The Local Dominance Effect in Self-Evaluation: Evidence and Explanations

Abstract: The local dominance effect is the tendency for comparisons with a few, discrete individuals to have a greater influence on self-assessments than comparisons with larger aggregates. This review presents a series of recent studies that demonstrate the local dominance effect. The authors offer two primary explanations for the effect and consider alternatives including social categorization and the abstract versus concrete nature of local versus general comparisons. They then discuss moderators of the effect including physical proximity and self-enhancement. Finally, the theoretical and practical implications of the effect are discussed and potential future directions in this research line are proposed. Article: Personal identity is forged from many sources including autobiographical memory, performance outcomes, social feedback, fantasy and imagination, and group affiliations. Certain aspects of identity can be analyzed exclusively with reference to objective data. For example, people who wish to know how fast they can run, what kind of math problems they can solve, or whether they can follow a difficult cooking recipe have simply to perform the task and observe the consequences. However, this type of identity analysis, which we call "instrumental selfanalysis," is mute about the characteristics that underlie these feats such as athleticism, mathematical acumen, and culinary prowess. Assessing personal characteristics requires comparing one's actions, emotions, states, and outcomes with those of other people-what we call "social self-analysis." In psychology, the study of social self-analysis has been almost exclusively the province of social comparison theory The Current State of the Art Another modification of Festinger's early perspective applies to the scope of social comparisons. The pervasiveness of social comparison is further exhibited in the discovery of implicit or automatic social comparison processes. Research on this topic has shown that exposing participants subliminally to a social comparison standard alters self-evaluations. For example, research participants subliminally primed with Albert Einstein later rated their intelligence less favorably than those primed with a clown Social Comparison in Context The current state of social comparison, therefore, is in the somewhat ironic position of having confirmed and extended Festinger's faith in the importance and pervasiveness of social comparison by disconfirming some of his basic assumptions. The theoretical perspective and supportive research that we present in this article are in the same boat: We argue that Festinger ignored an essential component of social comparison but turned out to be essentially correct in his inadvertence. Following Festinger's lead, social comparison research has predominantly focused on the impact of individual comparisons on self-assessment, such as how people respond when they compare themselves to their best friends We order these comparisons on a hierarchy extending from relatively general to relatively local. Local comparison refers to discrete feedback types at the top of the hierarchy, including comparisons with friends and classmates. General comparison refers to aggregate feedback types at the bottom of the hierarchy, including comparisons with larger collectives such as the average student at one's school or the average test taker in the broader population. It is important to emphasize that these are relative rather than absolute designations. In other words, the localgeneral distinction occurs along a continuum on which some feedback types are more local (or more general) than others. For example, comparisons with other students in the same class are more local than comparisons with most students in the general population but less local than comparisons with a small group of close friends. Local Dominance in Self-Evaluation Our central thesis is that when multiple comparison standards are available for self-evaluation, people rely on the most local comparison information while deemphasizing more general, and typically more diagnostic, forms of comparison feedback. This tendency is referred to as the local dominance effect According to the local dominance hypothesis, local comparisons have a greater self-evaluative impact than more general comparisons Two primary rationales underlie the local dominance prediction. The first reason for expecting local dominance derives from the fact that people evolved in small groups and tend, even in present times, to maintain close associations with a relatively small group of peers and associates Furthermore, instant access to general comparison information is a modern innovation. For most of human history, people's knowledge was confined to events that occurred in their local communities. Even now, with access to television and the World Wide Web, people live, work, and associate with local group members on a daily basis. It makes sense, therefore, that people's evaluations and emotions would be more influenced by how they fare in relation to a small group of peers than in comparison to a large aggregate of distant strangers. Finally, according to optimal distinctiveness theory The second main reason for predicting local dominance derives from habitual exposure to peer comparisons during development. Children generally grow up in small families and interact with a limited group of peers when they attend school. Early in life, therefore, they learn to evaluate themselves with reference to a small group of peers. This tendency to make local comparisons is reinforced in adolescence and adulthood where competition for mates, jobs, and other emotional and material rewards takes place primarily with others in the immediate