Which friend do you want to spend time with—a happy friend who performs better than you or an unhappy friend who performs worse than you? The present research demonstrates that in such conflicting situations, when the desires for companionship and comparison are pitted against each other, one’s level of happiness plays an important role in one’s choice. Using hypothetical scenarios, we found that compared with unhappy people, happy people expected that spending time with a happy, superior friend would be more pleasant than spending time with an unhappy, inferior friend (Studies 1B through 2) and were more willing to socialize with a happy, superior friend than with an unhappy, inferior friend (Studies 1B through 2). Moreover, this pattern was not explained by self-esteem (Study 2) or the similarity-attraction hypothesis (Study 3). The present findings suggest that happy people place more value on companionship than on comparison.
AbbeA.TkachC.LyubomirskyS. (2003). The art of living by dispositionally happy people. Journal of Happiness Studies, 4, 385-404.
2.
AhrensA. H.AlloyL. B. (1997). Social comparison processes in depression. In BuunkB. P.GibbonsF. X. (Eds.), Health, coping, and well-being (pp. 389-410). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
3.
AikenL. S.WestS. G. (1991). Multiple regression: Testing and interpreting interactions. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
4.
BaldassareM.RosenfieldS.RookK. S. (1984). The types of social relations predicting elderly well-being. Research on Aging, 6, 549-559.
5.
BerkmanL. E.SymeS. L. (1979). Social networks, host resistance, and mortality: A nine-year follow-up study of Alameda County residents. American Journal of Epidemiology, 109, 186-204.
6.
BlazerD. G. (1982). Social support and mortality in an elderly community population. American Journal of Epidemiology, 115, 684-694.
7.
BrickmanP.Janoff-BulmanR. J. (1977). Pleasure and pain in social comparison. In SulsJ. M.MillerR. L. (Eds.), Social comparison process: Theoretical and empirical perspectives (pp. 149-186). Washington, DC: Hemisphere.
8.
BrighamN. L.KelsoK. A.JacksonM. A.SmithR. H. (1997). The roles of invidious comparisons and deservingness in sympathy and schadenfreude. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 19, 363-380.
9.
BroadheadW. E.KaplanB. H.JamesS. A.WagnerE. H.SchoenbachV. J.CrimsonR.. . . GehlbachS. H. (1983). The epidemiologic evidence for a relationship between social support and health. American Journal of Epidemiology, 117, 521-537.
10.
BrothersL. (1990). The social brain: A project for integrating primate behavior and neurophysiology in a new domain. Concepts in Neuroscience, 1, 27-51.
11.
BusseriM. A.SadavaS. W. (2011). A review of the tripartite structure of subjective well-being: Implications for conceptualization, operationalization, analysis, and synthesis. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 15, 290-314.
12.
ByrneD. (1971). The attraction paradigm. New York, NY: Academic Press.
13.
CarlsonM.CharlinV.MillerN. (1988). Positive mood and helping behavior: A test of six hypotheses. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 55, 211-229.
14.
ChristakisN. A.FowlerJ. H. (2009). Connected: The surprising power of our social networks and how they shape our lives. New York, NY: Little, Brown.
15.
CohenS.WillsT. A. (1985). Stress, social support, and the buffering hypothesis. Psychological Bulletin, 98, 310-357.
16.
CrosbyF. (1976). A model of egoistical relative deprivation. Psychological Review, 83, 85-113.
17.
CrossleyA.LangdridgeD. (2005). Perceived sources of happiness: A network analysis. Journal of Happiness Studies, 6, 107-135.
18.
CuddyA. J. C.FiskeS. T.GlickP. (2007). The BIAS map: Behaviors from intergroup affect and stereotypes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92, 631-648.
DienerE.DienerM. (1995). Cross-cultural correlates of life satisfaction and self-esteem. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68, 653-663.
21.
DienerE.EmmonsR. A.LarsenR. J.GriffinS. (1985). The satisfaction with life scale. Journal of Personality Assessment, 49, 71-75.
22.
DienerE.SeligmanM. E. P. (2002). Very happy people. Psychological Science, 13, 81-84.
23.
DienerE.SuhE. M. (1999). National differences in subjective well-being. In KahnemanD.DienerE.SchwarzN. (Eds.), Well-being: The foundations of hedonic psychology (pp. 434-450). New York, NY: Russell Sage.
24.
DunbarR.ShultzS. (2007). Evolution in the social brain. Science, 317, 1344-1347.
25.
FiskeS. T.CuddyA. J. C.GlickP. (2007). Universal dimensions of social cognition: Warmth and competence. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 11, 77-83.
26.
FolgerR. (1987). Reformulating the preconditions of resentment: A referent cognitions model. In MastersJ. C.SmithW. P. (Eds.), Social comparison, social justice, and relative deprivation: Theoretical, empirical, and policy perspectives (pp. 183-215). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
27.
