Effects Of Social Comparisons On Aggressive Behaviors:Roles Of Self-efficacy And Self-affirmation

Social comparison is a universal social psychological phenomenon,which is inevitable in our daily life since it has a significant impact on people’s psychological activities and behaviors.As demonstrated in previous researches,the studies of social comparison mostly focus on their impact on individuals’ level,such as self-concept,self-esteem or how they perform on a given task after having compared themselves to superior or inferior targets.However,social comparison as a way of interpersonal interaction,a gap in the literature exists concerning the intrapersonal consequences of social comparison,especially the aggressive behavior responses of individuals after social comparison.Therefore,this paper conducted two studies of three experiments to investigate whether different directions of social comparison would act on aggression,and to explore the underlying mechanism of the process and intervention measures,based on theoretically analyzing and practical studying.Experiment 1 in the first study investigated the effects of social comparison on aggressive behavior by analyzing how the feedback of a fictional intelligence test score ranking manipulate the social comparison direction.Experiment 1 in the first study mainly investigated how and in what conditions social comparison will influence aggression,and what is the role of self-efficacy and social comparison orientation in this process.On the basis of study one,study two investigated whether self-affirmation has a significant influence on implicit aggression in the context of different social comparison through self-affirmation operation.The results showed that:(1)The different directions of social comparison had a significant influence on aggressive behaviors.In particular,compared with the downward social comparison group and control group,upward social comparison would promote proactive aggression and reactive aggression.(2)Self-efficacy played a mediation role in the process where social comparison had an effect on aggression.That is,compared with the downward social comparison group and control group,upward social comparison would reduce the self-efficacy,and then promote people’s proactive aggression and reactive aggression.(3)The effect of self-efficacy on proactive aggression was moderated by social comparison orientation.For college students with high social comparison orientation,self-efficacy played a partial mediating role in the relationship between social comparison and proactive aggression.But for college students with low social comparison orientation,the mediating effect of self-efficacy was not significant.Social comparison had a direct impact on proactive aggression.(4)Self-affirmation played a role in the process where social comparison had an effect on implicit aggression tendency.There is no significant difference between implicit aggression tendency under upward comparison condition and the downward comparison condition for the Self-affirmation group;The subjects under upward comparison condition have higher implicit aggression tendency for the nonself-affirmation group.(5)Self-affirmation played a role in the process where social comparison had an effect on self-efficacy.There is no significant difference between self-efficacy under upward comparison condition and the downward comparison condition for the Self-affirmation group;The subjects under upward comparison condition have lower self-efficacy for the nonself-affirmation group.(6)In the context of upward social comparison,the impact of self-affirmation on implicit aggression tendency was mediated by self-efficacy,while this mechanism didn’t exist in the context of downward social comparison.In conclusion,social comparison would predict the occurrence of aggressive behavior mainly through self-efficacy,which was moderated by social comparison orientation.Self-affirmation group would enhance their self-efficacy and then buffer the impact of upward social comparison on aggression.The results not only would expand and enrich correlational research,but also it had important implications for reducing the incidence of aggressive behavior.