environment. Consistent with this argument, human development research shows that early experiences with local groups of peers and siblings have far-reaching and long-lasting consequences. For example, peer group status is related to various important outcomes during childhood including academic performance The Frog-Pond Effect Outside of families, schools may be the most persistent source of social comparison opportunities for children, adolescents, and young adults. Schools are a convenient laboratory for studying social comparison effects because students commonly compare their test scores, grade point average, and other educational outcomes with those of their schoolmates. Also, instructors frequently make available the entire distribution of scores for students to use for comparison following examinations. Consistent with the local dominance hypothesis, research suggests that perceptions of academic competence are largely derived through social comparisons with peers in the local environment Substantial evidence supports the dominant role of local comparison information in academic self-evaluations. For example, a robust negative relationship between school quality and academic self-concept is consistently obtained after controlling for student academic ability The frog-pond effect is reliable and pervasive Several studies provide evidence that local comparisons with classmates directly contribute to the frog-pond effect. For example, the effect is especially pronounced among students who care more about their status within local groups than the status of their groups in comparison to other groups Other work distinguishes the influence of local comparisons from other, more general forms of self-relevant information. For example, the frog-pond effect has been conceptualized as the net result of two opposing comparisons: the contrastive effect of within-school (i.e., local) comparisons with schoolmates and the assimilative effect of between-school (i.e., general) comparisons that indicate overall school quality Finally, recent evidence directly implicates the mediating role of local comparisons with classmates in producing the frog-pond effect Altogether, research on the frog-pond effect suggests that local comparisons with peers in the immediate environment play a vital role in self-assessment Individual Versus Aggregate Comparison As we noted at the outset, social comparison theory and research have traditionally focused on comparisons between the self and one other salient person. This is a sensible approach given that people frequently compare themselves to individual targets such as their best friend, office mate, neighbor, or romantic partner According to the local dominance perspective, people will rely more on comparisons with individuated targets such as fellow students than with aggregate targets such as the average score in a class for self-evaluation. In the first set of studies that explored these predictions Intergroup Versus Intragroup Comparison A recent series of experiments testing the relative impact of intergroup versus intragroup social comparison also supports the local dominance hypothesis A follow-up study Three Feedback Sources Prior experiments on the local dominance issue have pitted two feedback sources, one local and one general, against each other Supportive evidence for this prediction has recently been obtained (Zell & Alicke, 2009, Study 3). Participants completed a verbal reasoning task and received manipulated feedback about their performance. Three feedback sources were provided in different combinations, ranging from most local to most general: whether participants ranked best or worst in a local group (most local), how well they performed in relation to nearly 1,500 previous test takers at their school (intermediate), and how well their school as a whole performed in relation to other schools (most general). Some participants received all three types of feedback, some received two, and some received only one. Consistent with the local dominance hypothesis, participants in each condition used the most local comparison information available for self-evaluation. For example, participants who received all three feedback sources used only the local comparison information indicating their status in the small group, while neglecting intermediate or general information indicating their status in relation to a large sample or the status of their school versus other schools. Participants who received two feedback sources also used the more local information. Finally, the three feedback types each exerted comparable effects when provided alone. These findings suggest that people base their self-evaluations on the most local information that is available to them. Because information regarding one or a few comparison targets always has this advantage, it dominates self-evaluations when it is available. Comparing Objectively Defined Performance Levels Applied research shows that reliance on local comparisons with classmates ultimately leads good students at average schools to evaluate themselves more favorably than bad students at prestigious schools, after controlling for student academic ability A recent experiment tested whether high-ranking members of low-quality groups evaluate themselves more favorably than low-ranking members of high-quality groups, even when the former have a lower objective performance level Consistent with the local dominance hypothesis, participants evaluated their test performance and overall lie detection ability more favorably when they ranked best in their five-person group but sixth overall than worst in their five-person group but fifth overall. In these conditions, therefore, participants' overreliance on local comparison information led them to evaluate themselves more