FowlerJ. H.ChristakisN. A. (2008). Dynamic spread of happiness in a large social network: Longitudinal analysis over 20 years in the Framingham Heart Study. British Medical Journal, 338, 1-13.
28.
GibbonsF. X. (1986). Social comparison and depression: Company’s effect on misery. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 140-148.
29.
GibbonsF. X.GerrardM. (1989). Effects of upward and downward social comparison on mood states. Journal of Social & Clinical Psychology, 8, 14-31.
30.
HullJ. G.TedlieJ. C.LehnD. A. (1992). Moderator variables in personality research: The problem of controlling for plausible alternatives. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 18, 115-117.
31.
KennedyS.Kiecolt-GlaserJ. K.GlaserR. (1990). Social support, stress, and the immune system. Wiley series on personality processes. In SarasonB. R.SarasonI. G.PierceG. R. (Eds.), Social support: An interactional view (pp. 253-266). Oxford, UK: John Wiley.
32.
KillingsworthM. A.GilbertD. T. (2010). A wandering mind is an unhappy mind. Science, 330, 932.
33.
LinleyP. A.MaltbyJ.WoodA. M.OsborneG.HurlingR. (2009). Measuring happiness: The higher order factor structure of subjective and psychological well-being measures. Personality and Individual Differences, 47, 878-884.
34.
LyubomirskyS. (2001). Why are some people happier than others? The role of cognitive and motivational processes in well-being. American Psychologist, 56, 239-249.
35.
LyubomirskyS.KingL.DienerE. (2005). The benefits of frequent positive affect: Does happiness lead to success?Psychological Bulletin, 131, 803-855.
36.
LyubomirskyS.LepperH. S. (1999). A measure of subjective happiness: Preliminary reliability and construct validation. Social Indicators Research, 46, 137-155.
37.
LyubomirskyS.RossL. (1997). Hedonic consequences of social comparison: A contrast of happy and unhappy people. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73, 1141-1157.
38.
MajorB.TestaM.BylsmaW. H. (1991). Responses to upward and downward social comparisons: The impact of esteem-relevance and perceived control. In SulsJ. M.WillsT. A. (Eds.), Social comparison: Contemporary theory and research (pp. 237-260). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
39.
MazzellaF.CacciatoreF.GaliziaG.Della-MorteD.RossettiM.AbbruzzeseR.. . . AbeteP. (2010). Social support and long-term mortality in the elderly: Role of comorbidity. Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics, 51, 323-328.
40.
MontoyaR. M.HortonR. S. (2004). On the importance of cognitive evaluation as a determinant of interpersonal attraction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 86, 696-712.
41.
MyersD. G. (2000). The funds, friends, and faith of happy people. American Psychologist, 55, 56-67.
42.
RosenbergM. (1965). Society and the adolescent self-image. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
43.
SeemanT. E. (1996). Social ties and health: The benefits of social integration. Annals of Epidemiology, 6, 442-451.
44.
SulS.KimJ.ChoiI. (2013). Subjective well-being and hedonic editing: How happy people maximize joint outcomes of loss and gain. Journal of Happiness Studies, 14, 1409-1430.
45.
SwallowS. R.KuiperN. A. (1992). Mild depression and frequency of social comparison behavior. Journal of Social & Clinical Psychology, 11, 167-180.
46.
TesserA. (1991). Emotion in social comparison and reflection processes. In SulsJ. M.WillsT. A. (Eds.), Social comparison: Contemporary theory and research (pp. 115-145). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
47.
TesserA.MillarM.MooreJ. (1988). Some affective consequences of social comparison and reflection processes: The pain and pleasure of being close. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 49-61.
48.
ThoitsP. A. (1986). Social support as coping assistance. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 54, 416-423.
49.
ThrashT. M.ElliotA. J.MaruskinL. A.CassidyS. E. (2010). Inspiration and the promotion of well-being: Tests of causality and mediation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98, 488-506.
50.
ViechtbauerW. (2010). Conducting meta-analyses in R with the metafor package. Journal of Statistical Software, 36, 1-48.
51.
WallstonB. S.AlagnaS. W.DeVellisB. M.DeVellisR. F. (1983). Social support and physical health. Health Psychology, 2, 367-391.
52.
WatsonD.ClarkL. A.TellegenA. (1988). Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 1063-1070.
53.
WegenerD. T.PettyR. E. (1994). Mood management across affective states: The hedonic contingency hypothesis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 1034-1048.
54.
WethingtonE.KesslerR. C. (1986). Perceived support, received support, and adjustment to stressful life events. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 27, 78-89.
55.
WheelerL.MiyakeK. (1992). Social comparison in everyday life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62, 760-773.
56.
WillsT. A. (1981). Downward comparison principles in social psychology. Psychological Bulletin, 90, 245-271.
57.
YzerbytV. Y.MullerD.JuddC. M. (2004). Adjusting researchers’ approach to adjustment: On the use of covariates when testing interactions. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 40, 424-431.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
