The research effort in the present thesis has focused on tracing the possibly mixed blessing of downward social comparison in the domain of close relationships. The goal of the current research was twofold: It was examined whether cognitive downward comparison might have positive consequences for the perceived quality of the relationship on the one hand, and on the other hand whether individuals respond negatively to someone who overly engages in downward social comparison.
The six experimental studies reported in this thesis sought to explore the impact of cognitive downward comparison on individuals' psychological well-being as well as individuals' responses to others who overtly display downward comparison behavior. More specifically, it was examined whether a higher perceived relationship quality will result from inducing individuals to engage in cognitive downward social comparison on the one hand, whereas observers of downward comparison activities might respond negatively when someone else exhibits such comparisons publicly. Furthermore, the current research explored the extent to which relational discontent moderated the positive consequences of cognitive downward social comparison for the evaluation of the quality of one's relationship. In addition, the role of individual differences in social comparison orientation was explored by examining the extent to which the positive impact of cognitive downward social comparison and the negative responses to overt downward comparison were affected by individuals' tendency to compare themselves in general to others.
As noted previously, individuals may feel better about their own situation and their subjective well being may be enhanced through comparisons of themselves with other people who are less fortunate than themselves. Wills (1987; see also Taylor et al., 1983) discussed several cognitive mechanisms that serve the purpose of making people feel comparatively fortunate. Although such downward comparisons may be achieved in various ways, downward comparisons often consist of a cognitive process in which individuals construct downward comparison targets, or derogate others' good abilities and personal attributes (cf. Wills, 1987). Yet, the effects of cognitive downward comparison on individuals' well-being have scarcely been studied in the domain of close relationships (see for recent exceptions, Buunk, 1996, 1998; Buunk & Van den Eijnden, 1997). Therefore, the present thesis has attempted to clarify the consequences of relationship-enhancing downward comparisons for individuals' perceived quality of the relationship. It was assumed that those engaging in cognitive downward comparison may count their blessings in that such comparisons might positively affect the evaluation of their own relationship.
This is not to say that downward comparison will necessarily be a blessing, however. Concurrent with the possibly positive consequences of cognitive downward comparison for individuals' psychological well-being, individuals engaging with little reluctance in overt downward social comparison activities may evoke a negative reaction on the part of the individuals who observe such social comparison behavior. Therefore, individuals may even arrange matters so that their comparisons are made in a private (i.e. cognitive) and implicit way to avoid violating "a fundamental rule of adult social life by making explicit comparison" (Wills, 1981, p. 265). These observations have led several theorists to propose that social comparison in general, and downward social comparison in particular, is viewed as socially undesirable, although this claim has as yet, little evidence to support it. The impact of other causes for the reluctance to acknowledge social comparisons, such as a lack of awareness or problems in selectivity, recall, and aggregation, have been suggested by other theorists (cf. Wood, 1996). All in all, it seems likely that a hesitancy to report on downward social comparison behavior might hamper adequate research on social comparison. If this proves to be the case, it seems important to examine whether downward social comparisons are considered as socially undesirable and whether such comparisons evoke negative responses on the part of those who observe such comparison behavior. Hence, the present work intended to shed more light on the reluctance issue by examining the possible negative reactions that may be provoked by someone else who openly engages in downward social comparison.
To examine the beneficial consequences of downward comparison in the development and maintenance of relationship well being, an experimental paradigm was designed to test the prediction that relationship quality is not so much positively affected by noncomparative evaluations in terms of good but instead by the belief that one's own situation is better than that of most others (cf. Emmons & Diener, 1985; Keith & Schafer, 1987; Klein, 1997). Downward comparisons in the current paradigm were comparisons of one's own intimate relationship with relationships that are worse than one's own. The experimental paradigm was a thought-generating task which asked participants to generate positive qualities on which they consider themselves, their intimate partners, or their own relationships in noncomparative or comparative terms.
