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Downward comparison principles in social psychology
Abstract
The literature of social psychology contains a number of phenomena that appear to be paradoxical. For example, persons who face a threatening experience prefer to affiliate with threatened others rather than with nonthreatened others (Schachter, 1959), and persons in groups in which reward is equally distributed are less satisfied compared with persons in groups that include one particularly unfortunate member (Brickman, 1975). The purpose of this article is to show that these phenomena are best construed as social comparison processes and that various phenomena derive from one basic process termed downward comparison; the essence of this process is that persons can enhance their own subjective well-being by comparing themselves with a less fortunate other. In this article I show that downward comparison is a process evoked by negative affect, that there is considerable evidence for self-enhancing comparison processes, and that downward comparison effects are involved in several areas of social-psycho logical research.
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“It has also been found that when individuals are exposed to social comparison information, they prefer to compare themselves with others who have performed worse on a salient dimension than with others who have performed better (see Wills, 1981, for a review).”
From The Causes and Consequences of a Need for Self-Esteem: A Terror Management Theory (1986) · cites this paper as Wills, 1981
In the citing paper
“When people have a vulnerable or easily threatened self-image, they generally respond with downward social comparisons (Taylor & Lobel, 1989;Wills, 1981).”
From The psychology of self-defense: Self-affirmation theory (2006) · cites this paper as Wills, 1981
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Metadata
- Authors
- Wills, T. A.
- Corresponding author
- Wills, Thomas A.
- ORCID
- Wills, Thomas A.
- Venue
- Psychological Bulletin
- Published
- 1981-09
- Volume
- 90
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 245-271
- ISSN
- 0033-2909 (ISSN-L)
- 1939-1455
- OpenAlex
- W2156796359
- Semantic Scholar
- 93e1ba7c88523e39e841218830a09828e97b5ffa
- Cited by
- 2,705
- References
- 97
- Citations by year
- 2026: 74 · 2025: 92 · 2024: 99 · 2023: 98 · 2022: 101 · 2021: 121 · 2020: 121 · 2019: 106 · 2018: 76 · 2017: 94 · 2016: 82 · 2015: 87 · 2014: 105 · 2013: 82 · 2012: 79
- FWCI
- 36.70
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Psychological Bulletin (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Emotions and Moral Behavior
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Psychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction
- Keywords
- downward social comparison, self-enhancement, subjective well-being, negative affect
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