Social comparison and task prediction: Ability similarity and the use of a proxy

British Journal of Social Psychology

Volumn 36, Issue 4, 1997, Pages 587-602

  Smith, William P ^a   Sachs, Paul R ^a  

^a VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0347875803     PISSN: 01446665     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.2044-8309.1997.tb01151.x     Document Type: Article

References (33)

1. Bandura, A. (1977). Social Learning Theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
2. Bandura, A. (1982). Self-efficacy mechanism in human agency. American Psychologist, 37, 122-147.
3. Bandura, A. (1986). Social Foundations of Thought and Action: A Social Cognitive Theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
4. Brown, I. Jr & Inouye, D. K. (1978). Learned helplessness through modeling: The role of perceived similarity in competence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36, 900-908.
5. Collins, R. L. (1996). For better or worse: The impact of upward social comparison on self-evaluations. Psychological Bulletin, 119, 51-69.
6. Festinger, L. (1954). A theory of social comparison processes. Human Relations, 7, 117-140.
7. Foddy, M. & Crundall, I. (1993). A field study of social comparison processes in ability evaluation. British Journal of Social Psychology, 32, 287-305.
8. Gastorf, J. W. & Suis, J. (1978). Performance evaluation via social comparison: Performance similarity versus related attribute similarity. Social Psychology, 41, 297-305.
9. Goethals, G. R. & Darley, J. (1977). Social comparison theory: An attributional approach. In J. M. Suls & R. L. Miller (Eds), Social Comparison Processes: Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives, pp. 259-278. Washington, DC: Hemisphere.
10. Helgeson, V. S. & Mickelson, K. D. (1995). Motives for social comparison. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21, 1200-1209.
11. Jones, S. L. & Regan, D. T. (1974). Ability evaluation through social comparison. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 10, 133-146.
12. Kruglanski, A. W. (1989). Lay Epistemics and Human Knowledge: Cognitive and Motivational Bases. New York: Plenum.
13. Kruglanski, A. W. & Mayseless, O. (1990). Classic and current social comparison research: Expanding the perspective. Psychological Bulletin, 108, 195-208.
14. McFarland, C. & Buehler, R. (1995). Collective self-esteem as a moderator of the frog-pond effect in reactions to performance feedback. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68, 1055-1070.
15. Major, B., Testa, M. & Bylsma, W. H. (1991). Responses to upward and downward social comparisons: The impact of esteem-relevance and perceived control. In J. Suls & T. A. Wills (Eds), Social Comparison: Contemporary Theory and Research, pp. 237-260. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
16. Marks, G. & Miller, N. (1987). Ten years of research on the false-consensus effect: An empirical and theoretical review. Psychological Bulletin, 102, 72-90.
17. Radloff, R. (1966). Social comparison and ability evaluation. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Supplement 1, 6-26.
18. Ruble, D. N. & Frey, K. S. (1991). Changing patterns of comparative behavior as skills are acquired: A functional model of self-evaluation. In J. Suls & T. A. Wills (Eds), Social Comparison: Contemporary Theory and Research, pp. 79-113. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
19. Schachter, S. (1959). The Psychology of Affiliation: Experimental Studies of the Sources of Gregariousness. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
20. Schwartz, J. M. & Smith, W. P. (1976). Social comparison and the inference of ability difference. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34, 1268-1275.
21. Smith, W. P. (1981). On the nature of the question in social comparison. In J. H. Harvey (Ed.), Cognition. Social Behavior and the Environment. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
22. Smith, W. P. (1984). Judgmental goals in the social comparison of ability. Representative Research in Social Psychology, 14, 36-51.
23. Taylor, S. E. & Lobel, M. (1989). Social comparison activity under threat: Downward evaluation and upward contacts. Psychological Review, 96, 569-575.
24. Taylor, S. E., Neter, E. & Wayment, H. A. (1995). Self-evaluation processes. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21, 1278-1287.
25. Tolman, E. C. (1932). Purposive Behavior in Animals and Men. New York: Century.
26. Trope, Y. (1986). Self-enhancement and self-assessment in achievement behavior. In R. Sorrentino & E. T. Higgins (Eds), Handbook of Motivation and Cognition: Foundations of Social Behavior, New York: Guilford.
27. Wayment, H. A. & Taylor, S. E. (1995). Self-evaluation processes: Motives, information use and self-esteem. Journal of Personality, 63, 729-757.
28. Wheeler, L. (1966). Motivation as a determinant of upward comparison. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Supplement 1, 27-31.
29. Wheeler, L., Shaver, K. G., Jones, R. A., Goethals, G. R., Cooper, J., Robinson, J. E., Gruder, C. L. & Butzine, K. W. (1969). Factors determining choice of a comparison other. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 5, 219-232.
30. Wills, T. A. (1981). Downward comparison principles in social psychology. Psychological Bulletin, 90, 245-271.
31. Wilson, S. R. (1973). Ability evaluation and self-evaluation as types of social comparison. Sociometry, 36, 600-607.
32. Wood, J. V. (1989). Theory and research concerning social comparisons of personal attributes. Psychological Bulletin, 1106, 231-248.
33. Wood, J. V. & Taylor, K. L. (1991). Serving self-relevant goals through social comparison. In J. Suls & T. A. Wills (Eds), Social Comparison: Contemporary Theory and Research. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.