Downward comparison was expected to be a successful strategy particularly for people who experience problems in their relationship to reevaluate their situation and to make them feel relatively more satisfied with their own relationship. Accordingly, we expected that the negative impact of discontent about the relationship with the partner on perceived relationship quality would be buffered by comparison of one's own relationship with other relationships that are qualitatively inferior. Furthermore, we expected that downward comparison would exert a stronger buffering effect for individuals high in social comparison orientation. The present research thus extended the existing literature by investigating experimentally whether cognitive downward comparison improves the perceived quality of the relationship of individuals who experience a relatively low relationship quality and who display a personality disposition to compare their own situation to those of others. We examined this model in both laboratory and field studies, testing our hypotheses in samples of undergraduates as well as in a non-student sample of individuals who had been in relationships for a relatively longer period of time.
The series of experiments (i.e., Studies 1, 2, and 3) reported in Chapter 2 clearly indicated that downward comparison can have beneficial effects on the development and maintenance of relationship quality (i.e., global, evaluative judgments of the relationship; cf. Fincham & Bradbury, 1987). Study 1 demonstrated that participants who were induced to engage in self- and partner-enhancing cognitive downward comparison experienced more relationship satisfaction and felt more committed to their relationship than participants who were asked to generate noncomparative self- and partner-evaluations. Consistent with the theoretical model, Study 2 demonstrated that preexperimentally identified levels of relational discontent and individual differences in social comparison orientation moderated the effects of downward comparison: under high relational discontent, partner-enhancing downward comparisons led to more relationship satisfaction and commitment, particularly when individuals were dispositionally strongly inclined to compare their own situations with that of others. In addition, Study 3 replicated the findings of the fifth study in a sample of undergraduate students. Relational discontent and comparison orientation, as measured approximately four weeks prior to the experimental sessions, moderated the relationship-enhancing effects of downward comparison. Thus, in both Studies 2 and 3, the negative impact of discontent about the relationship with the partner on individuals' relationship quality was buffered by comparison of one's own relationship with other relationships of inferior quality, in particular among individuals who were inclined to compare themselves to others.
Thus, the results presented in Chapter 2 provided considerable support for our basic theoretical predictions in both dating and marital relationships. The findings show that people may alleviate their lot and enhance their relationship-evaluation through a cognitive downward social comparison process especially when they are unhappy about the relationship with their partner. Moreover, the results of these three experiments are consistent with Wills' downward comparison theory (1981, 1987) and selective evaluation theory proposed by Taylor et al. (1983). On the basis of these models one would predict that when people experience relational discontent, selective evaluation by means of downward comparison may indeed minimize a deterioration of relationship quality. In the current paradigm, participants were induced to actively engage in downward social comparison by asking a question the answering of which requires them to rationalize explicitly why they regard their own relationship as better than that of most others. Inducing individuals to engage in this selective evaluation process (Taylor et al., 1983), seems to have had a positive effect on the evaluation of their intimate relationships. The present data are in line with the suggestion made by Rusbult and Buunk (1993) in their review of research on the commitment model that downward comparisons can be considered as a mechanism of maintaining commitment in intimate relationships. Research has suggested that commitment, in turn, is an influential factor in the development of intimate relationships. For instance, highly committed individuals are believed to develop a variety of maintenance mechanisms that may be employed as a means to sustain a healthy long-term relationship. It has been suggested that feelings of commitment promote the willingness to accommodate (Rusbult et al., 1994) or to sacrifice for the sake of a relationship (Van Lange, Agnew, Harinck, & Steemers, 1997; Van Lange, Rusbult, Drigotas, & Arriaga, 1994), and the derogation of attractive and threatening alternative partners (Johnson & Rusbult, 1989; Simpson, Gangestad & Lerma, 1990; for a review, see Rusbult & Buunk, 1993). Thus, greater than satisfaction, commitment is believed to be a powerful predictor of the development and deterioration of relationships.
The present findings appear particularly convincing because a number of alternative interpretations of the data could be excluded. A first potential confound could be that the number of qualities generated in the comparison condition would be larger, and would thus be responsible for the effects. However, in all three studies, cognitive set did not affect the number of qualities generated, and controlling for the number of qualities left the effects virtually unchanged. A second potential confound concerns the possibility that the positive qualities generated in the comparison and no-comparison conditions differed in valence, and as a consequence, that this differential valence of the listed qualities would account for the demonstrated effects of cognitive downward comparison on the perceived quality of the relationship. We obtained considerable evidence that this explanation could not account for the results. In Study 1, the positivity of the qualities did not differ between the two conditions according to the participants and independent judges, and the effects remained the same when controlling for the positivity of the qualities. In Study 3, although the qualities in the comparison were rated by independent judges as slightly more positive than in the no-comparison condition, the effects stayed virtually the same when controlling for the positivity of the qualities generated. By excluding this alternative interpretation, the present findings contribute to the validity of the experimental manipulations, and increase the confidence that it is indeed the comparative nature of the comparison task that is responsible for the results.
