Prepare to Compare: Effects of an Intervention Involving Upward and Downward Social Comparisons on Goal Pursuit in Daily Life
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in: Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30.01.2024.
Publikation: Beiträge in Zeitschriften › Zeitschriftenaufsätze › Forschung › begutachtet
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Prepare to Compare
T2 - Effects of an Intervention Involving Upward and Downward Social Comparisons on Goal Pursuit in Daily Life
AU - Diel, Kathi
AU - Hofmann, Wilhelm
AU - Grelle, Sonja
AU - Boecker, Lea
AU - Friese, Malte
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2024 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.
PY - 2024/1/30
Y1 - 2024/1/30
N2 - In a preregistered ecological momentary intervention study, we alternately instructed participants to adopt an upward and downward comparison focus. In all, 349 participants reported 8,137 social comparison situations across 6 days and three comparison conditions (baseline, upward, downward). For each comparison, participants reported social comparison direction, motivation, effort intentions, and emotions in five daily reports and one daily end-of-day summary. As predicted, an upward comparison focus resulted in more self-improvement motivation (pushing) and more negative emotions, whereas days with a downward comparison focus resulted in decreased motivation (coasting) but more positive emotions (vs. baseline). However, at the end of the day, people experienced lower goal approach on upward but higher goal approach on downward comparison days. Hence, engaging in strategic upward comparison was motivating in the short term but resulted in surprisingly opposite effects at the end of the day. We offer possible explanations from cognitive and motivational perspectives.
AB - In a preregistered ecological momentary intervention study, we alternately instructed participants to adopt an upward and downward comparison focus. In all, 349 participants reported 8,137 social comparison situations across 6 days and three comparison conditions (baseline, upward, downward). For each comparison, participants reported social comparison direction, motivation, effort intentions, and emotions in five daily reports and one daily end-of-day summary. As predicted, an upward comparison focus resulted in more self-improvement motivation (pushing) and more negative emotions, whereas days with a downward comparison focus resulted in decreased motivation (coasting) but more positive emotions (vs. baseline). However, at the end of the day, people experienced lower goal approach on upward but higher goal approach on downward comparison days. Hence, engaging in strategic upward comparison was motivating in the short term but resulted in surprisingly opposite effects at the end of the day. We offer possible explanations from cognitive and motivational perspectives.
KW - emotions
KW - goals
KW - intervention
KW - motivation
KW - social comparison
KW - Psychology
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85183862807&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/89c27d71-62c1-33d5-a527-e10b31183f31/
U2 - 10.1177/01461672231219378
DO - 10.1177/01461672231219378
M3 - Journal articles
C2 - 38288955
AN - SCOPUS:85183862807
JO - Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
JF - Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
SN - 0146-1672
ER -