you may be better off contrasting your cycling prowess with your brother’s rather than Lance Armstrong’s.
A related tactic people can use to improve their self-esteem is to engage in counterfactual thinking or imagining what could have happened (Medvec, Madey, & Gilovich, 1995; Petrocelli, Percy, Sherman, & Tormala, 2011). Victoria Medvec and her colleagues studied silver and bronze medalists’ reactions to their event placements in the 1992 Summer Olympic games and the 1994 Empire State Games. Who do you think would feel better after completing an important competition, the bronze medal winners who placed third or silver medal winners who placed second? Using videotapes of the award ceremonies and interviews with winners, they found that bronze medalists were more satisfied with their medals than were silver medalists, despite the fact that silver medalists had obviously performed better than their counterparts. Why? Well, bronze medalists primarily focused on the counterfactual that they almost received no medal at all (almost came in fourth), and that increased their satisfaction with their achievement. In contrast, silver medalists thought more about a different alternative outcome—that they almost won the gold medal—and as result were more disappointed (Medvec et al., 1995).
Self-Protection: Efforts intended to maintain or defend one’s positive self-image
Self-Promotion: Efforts designed to enhance one’s self-image
Downward Social Comparison: Contrasting one’s own performance, ability, or situation with individuals who did less well, have weaker abilities, or are in worse situations
Upward Social Comparison: Contrasting one’s performance, ability, or situation with individuals who performed better, have stronger abilities, or are in better situations
Counterfactual Thinking: Imagining what could have happened (but did not)
False Consensus and False Uniqueness
Would you prefer to be like most other people or different from them? It probably depends on what aspects of yourself you are thinking about. In some domains—such as opinions and behaviors—people would rather that others see the world in the same way that they do, but in others—such as personal abilities—we prefer to stand out. Oftentimes people believe that their opinions or behaviors are more common than they actually are, and thus exhibit the false consensus effect (Mullen, 1985; H. S. Park, 2012; L. Ross, Greene, & House, 1977). In one study, students were asked to wear a sandwich board sign displaying either “Repent” or “Eat at Joe’s” for 30 minutes. Whether they said yes or no, each estimated how many other students were likely to agree to the same request. Most of the participants overestimated the number of students who would make the same decision that they did. This was especially true for those who agreed to wear the “Eat at Joe’s” sign: Only 30% of the students actually agreed to carry it, but they predicted that 57% of other students would (L. Ross et al., 1977).
People demonstrate the false consensus effect in many arenas of life, including adolescents’ predictions of peer substance use and adults’ estimates of how others will respond to particular behavioral experiences or how many showers others will take during a shower ban (Henry, Kobus, & Schoeny, 2011; Kammrath, 2011; Monin & Norton, 2003), and are especially likely to do so when in an opinion minority (Marks & Miller, 1987). For instance, Whitley (1998) found that sexually active college women overestimated the level of sexual activity of other college women, as compared to the estimates of nonsexually active women. Believing that other people hold the same opinions or engage in the same behaviors can maintain our self-esteem (Marks & Miller, 1987), and avoiding discussion of topics on which there is potential disagreement may help us maintain this belief (Goel, Mason, & Watts,
