Social Comparison in High- and Low-Status Groups

Abstract

New Zealand Pakeha (of European descent) and Samoan schoolchildren were asked to name both positive and negative reference others on three dimensions provided by experimenters of their own sex and ethnic group membership. Subjects produced reference others after the standing of their group on either a socioeconomic or a cultural-linguistic dimension had been made salient in order to manipulate status. When a dimension on which their group had low status was made salient, children used group enhancement strategies of social comparison, making more positive references to the ingroup than the outgroup, and more negative references to the outgroup than the ingroup. When group status was high, Samoan children made equal numbers of positive and negative comparisons to the in- and outgroups whereas Pakeha children tended to restrict references to the membership group only. The making of intergroup comparisons favorable to the ingroup when status is low is consistent with research showing that such a pattern of comparisons enchances self-regard. The possibility that the informational rather than the evaluative function of comparison becomes more important when high status is salient is also discussed.

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