The generalization effect in gap evaluation: How large is the gap between you and me?

Abstract

In many social comparisons, people know exactly how they and others do. These comparisons induce a self–other gap. A variety of important decisions are made on the basis of judgments of the gap between ourselves and other people. Existing research indicates biased judgments of self–other gaps, with unknown absolute performance of others. However, the question we are interested in is whether judgments of a self–other gap will be accurate when both absolute performance of oneself and others are specified. This research investigated how the self– other gap was shaped by absolute and relative performances. We proposed the generalization effect, in which individuals generalized their absolute performance to rate their relative position to others though the actual self–other gap was specified. We conducted seven studies ( N = 2766) to test our proposed generalization effect on perceived self–other gap. Study 1 adopted a 2 (absolute performance: gain or loss) × 2 (relative performance: gain or loss) between-subjects design. The participants, who were informed their performance as well as their classmate’s performance in a test, rated the gap between themselves and the classmate. The result indicated that absolute gain caused a larger perceived self–other gap for relative gain (“I am far ahead of her”) than for relative loss (“I am not far behind her”). Conversely, absolute loss caused a larger perceived self–other gap for relative loss (“I am far behind her”) than for relative gain (“I am not far behind her”).