Given the self-report nature of most of the dependent measures reported in Chapter 2, a third alternative interpretation of the differential effects of the thought-generating tasks is possible. It is conceivable that the positive consequences of downward comparison result from demand characteristics and that the effects do not represent any real improvements in perceived quality of the relationship. Studies 1 and 3 examined this alternative explanation by measuring the perceived quality of the relationship not only by self-report measures, but also by unobtrusively assessing the response latencies. It was found that downward comparison also resulted in shorter response latencies to the dependent variables. Hence, as the unobtrusive measures of response latencies are not vulnerable to possible demand characteristics, the impact of the downward comparison thought-generating task on the response latencies contributes to the strength of our findings.
The present research may have methodological implications for the social comparison literature. Downward comparison was manipulated via the use of a thought-generating paradigm that to the best of our knowledge is new to social comparison literature. That is, participants were not presented with social comparison information from an outside source, but an active, cognitive downward comparison process was induced. More specifically, the thought-generating task asked participants to think about their own relationship in a comparative, superior manner as compared to a noncomparative manner. Through this procedure, the salience of a subset of positive relationship qualities was made salient in both conditions in such a way that in the former condition the salience of superior qualities of participant's own relationships was enhanced, whereas in the latter condition the salience of good qualities of one's own relationship was heightened. In this way, we could show that relationship quality is to a greater extent influenced by feeling better than others rather than by simply feeling good. This thought-generating paradigm can also be applied to dimensions other than relationship evaluation to study how evaluations are influenced by a cognitive process of comparing one's situation with those of others worse off. Moreover, the paradigm extended previous social comparison research in three ways. First, the current research required participants to engage actively in cognitive downward social comparison, whereas the greater part of previous research on social comparison imposed an passive role of the participants by providing them with information about other people (cf. Wood, 1989, 1996). Second, the current research extended the existing literature by demonstrating that downward comparison is a cognitive mechanism that helps restore or enhance people's well-being (i.e., in the present research, individuals' perceived quality of their relationship) in the way suggested by selective evaluation theory Taylor et al. (1983; see also Wills, 1981, 1987). Finally, the results support the view that individual differences in social comparison orientation moderate the effects of downward comparison (cf. Gibbons & Buunk, 1999).
To conclude, it is important to emphasize that the research presented in Chapter 2 is one of the first to show that a way to sustain a satisfying and committed relationship is through contrasting one's own relationship to that of badly functioning and less happy relationships. As suggested by Rusbult and Buunk (1993), such downward comparisons may enhance the evaluation of one's relationship when facing relational discontent. Moreover, by illuminating the impact of cognitive downward comparisons, and by demonstrating that such comparisons work especially for individuals with a dispositional inclination to compare themselves with others, and by developing a paradigm to study these processes, the present research may not only contribute to the relationship literature, but also to social comparison literature in general.
In Chapter 3, three studies were reported that explored the responses to someone's public statement that his or her relationship is faring well or badly. It was assumed that people would find another's boastful claims of superiority offensive and socially undesirable, especially when that person publicly engages in self-enhancing social comparison. That is, when a person openly discusses his or her superiority over other people, individuals who observe that person engaging in overt social comparisons might feel annoyance at this person's claim of superiority which may inflict a sense of inferiority on the observer. However, it was assumed that it would turn out differently when the social comparisons served the purpose of creating an attractive image of one's intimate partner and it was reasoned that people in general would be more likely to engage in partner-enhancement rather then in self-enhancement. When doing so, someone's verbalization of boastful partner-evaluations would be regarded as more socially desirable and would evoke more sympathy than boastful statements concerning the self as a superior partner. On the contrary, deprecatingly portraying one's partner as an inferior relationship partner will be considered as less socially desirable and would be more likely to prevent observers from sympathizing with the evaluator than publicly characterizing oneself (as a relationship partner) in a self-deprecating manner. These assumptions were tested in both laboratory and field studies among samples of undergraduates as well as among individuals from a representative sample of Dutch households. Participants were provided with a short fragment supposedly derived from a group discussion. They were asked to indicate, among others, the extent to which they considered the boastful statements as socially undesirable and the extent to which the evaluations evoked sympathy for the evaluator.
