Agency and Communion in Social Comparison

Abstract

Social comparisons help people to assess whether specific communal goals (to fit in and get along) or agentic goals (to stand out and get ahead) are likely to be fulfilling versus frustrating. For example, connective comparisons (e.g., perceiving shared attitudes) strengthen communal motives, whereas contrastive comparisons (e.g., perceiving incompatible attitudes) dampen them. Likewise, upward assimilation and downward contrast comparisons strengthen agentic motives, whereas upward contrast and downward assimilation dampen them. People also advance their agentic and communal goals by making comparisons selectively (e.g., noticing similarities with people they want to connect with) or selectively making themselves the targets of others’ downward, upward, or connective comparisons by advertising their weaknesses, strengths, or similarities. Finally, while some situations (e.g., competition) stimulate agentic motives and vertical comparisons and others (e.g., cooperation) stimulate communal motives and horizontal comparisons, many situations (e.g., ongoing partnerships) stimulate complex combinations of agentic and communal motives and comparisons.