Research On Influence Of Performance Temporal Social Comparison On Employees' Behaviors

The extand literatures have indicated that high performers contribute substantially to the development of their organizations and work teams,but there are still unoptimistic social experiences and bad behaviors among colleagues and even between superiors and subordinates in the organizations.Recent studies have found that the development of employees' past performance has also been included in social comparisons,which may even lead to more lasting and egregious behaviors in interpersonal interactions.Therefore,this study applies the time factor to the social comparison study,adding the past performance development of the individual into the assessment of the future situation,and explores the impact of unfavorable performance temporal social comparison(the performance development of colleague in the past period is better than his/her own)on employees' psychology and behaviors.In addition,the researchers also proposed that compared with high performancers,employees can not only trigger negative emotions and behavioral responses,but also effectively stimulate their learning and growth,such as observational learning and seeking advice,and other positive behaviors.Therefore,the study infers that by comparing with betterdeveloped colleague,it will not only lead to unfavorable social undermining,but also to a certain extent stimulate the motivation of self-improvement,thus triggering positive coping behaviors.Based on the Appraisal Theory and Cognitive Appraisal Theory of Stress,this study proposes that challenge-hindrance stress are important mediations for performance temporal social comparison to affect employees' social undermining(leveling-down)and self-improvement(leveling-up)in the workplace.It also finds that general self-efficacy is an important moderation.Two scenario experiment studies and a three-wave field study with ANOVE,correlation analysis,reliability and validity,and path analysis by using the collected data in SPSS and Mplus,show the following conclusions:(1)Three studies lend support to the proposition: the unfavorable performance temporal social comparison can simultaneously lead to social undermining and selfimprovement of employees.(2)The experimental design of study 2 and the field surveys of study 3,taking employees as samples,find that general self-efficacy moderates the effects of unfavorable performance temporal social comparison on hindrance stress or challenge stress.The effect on challenge stress will be stronger when the general self-efficacy is higher,whereas the effect on hindrance stress will be stronger when the general selfefficacy is lower.(3)The indirect effect of unfavorable performance temporal social comparison on social undermining is mediated by employee's perceived hindrance stress,while on self-improvement is mediated by perceived challenge stress.And the indirect effects are further moderated by general self-efficacy simultaneously.