favorably when they ranked sixth than fifth. These findings indicate that the local dominance effect arises even when good members of bad groups have a lower objective rank than bad members of good groups. Furthermore, comparisons with the control conditions (being first or last in a local group versus being fifth or sixth overall) show that the exact same performance level has very different selfevaluative consequences depending on whether it is linked to a local group or a larger collective. This finding provides a very simple and compelling demonstration of how association with even a minimal local group overrides the influence of the individual's position in the larger group. In this case, as opposed to other studies we have conducted, the comparison was between a local group of five and a general group of ten; thus, the local dominance effect does not require a large difference between the size of the local and general groups, and it is not confined to circumstances in which the general group is extremely large and abstract. Potentially Conflicting Evidence A few studies have reported findings that ostensibly conflict with the local dominance hypothesis. For example, one study tested the impact of individual (i.e., single other) and aggregate (i.e., average other) social comparisons on self-evaluations, affect, and helping behavior (Klein, 2003, Study 2). Participants completed a bogus verbal ability task and were then told that they performed better or worse than a confederate or better or worse than the average student who had taken the same test. Participants evaluated their performance more favorably, reported greater positive affect, and were more helpful toward another participant after receiving positive than negative feedback. However, the magnitude of these effects was larger in the aggregate than in the individual social comparison conditions. Similar findings were reported in a recent set of applied social comparison studies (Locke, 2007, Studies 2 and 3). Participants thought about social comparisons that had occurred recently in their daily lives, indicated whether these comparisons were with an individual target (personalized comparison) or with most people in general (generalized comparison), and then reported how strongly these comparisons influenced their overall mood when they occurred. Results indicated that comparisons with generalized targets were reported to have a greater impact on overall mood than comparisons with individual targets, particularly when these comparisons were with better-off peers. Altogether, recent work indicates that general comparisons may have a somewhat stronger effect on various outcomes than local comparisons when these standards are considered alone However, these conflicting findings are also broadly consistent with the local dominance perspective because they show that local dominance is not the result of people simply dismissing or failing to comprehend large sample statistics (see the Perceived Usefulness section below for more on this point). When people receive local and general comparisons in isolation, general comparisons have larger effects To our knowledge, there is only one study in which participants received both local and general comparison standards that ostensibly conflicts with the local dominance hypothesis (Muller & Butera, 2007, Study 4). Some participants in this study were told that their performance on a visual attention task was worse than that of one coactor but "really good" in comparison to a larger sample. Alternatively, other participants learned only that their task performance was worse than that of one coactor. Participants told that they performed worse than the coactor, but well in relation to a larger sample, evaluated their task performance more favorably than those who were told only that they did worse than the coactor. Although these findings suggest that favorable aggregate comparisons can soften the blow of painful local comparison experiences, they are not directly concerned with the relative impact of local and general comparisons on selfevaluations. POTENTIAL ALTERNATVE EXPLANATIONS We believe that the local dominance effect derives largely from the habitual experience of making social comparisons in small groups such as those that occur early in development among family members, schoolmates, and friends. These comparisons are salient and emotionally impactful. Anecdotally, at least, it seems that family-and peer-based comparisons continue to exert a disproportionate influence on self-evaluations long after people have had the opportunity to make more diagnostic comparisons in larger groups. The common experience of being in someone else's "shadow," such as a child or sibling who is constantly evaluated in light of a more successful family member, exemplifies this phenomenon. However, there are obvious and not so obvious alternatives to this explanation. Actually, these alternatives would not necessarily contradict the assumption that early local comparison opportunities (extending even to our evolutionary heritage) affect the later tendency to rely on them; they could be considered potential moderators that identify boundary conditions for the effect. We divide the following discussion into potential alternative explanations and moderators based on the distinction that some of the factors have not been shown to influence local dominance (alternative explanations), whereas some support has been identified for others (moderators). Collective and Individual Selves In many of the studies we have conducted on the local-general comparison issue An experiment conducted to test this alternative explanation defined both local and general comparison standards with reference to the individual self (Zell & Alicke, 2009, Study 4). In this study, participants