حسادت عاشقانه به عنوان یک نتیجه مقایسه اجتماعی: هنگامی که گزیدگی ها شبیه می شوند

Two studies examined the role of perceived self-rival similarity in the experience of romantic jealousy, which is assumed to reflect threats to self-evaluation. Self–other similarity is one factor that determines whether social comparison yields assimilation or contrast. Based on the premise that people want their romantic partners to see themselves positively, it is predicted that people experience greater jealousy when comparing with an attractive rival in terms of similarities because similarity challenges one’s positive distinctiveness. People should also experience greater jealousy, however, when they compare themselves with an unattractive rival in a manner that renders their own weaknesses salient during the comparison process. The results support the ‘distinctiveness hypothesis,’ but are inconsistent with cognitive models of social comparison, which posit that people see themselves more positively either when their self-evaluations are assimilated to superior others or contrasted away from inferior others.

A central tenet of social comparison theory (Festinger, 1954) is that people evaluate themselves by comparing with others. In doing so, people preferably compare themselves with similar others because it is more informative to gauge one’s own standing relative to similar others than to exceptional others (e.g., Blanton, 2001; Goethals & Darley, 1977; Miller, 1984). Festinger (1954) also emphasized that doing well in comparison with others has important motivational consequences. The early social comparison literature is replete with evidence for evaluative contrast. Morse and Gergen (1970), for instance, showed that social comparison with superior others can lower self-evaluation whereas social comparison with inferior others can elevate self-evaluation. However, the self-evaluative implications of social comparison are not intrinsic to its direction (upward vs. downward) but depend on whether self-appraisals are displaced toward or away from the comparison other (Blanton, 2001; Brown, Novick, Lord, & Richards, 1992; Collins, 1996; Taylor & Lobel, 1989). Generally speaking, assimilation and contrast can both yield a positive (negative) self-evaluation.