CH.10 Social Comparison

two categories of social comparison:

1) social norms and the opinion of others 2) abilities/performance

social category

Any group in which membership is defined by similarities between its members. Examples include religious, ethnic, and athletic groups.

local dominance effect

People are generally more influenced by social comparison when that comparison is personally relevant rather than broad and general.

N-effect

The finding that increasing the number of competitors generally decreases one's motivation to compete.

Dunning-Kruger Effect

The tendency for unskilled individuals to overestimate their own ability and the tendency for experts to underestimate their own ability.

Frog Pond Effect

The theory that a person's comparison group can affect their evaluations of themselves. Specifically, people have a tendency to have lower self-evaluations when comparing themselves to higher performing groups.

social norms and the opinions of others

compare our own opinions and values to those of others when our own self-evaluation in unclear

social comparison

evaluating one's abilities and opinions by comparing oneself with others

self-evaluation maintenance model

model of social comparison that emphasizes one's closeness to the comparison target, the relative performance of that target person, and the relevance of the comparison behavior to one's self concept

Abilities/performance

need for self-evaluation is driven by another fundamental desire- to perform better and better

proximity

the relative closeness or distance from a given comparison standard

social comparison theory

theory that we seek to evaluate our abilities and beliefs by comparing them with those of others