completed the same verbal reasoning task but this time were told that they ranked best or worst in a small group of five other participants in the current experimental session (i.e., local comparison) and that they ranked better or worse than more than 1,000 students at their school who had previously participated in the experiment (i.e., general comparison). In this case, both the local and general comparison targets were from the same population, specifically, other students at the participant's university. Consistent with the local dominance hypothesis, ranking best or worst in the local group had a greater impact on selfassessments and mood than ranking better or worse than more than 1,000 previous participants. Furthermore, although the general comparison feedback had a substantial impact on selfevaluations and mood when participants were provided solely with this information, the influence of general comparison information plummeted when it was provided simultaneously with local comparison information. Finally, a focused contrast showed that participants, somewhat ironically, evaluated themselves more favorably, and reported greater positive affect, when they ranked best in the local group but at the 32nd percentile as opposed to worst in the local group but at the 84th percentile. This study shows that the local dominance effect obtains even when both local and general comparison standards implicate the performance of the individual self. These findings suggest that the dominance of local over general comparisons is not confined to circumstances in which the local comparison is directed toward the individual self and the general comparison toward the collective self. In addition, these findings extend past work Perceived Usefulness A simple and straightforward explanation for the local dominance effect is that people fail to recognize the superior diagnostic value of general comparisons. According to this argument, people rely mainly on local comparisons for self-assessment because they believe, erroneously, that local comparisons are more useful, diagnostic, and informative than information from larger samples. A recent study tested this possibility (Zell & Alicke, 2009, Study 5). Participants completed a verbal task in small groups of five and were then asked whether they would prefer local comparison feedback indicating how well they performed in relation to their group or general comparison feedback indicating how well they performed in relation to 1,500 previous participants. Participants also rated the usefulness of each of these feedback sources for evaluating their overall performance and ability. About 80% of the participants preferred general comparison feedback, and general comparisons were rated as substantially more useful than local comparisons for self-evaluation. Thus, participants clearly recognize the superior diagnostic value of large-sample statistics, but they nevertheless rely on local comparison information for self-evaluation when it is available. Information Abstractness or Concreteness The standards that people use for self-evaluation and social judgment can vary in terms of their concreteness versus abstractness. Although local comparisons with one or a few specific peers are concrete, comparisons with generalized targets such as the average person are more abstract. Past work indicates that abstract information tends to be neglected in social judgment in favor of less diagnostic but more concrete information However, a recent experiment challenges this explanatio

The motivation to maintain favorable identities

Findings from research on self-enhancement and self-protection are generally understood to provide evidence for “motivated bias.” Despite their ubiquity, the meaning of “motivation,” “bias,” and “motivated bias” are usually left to intuition. In this article, we clarify the meaning of these terms as they apply to constructing and maintaining desired self-views. We argue that preserving psychological homeostasis (i.e., emotional equilibrium) is as important as preserving biological homeostasis, and indeed, that psychological and biological homeostasis are two aspects of one overarching balancing principle. We argue further that, although maintaining a favorable identity can sometimes lead to errors from normative models, the bias toward sustaining psychological homeostasis is just as adaptive as the bias toward sustaining a properly functioning physiology

Referent Status Neglect: Winners Evaluate Themselves Favorably Even When the Competitor is Incompetent

Abstract: People evaluate themselves more favorably when they outperform a referent (downward comparison) than when they underperform a referent (upward comparison). However, research has yet to examine whether people are sensitive to the status of the referent during social comparison. That is, does defeating a highly skilled referent yield more favorable selfevaluations than defeating an unskilled referent? Does losing to an unskilled referent yield less favorable self-evaluations than losing to a skilled referent? To address these questions, participants learned that they performed better or worse than another person (social comparison) who ranked above average or below average (referent status). Social comparison information had a more pronounced influence on self-evaluations than referent status information. Furthermore, consistent with self-enhancement theories, participants selectively highlighted referent status information when it had favorable implications for the self. These findings demonstrate that people neglect referent status information, leading winners to evaluate themselves favorably even when the competitor is incompetent. Keywords: Social comparison | Self-evaluation | Self-perception | Social judgement Article