On Being Exposed to Superior Others: Consequences of Self-Threatening Upward Social Comparisons

Being inferior to someone else can be hurtful. But what exactly happens when we found ourselves in such situations? We first address why and when upward comparison can be self-threatening and later review the effects of such threatening social comparison. We argue that two main kinds of disturbances can ensue: affective disturbances and attentional disturbances. Second, three ways to deal with self-threatening social comparison are reviewed: proactive regulation, defensive regulation, and regulation by avoidance. For each of these disturbances and regulation modes, we review empirical findings and later discuss the impact of upward comparison on performance. We conclude by going back to the very need behind the need for a positive evaluation. Standards are all around us. It is difficult, if not impossible, to spend a day without running into standards of all sorts. Often these standards are other people’s achievements and we hear about them from our friends, at work, on TV, and so on. All these standards suggest what we should be and often make us feel bad about ourselves. Here, we deal with what happens when the person with whom we compare is better than we are. Frequently, this comparison other is used as a standard and the question becomes what happens when we fall short at reaching our standards? In other words, what happens when we compare upward, that is, with someone who is better than we are? First, we will see when and why such upward (social) comparison represents a threat to self-integrity. Second, and focusing on situations representing a self-threat, we present a distinction between the disturbances created by this self-threat and the regulation that takes place to cope with it.