The Importance of Social Versus Temporal Comparison Appraisals Among Older Adults1

It has been suggested that social comparisons become less frequent and less important to one’s self-evaluation, and temporal comparisons become more frequent and more important to self-evaluation in later life. In this study, the influence of social and temporal comparison appraisals on global self-ratings in 3 domains (health, income, and memory) was assessed among individuals ranging in age from 53 to 90 years. Although social comparison appraisals were significantly related to self-ratings in all 3 domains, temporal comparison appraisals were only related to self-rated memory. There was also no evidence that the effect of social or temporal comparison appraisals on self-evaluations differed with age among our sample of middle-aged and older adults. Social comparison appraisal appears to be a viable mechanism by which esteem can be preserved in old age, despite increasing loss and impairment. Heidrich and Ryff (1 993a, 1993b) have suggested that social comparison processes may be an important mechanism by which older adults report good health and a positive outlook, despite significant chronic illness and increasing loss and impairment. Nevertheless, research on social comparison processes among older adults has been quite limited. Suls and his colleagues (Suls & Mullen, 1982; Suls & Sanders, 1982) developed a life-span model of comparison processes, but the late-life stage of their model has received little empirical examination. According to Suls and his colleagues (Suls, 1986; Suls & Mullen, 1982), comparisons with similar others, dissimilar others, and the self at a different time in life (temporal comparisons) occur throughout the life span; however, the relative frequency of these comparisons and the influence of these comparisons on self-evaluations changes with age. Specifically, they suggest that old age is a time when temporal comparisons become relatively more frequent and more important to self-evaluations than social comparisons. They propose that this