The culture of social comparison.

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  • Author(s): Baldwin M;Baldwin M;Baldwin M; Mussweiler T; Mussweiler T
  • Source:
    Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America [Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A] 2018 Sep 25; Vol. 115 (39), pp. E9067-E9074. Date of Electronic Publication: 2018 Sep 10.
  • Publication Type:
    Comparative Study; Journal Article
  • Language:
    English
  • Additional Information
    • Source:
      Publisher: National Academy of Sciences Country of Publication: United States NLM ID: 7505876 Publication Model: Print-Electronic Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1091-6490 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 00278424 NLM ISO Abbreviation: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A Subsets: MEDLINE
    • Publication Information:
      Original Publication: Washington, DC : National Academy of Sciences
    • Subject Terms:
      Cognition* ; Culture* ; Emotions* ; Social Behavior* ; Social Support* ; Web Browser*; Humans ; United States
    • Abstract:
      Social comparison is one of the most ubiquitous features of human social life. This fundamental human tendency to look to others for information about how to think, feel, and behave has provided us with the ability to thrive in a highly complex and interconnected modern social world. Despite its prominent role, however, a detailed understanding of the cultural foundations of social comparison is lacking. The current research aims to fill this gap by showing that two prominent cultural dimensions, tightness-looseness and individualism-collectivism, uniquely explain variation in social-comparison proclivity across individuals, situations, and cultures. We first demonstrate the yet-undocumented link between cultural tightness and comparison proclivity across individuals, and further show that perceptions of ambient tightness and interdependence are uniquely associated with stronger social-comparison tendencies. Next, we show that these associations arise across social settings and can be attributed to properties of the settings themselves, not solely to individual differences. Finally, we show that both tight and collectivistic US states show a propensity to engage in Google searches related to specific social-comparison emotions, but that the tightness-comparison link arises from a unique psychological mechanism. Altogether, these findings show that social comparison-a fundamental aspect of human cognition-is linked to cultural practices based both in prevalence and strength of social norms as well as the tendency to construe the self in relation to others.
      Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
      (Copyright © 2018 the Author(s). Published by PNAS.)
    • Comments:
      Erratum in: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2018 Oct 23;115(43):E10285. (PMID: 30322912)
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    • Contributed Indexing:
      Keywords: big data; culture; individualism–collectivism; social comparison; tightness–looseness
    • Publication Date:
      Date Created: 20180912 Date Completed: 20181016 Latest Revision: 20181114
    • Publication Date:
      20240628
    • Accession Number:
      PMC6166806
    • Accession Number:
      10.1073/pnas.1721555115
    • Accession Number:
      30201717