Social comparison refers to self-evaluation against other people. When people are outperformed by peers in a domain relevant (irrelevant) to them, it negatively (positively) affects how they evaluate themselves, compared to an irrelevant (relevant) domain. Whether a domain is self-relevant or self-irrelevant, the comparison direction and closeness should interact on how people evaluate themselves. Taiwanese undergraduates (N = 276) ages 19 to 22 years (M = 20.5, SD = 1.8), participated to assess whether the results from Western samples would be similar to those in an Asian sample, which were expected to be more collectivist.
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