The results of Chapter 3 supported the aforementioned assumption that public self-enhancement is regarded as more socially undesirable than partner-enhancement and that negative reactions will be elicited to a greater extent in response to self- rather than to partner-enhancing statement. On the other hand, and also in complete agreement with the predictions, when someone makes deprecating statements in public, evaluations of the partner were judged more negatively by observers than self-deprecating evaluations. Hence, the fact that self-enhancement especially will be negatively sanctioned may reflect Wills' (1981) observation that people seem to develop private and implicit strategies to engage in downward comparison to avoid the possible negative reactions of others to such comparison activities.
In addition, Study 5 explored whether people would be able to generate more extensive partner-enhancing descriptions than self-enhancing evaluations on the one hand, and whether those who were asked to provide deprecating evaluations would be able to generate more extensive self- than partner-deprecating descriptions. As expected, participants who were asked to evaluate their intimate partner in an enhancing manner were able to generate more qualities than those who were asked to evaluate the self (as a partner) in like manner. These results suggest that people may anticipate possible negative interpersonal consequences and may feel a greater reluctance to evaluate themselves as a partner in an enhancing fashion than to engage in partner-enhancing evaluations. This line of reasoning was further elaborated in Chapter 2.
The subsequent effort in Study 6 was to examine the differential effects of comparative and noncomparative evaluations of the self and the partner. In this study, the manipulation of the comparative nature of the boastful self- and partner-enhancing evaluations consisted of scenarios wherein someone discusses the evaluations with or without references to social comparison. It was expected that comparative statements would be considered as more socially undesirable and would evoke less positive feelings than noncomparative statements, and that this difference would be more pronounced when the evaluations concerned the self rather than the intimate partner. Accordingly, the results supported this expectation in that boastful expressions with reference to social comparison were considered to be more undesirable than boastful expressions without reference to social comparison activities, especially when someone expresses his or her evaluations about the self as a relationship partner rather than about the intimate partner. Furthermore, participants expressed fewer feelings of sympathy for a comparative than for a noncomparative evaluator, particularly for the evaluator who discussed his own qualities. Thus, hesitancy to publicly admitting social comparison activities might be considered a virtue.
These findings thus documented the notion that particularly self-enhancing downward comparison are regarded as socially inappropriate and will not gain people's approval and sympathy (cf. Brickman & Bulman, 1977; Wills, 1981, 1991b). It should be noted, however, that perceptions of social desirability appear to be driven by individuals' antipathy towards the evaluator. Mediational analyses provided support for this supposition in Study 5 and 6 (though not in Study 4), although it must be emphasized that both studies cannot settle causal relations since the results are correlational. Nevertheless, the findings suggest that self-enhancing downward comparisons may be considered socially undesirable because such boastful statements may trigger negative reactions and may temper the observer's sympathy for the swanker who verbalizes his or her superior self-perceptions in public. Moreover, despite the fact that partner-enhancement might suggest someone's praiseworthy effort to be a self-effacing person, it should be noted in this context that partner-enhancement may be considered as an indirect means of self-enhancement (cf. Schütz & Tice, 1997; see also Brown et al, 1988; Cialdini et al, 1989). That is, one can maintain and facilitate one's own reputation by basking in the success of the partner (see Tesser, 1988; Beach & Tesser, 1993, 1995; see also Cialdini et al., 1976; Cialdini & Richardson, 1980; Snyder et al., 1989). In addition, with this line of reasoning in mind, and given that public self-enhancing downward comparison will evoke more negative reactions than partner-enhancement, people pursuing self-enhancement might show more prudence by publicly praising the extraordinary qualities of one's own intimate partner rather than by overtly evaluating themselves (as a partner) as better than other people.
