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Social Comparison Transitivity

Bloom, Dorian L.

Abstract Details

2012, Master of Science (MS), Ohio University, Experimental Psychology (Arts and Sciences).
People strive to know themselves often using social comparison to gather much of this self-knowledge. Comparisons with others offer a useful playground of information about our own skill level. Social comparison transitivity refers to the use of information about a competitor’s other achievements to gauge one’s own ability. Three studies were included in this paper. In the pilot study, participants competed against another participant and learned who performed better on an ambiguous task. Afterwards, they also learned about how their competitor did against a third individual. In Study 1, a vignette was used to examine people’s capabilities at making transitive inferences using three football teams. Finally, Study 2 relied on a similar procedure to the pilot study but switched the order of the feedback so that participants found out about their competitor before competing against them. The studies revealed that the information about their competitor did have effects on their self-evaluation, and people did make transitive inferences from the social comparison information.
Mark Alicke (Advisor)

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Bloom, D. L. (2012). Social Comparison Transitivity [Master's thesis, Ohio University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1340036626

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Bloom, Dorian. Social Comparison Transitivity. 2012. Ohio University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1340036626.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Bloom, Dorian. "Social Comparison Transitivity." Master's thesis, Ohio University, 2012. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1340036626

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)