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Responses to hedonically conflicting social comparisons: comparing happy and unhappy people
Author(s) -
Lyubomirsky Sonja,
Tucker Kari L.,
Kasri Fazilet
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
european journal of social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.609
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1099-0992
pISSN - 0046-2772
DOI - 10.1002/ejsp.82
Subject(s) - psychology , attribution , social psychology , mood , social comparison theory , context (archaeology) , ranking (information retrieval) , perception , cognition , paleontology , neuroscience , biology , machine learning , computer science
Two laboratory studies explored how self‐rated unhappy and happy students balance hedonically conflicting social comparison information, and tested whether unhappy students would be relatively more sensitive to hedonically consistent unfavorable information. In both studies, students working in teams of four competed against one other team on a novel verbal task. First, unhappy participants showed relatively greater sensitivity to undiluted unfavorable feedback—about group standing (e.g. your team ‘lost’; Study 1) and about group and individual standing (e.g. your team lost and you were placed last; Study 2). Second, unhappy students were more reactive than happy students to individual social comparison information in the context of relative group feedback. In Study 1, the moods and self‐assessments of unhappy individuals (but not happy ones) after news of team defeat appeared to be buffered by the additional news of personal triumph. In Study 2, unhappy students showed relatively larger decreases in mood and ability assessments after unfavorable than after favorable individual feedback (i.e. ranking last versus first), regardless of whether they additionally learned that their teams had won or lost. The role of students' attributions and perceptions of their personal contribution was also explored. Implications of these findings for the links among social comparison, cognitive processes, and hedonic consequences are discussed. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.