Interpersonal moderators of the effects of upward comparisons on ability judgments

In everyday life, the meaning—and thus the consequences—of social comparisons are shaped by the interpersonal relationship with the comparison target. In two studies, undergraduates described 1,863 naturally occurring upward social comparisons. Parti-cipants ascribed higher ability levels to themselves when they had an ongoing compe-tition or close (but not extremely close) relationship with the upward comparison target. Participants ascribed lower ability levels to distant and disliked targets (especially when their standing relative to a disliked target was personally important). Thus, per-ceived differences between the abilities of the self and the target were minimized when the target was disliked, moderately close, or a rival. These findings extend and qualify findings from laboratory studies of how upward comparisons affect ability judgments. An upward social comparison occurs when an individual notices how another person is superior to the self. Decades of research have demonstrated myriad positive and negative effects of upward comparisons (Brickman & Bullman, 1977). For example, upward comparisons tend to enhance comparers ’ self-evaluations when they construe themselves as like or capable of becoming like the upward comparison target but tend to undermine comparers ’ self-evaluations when they construe themselves as unlike or incapable of becoming like the upward comparison target (Collins, 1996; Lockwood & Kunda, 1997). As a result, upward comparisons are more likely to enhance self-evaluations when the comparison target is moderately rather than extremely superior to the self (Mussweiler, Ruter, & Epstude, 2004). Upward comparisons can also enhance or undermine performance. For example, comparing with a slightly superior performer while completing a task can be motivating and enhance performance (Seta, 1982), but comparing with a far superior performer while com-pleting a task one is invested in can be upsetting and undermine performance (Seta, Seta, & Donaldson, 1991). Likewise, research has found that students who choose to compare with slightly more successful classmates show improvements in academic perform