The Impact Of Mindsets On Self-evaluation In Social Comparison

Social comparison was an important way to know and evaluate ourselves. Early studies on social comparison effects showed that there were two opposite processes in social comparison: contrastive and assimilative, so it resulted two effects of self-evaluation: contrast effect and assimilation effect. When one met social comparison information, not only one could make contrastive comparison and resulted contrast effect, but also could make assimilative comparison and resulted assimilation effect. What critically determined the outcome of comparative evaluation? We argued the role of mindsets. Whether an"interpretation"or"differentiation"set was activated during social comparison importunately determined the direction of the outcome of comparative evaluation. In this paper, the review was presented on the meaning of self-evaluation and the current research situations of comparative self-evaluation. Then three experiments were conducted to test the determinant role of mindsets.In study 1, cooperative-competitive orientation was treated as a contextual variable. The conclusions were:in social comparison,the comparison context influenced the effects of comparative evaluation. Different comparison contexts could inspire different mindset. A similar effect occurred in the cooperation context and a contrast effect occurred in the competition context. The cooperation activated a"similarity"focus and competition activated a"difference"focus.In study 2, we explored the determinant role of mindset in comparative evaluation by activating interpretation or differentiation mindsets. The conclusions were: activating an interpretation-oriented processing style yielded assimilation, whereas contrast occurred when a differentiation mindset had been primed.In study 3, we further tested the impact of mindset on comparative self-evaluation by activating uniqueness mindset. The conclusions were: The consequence was different from study 2, when primed another mindset. Social comparison effects did not occur when we primed the uniqueness mindset. Self-evaluation was not influenced by social comparison information, when uniqueness focus was actived.