Acquisition of Relative Performance Information

Abstract

This study investigated the joint impact of intrapersonal and interpersonal performance information on comparison bahavior. Subjects (elementary-school children) worked on a perceptual task and had the opportunity to look at their own and others' performance after each trial A 2 X 2 design was used in which (1) subjects' performance increased or decreased over trials, and (2) others' performance changed in the same direction but at a faster or slower rate. It was predicted and found that subjects whose performance increased looked equally often at superior and inferior others, whereas subjects whose performance decreased looked more often at inferior others. Also as expected, when subjects' performance decreased, their preference for inferior others was affected by the absolute difference between their own and others' scores. Implications of these findings for a related-attributes analysis of social comparison were discussed.