Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of contributors
- Preface
- Introduction: social comparison processes and levels of analysis
- Part 1 Cognition: comparison processes within and between individuals
- 1 Social comparison orientation: a new perspective on those who do and those who don't compare with others
- 2 The why, who, and how of social comparison: a social-cognition perspective
- 3 Autobiographical memory, the self, and comparison processes
- 4 Comparing oneself over time: the temporal dimension in social comparison
- Part 2 Intergroup relations: comparison processes within and between groups
- Part 3 Culture: comparison processes within and across cultures
- Author index
- Subject index
- References
3 - Autobiographical memory, the self, and comparison processes
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of contributors
- Preface
- Introduction: social comparison processes and levels of analysis
- Part 1 Cognition: comparison processes within and between individuals
- 1 Social comparison orientation: a new perspective on those who do and those who don't compare with others
- 2 The why, who, and how of social comparison: a social-cognition perspective
- 3 Autobiographical memory, the self, and comparison processes
- 4 Comparing oneself over time: the temporal dimension in social comparison
- Part 2 Intergroup relations: comparison processes within and between groups
- Part 3 Culture: comparison processes within and across cultures
- Author index
- Subject index
- References
Summary
The theory of social comparison as proposed by Festinger (1954) states that people seek to compare themselves to others to obtain accurate information about themselves. For example, when a person is uncertain about an aspect of themselves, e.g. their intelligence, social comparisons with similar others might be used for the purposes of self assessment. In contrast, social comparisons may serve a hedonic or pleasurable purpose as when a person makes, for instance, a downward social comparison (Wills, 1981). Such hedonic comparisons may help maintain a positive view of the self (Kunda, 1990; Woods, 1989). We suggest that, in general, the purpose of comparison is to support and develop the coherence of the self (cf. Conway, Singer, and Tagini, 2004). That is, comparisons provide information that further the integrity of the self and its effectiveness in operating on the world – especially the social world. In this view, one of the key effects of comparisons is motivational, where they drive the individual to generate new goals and pursue new lines of action. Within this general “self-coherence/motivational” view of social comparison, a greatly overlooked source of comparisons are those that arise from comparisons of the current self with past (remembered) selves and with future (imagined) selves. Indeed, autobiographical memory – memories of the events and facts of our lives – has been viewed as a major part of the self-system, a part that grounds the current self in a remembered reality and in so doing constrains the universe of plausible possible selves and, consequently, the range of possible self comparisons (Conway and Pleydell-Pearce, 2000).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Social Comparison and Social PsychologyUnderstanding Cognition, Intergroup Relations, and Culture, pp. 55 - 75Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005
References
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