Tom Pyszczynski

Social comparison after success and failure: Biased search for information consistent with a self-serving conclusion

Abstract Based on the traditional and attributional perspectives on social comparison, it was hypothesized that the search for social comparison information after performance outcomes is biased so as to provide evidence consistent with a favorable self-evaluation. In Experiment 1, subjects were led to believe that they obtained 16 or 8 out of 20 items correct on a bogus social sensitivity test and were then led to expect that most other students performed either well or poorly on the test. They were then given the opportunity to inspect up to 50 scored answer sheets from previous subjects. Consistent with the hypothesis, failure subjects requested more information when they expected it to reveal that most students performed poorly than when they expected it to reveal that most students performed well; success subjects showed little interest in this additional information, regardless of their expectancies as to what it would reveal. Experiment 2 employed a different approach to manipulating performance outcomes and led subjects to expect that most other subjects performed better, the same, or worse than themselves. Regardless of their own performance, subjects showed the least interest in additional information in the higher score expectancy condition and the most interest in additional information in the lower score expectancy condition. The role that this information search bias may play in producing self-serving attributions for success and failure and maintaining positive self-evaluations was discussed.

Persistent high self-focus after failure and low self-focus after success: The depressive self-focusing style.

Two studies were conducted to assess the spontaneous self-focusing tendencies of depressed and nondepressed individuals after success and failure. Based on a self-regulatory perseveration theory of depression, it was expected that depressed individuals would be especially high in self-focus after failure and low in self-focus after success. The results of Experiment 1 suggested that immediately after an outcome, both depressed and nondepressed individuals are more self-focused after failure than after success. This finding led us to hypothesize that differences between depressed and nondepressed individuals in self-focus following success and failure emerge over time. Specifically, immediately following an outcome, both types of individuals self-focus more after failure because of self-regulatory concerns. However, over time, depressed individuals persist in higher levels of self-focus after failure than after success, whereas nondepressed individuals shift to the opposite, more hedonically beneficial pattern. The results of Experiment 2 provided clear support for these hypotheses. Theoretical implications of these results were discussed.

Depression and Preference for Self-Focusing Stimuli After Success and Failure

Depressed individuals, who tend to have large perceived-self/ideal-self discrepancies, have been shown to be particularly high in private self-consciousness. On the bases of this finding and of several converging theoretical perspectives, we hypothesized that depressives, unlike nondepressives, do not find self-focus more aversive after failure than after success, and thus either (a) show no differential preference for self-focusing stimuli after success versus after failure (weak hypothesis), or (b) prefer self-focusing stimuli after failure over self-focusing stimuli after success (strong hypothesis). Depressed and nondepressed college students succeeded or failed on a supposed test of verbal intelligence, and then worked on two sets of puzzles, one in the presence and one in the absence of a self-focusing stimulus (mirror). Whereas nondepressed subjects liked the mirror-associated puzzle more after success than after failure, depressed subjects did not; depressed subjects tended to like the mirror-associated puzzle more after failure than after success. Nondepressed subjects also exhibited a self-serving pattern of attributions, viewing the test as less valid and luck as more responsible for their performance after failure than after success; depressed subjects showed no such differences. In consistency with their failure to use defensive strategies, depressed subjects showed a decrease in self-esteem after failure; nondepressed subjects showed no such change.

Maintaining Consistency between Self-Serving Beliefs and Available Data: A Bias in Information Evaluation

It was hypothesized that individuals evaluate data relevant to outcome attributions in a manner that enables them to maintain logical consistency between the available evidence and their self-serving attributions for the outcome. Subjects were led to succeed or fail on a bogus social sensitivity test and then were given information concerning two studies, one of which concluded that the test was valid and the other that the test was not valid. As predicted, success subjects evaluated the high-validity conclusion study more favorably and the low-validity conclusion study less favorably than did failure subjects. Furthermore, exposure to the mixed evidence after the performance feedback led to increased selt-ratings of social sensitivity among success subjects, but had no effect on failure subjects. The implications of these results for understanding how individuals generate and maintain self-serving beliefs were discussed.

The effect of an overheard ethnic slur on evaluations of the target: How to spread a social disease

Abstract An experiment was conducted to assess the effects of an ethnic slur on evaluations of a targeted minority group member by those who overheard the slur. White subjects plus four confederates participated in a study ostensibly concerned with debating skills. Two of the confederates, one of whom was black, were always picked to engage in a debate which the others were to evaluate. The black debator either won or lost the debate. After the debate, one confederate-evaluator criticized the black in a manner that either did or did not involve an ethnic slur; in a control condition, no such comment was made. Based on the notion that ethnic slurs activate negative schemata regarding members of the targeted minority group, it was predicted that when the black debator lost the debate, the ethnic slur would lead to lower evaluations of his skill. This hypothesis was supported. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings were discussed.

Evidence for a depressive self-focusing style

Abstract An experiment was conducted to assess the possibility that depressed persons have a unique self-focusing style in which they increase their level of self-focus after failures and decrease their level of self-focus after successes. Nondepressed and mildly depressed college students were randomly assigned to succeed or fail on a supposed test of verbal abilities or to a no-outcome control group that did not take the test. Subjects were then taken to a second room and given 10 min to work on two sets of puzzles, one of which was positioned in front of a large mirror. As in previous research on self-focus, the amount of time spent in front of the mirror was taken as a measure of aversion to self-focus. As predicted, depressed success subjects spent significantly less time in front of the mirror than did depressed control, depressed failure, or nondepressed success subjects. The time spent in front of the mirror by nondepressed subjects, however, was apparently unaffected by their performance outcomes. Implications of this depressive self-focusing style for the esteem, attributions, affect, motivation, and performance of depressed persons were discussed.

Social anxiety and anticipation of future interaction as determinants of the favorability of self-presentation

Abstract Based on a self-presentational approach to social anxiety, it was hypothesized that (1) low social anxiety individuals respond to the expectation of further personal interaction with another person by increasing the favorability of their self-presentations; (2) high social anxiety individuals do not increase the favorability of their self-presentations when they expect further interaction, and (3) positive evaluations from an interaction partner tend to reduce differences between low and high social anxiety individuals. To test these hypotheses, individuals previously determined to be either low or high in dispositional social anxiety were asked to write 10 self-descriptive statements to be passed to an opposite sex partner, with whom the subjects either would or would not engage in further personal interaction. Prior to writing the self-descriptions, subjects were given either positive or neutral evaluations, supposedly written by the other person. The results supported the first two, but not the third, hypotheses. The implications of these findings for a self-presentational model of social anxiety were discussed.