Additionally, in Study 6, the moderating role of individual differences in social comparison orientation (Gibbons & Buunk, 1999) was explored. It was examined to what extent recipients' reactions to someone else's comparative and noncomparative evaluations of the self and the partner were affected by orientation toward social comparison. Gibbons and Buunk's (1999) research indicated that individuals high in social comparison orientation respond more strongly to social comparison information, thereby leading to the expectation that especially those high in social comparison orientation would react negatively to other individuals who make boastful statements with an explicit reference to social comparison. However, the expected moderating effect of social comparison orientation was not observed, that is the responses to comparative evaluations were not moderated by individual differences in recipients' orientation toward social comparison. This may indicate that the impact of individuals' orientation toward social comparison is restricted to their own social comparison behavior and that their disposition does not affect their responses to other people displaying social comparison activities. Indeed, Chapter 2 reported evidence that social comparison orientation can affect the positive consequences of comparison with other people.
Considered as a whole, then, the results of the studies reported in Chapter 3 have several important implications for theory and research on (downward) social comparison. First, from the perspective advanced here, individuals' reluctance to admit social comparisons should be traced not to its non-existence or to the possibility that social comparison may not be as prevalent as previous research has implied (e.g. Kasin, 1979; Marks & Miller, 1987; Mullen & Hu, 1988), but rather to the social undesirability of social comparison behavior and the negative reactions to such behavior. As mentioned earlier, in the past several researchers have suggested that social desirability might decrease people's inclination to admit that they engaged in social comparison behavior, but few have assessed the role of social desirability perceptions of social comparison (see for instance, Helgeson & Taylor, 1993; Hemphill & Lehman, 1991; Van der Zee et al., 1996), and even fewer have examined perceptions of comparers who publicly claim their superiority over others. Hence the research reported in Chapter 3 is one of few to examine the possible obstacles to studying social comparison. The evidence for the social undesirability of (downward) social comparison could help explain why past researchers have frequently observed that their participants in social comparison research were reluctant to admit their own social comparison behavior (e.g., Helgeson & Taylor, 1993; Schoeneman, 1981; Schulz & Decker, 1985; Taylor et al., 1993; Wayment & Taylor, 1995; Wood et al., 1985; Van der Zee, 1996; Van der Zee et al., 1996). The evidence substantiates Brickman and Bulman (1977) and Wills' (1981) assertion that social comparison in general, and downward comparison in particular, is considered as socially undesirable. Moreover, such comparisons may also evoke negative feelings on the part of those who are considered as inferior to the individual who engages in down comparison.
Second, social comparison researchers should take into account participants' possible reticence to admit social comparisons which they might have employed to evaluate their own situation. To overcome their reluctance, it is advisable for researchers to provide participants in social comparison research with careful instructions about the questionnaire. These instructions might indicate, for instance, that most ordinary people from time to time compare how they are doing themselves with how other people similar to us are doing. See for example Taylor and Wayment, who tactfully told participants in their study that: "Sometimes when people are trying to assess their academic performance, they compare their own performance to other people around them" (Taylor & Wayment, 1995, p. 736; see also Helgeson & Taylor, 1993). Likewise, the instructions for answering the Iowa Netherlands Comparison Orientation Measure (Gibbons & Buunk, 1999) as employed in the current research stressed that most people compare themselves from time to time with others, and that there is nothing "good" or "bad" about social comparison (see Chapter 2 of this dissertation, page 29).
All in all, the experimental studies presented in the present thesis support the argument that the consequences of downward comparison amount to a mixed blessing. On the one hand, when someone engages in downward comparison, he or she may feel better about his or her own situation. In particular when a relationship partner is subject to relational discontent, downward comparison appears to alleviate his or her condition if that individual also possesses a strong personality disposition to engage in social comparison. However, the other side of the coin is that such an evaluation is made at the expense of other people who are worse-off. In other words, the evaluator profits by the social comparison activities because it may provide him or her with a superior status of someone who lives a relatively successful life, whereas the inferior comparison targets are in fact considered as individuals whose lives are less enjoyable and less successful. Self-enhancers especially, who engage in overt downward social comparison behavior seem to run a risk of offending others which, in turn, may turn the tide against the self-enhancers as those others develop an antipathy for the evaluator through which future social interaction could be frustrated.