Social comparison as a determinant of self-presentation

Download
index.pdf
2017
Demir, Sıla
Show full item record
430
views
313
downloads
As social beings people usually try to project the best image of themselves on their interaction partners. On other occasions, they try to create the image that they think will be advantageous for them in a certain way. These self-presentational efforts may be conscious or automatic, and may be triggered by some situational determinants and be associated with some personality characteristics. Besides, social comparison tendencies may also be associated with self-presentation. People often compare themselves, their abilities, opinions, appearance, accomplishments, and many others with that of the other people. The classical social comparison theory suggests that individuals compare themselves to only similar others, and the outcomes of these social comparisons lead people to either change themselves or the comparison target to reduce the discrepancy, or cease comparison. In the current thesis, first, the hypothesis that people only compare themselves with the similar others was challenged, and comparison with extremely-better and extremely-worse individuals was investigated. Secondly, the main hypothesis that social comparison may also result in pretending as if you are closer to the better-off others or more different than the worse-off others, but not only changing oneself or the comparison target was studied. Therefore, social comparison orientation should be associated with higher self-presentation tendency. Besides these two broad hypotheses, it was suggested that each comparison direction would lead to different self-presentational strategy, and this relationship would be moderated by the personality traits of honesty/humility, emotionality, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness measured with HEXACO-PI-R, and the self-concept clarity of the individuals. Overall, the hypotheses were supported, except the moderation hypotheses, and the implications and future directions were discussed.
Self-evaluation., Social perception., Social comparison., Social interaction., Social psychology., Psychology Phd thesis
http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12621644/index.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/26989
Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis

Suggestions

Social comparison orientation mediates the association between HEXACO and self-presentation
Demir, Sila; Özkan, Türker; DEMİR, BAŞAR (2022-04-01)
Various researchers have investigated the personality correlates of defensive and assertive self-presentation. Yet, only a few studies go beyond the direct relationships and examine the underlying mechanism. The current study examines whether the social comparison orientation (SCO) mediates the relationship between personality and self-presentation. We also tested whether our proposed model is invariant across genders. We collected data from 496 individuals using the HEXACO personality inventory, the self-p...
Decision making under uncertainty: factors influencing mate selection in a dating application simulation
Semchenko, Ayten Yeşim; Çakır, Murat Perit; Temürcü, Ceyhan; Department of Cognitive Sciences (2017)
Human social intentions are heavily influenced by their perceptions of others. In this study, the effect of perceived attractiveness is of particular interest. The purpose of this study is to explore the effect of perceived attractiveness on the likelihood of wanting to have sex and the likelihood of using condom among dating application users. In real dating application environments, there would be many uncontrolled variables (e.g., age, not/having common friends etc.) related to the profiles that the part...
The Role of emotions and emotion regulation in the system justification process
Solak, Nevin; Sümer, Nebi; Jost, John T.; Department of Psychology (2015)
The studies of emotions and emotion regulation from the social psychological perspective have been dominated by two general approaches, namely, individual and group-based research perspectives (e.g., Frijda, 1986; Gross, 2014; Halperin, 2014; Smith, Seger, & Mackie, 2007). Considering that emotions cannot only be limited to the individual- and the group-level contexts, the system-level dynamics (Stangor & Jost, 1997) should be examined to better understand their impacts on both individual and society. Drawi...
Attachment insecurity and restrictive engulfment in college student relationships: the mediating role of relationship satisfaction
Toplu-Demirtas, Ezgi; Murray, Christine; Sümer, Zeynep (Emerald, 2019-02-11)
Purpose Studies on restrictive engulfment (RE) - a subtype of psychological aggression in intimate relationships - have focused either on insecure attachment or relationship satisfaction, not both. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate relationship satisfaction as a potential mediator of the associations between anxious and avoidant attachment and RE perpetration among college students. Design/methodology/approach A sample of 322 college students (178 women, 137 men, and seven other gender-...
Future Time Orientation in Romantic Relationships and the minding theory of relating
Öner Özkan, Bengi (Scientific Journal Publishers Ltd, 2004-01-01)
The aim of this study was to explore the differences between high and low scorers of Future Time Orientation in Romantic Relationships (FTORR) on the three subscales of the minding scale, namely Acceptance, Knowledge, and Attribution. Undergraduate students (N = 160) from Middle East Technical University were given the FTORR scale developed by Oner (2000b) together with the Minding Scale developed by Omarzu, Whalen and Harvey (2001). Results indicated an interaction effect between subscales of the minding s...
Citation Formats
S. Demir, “Social comparison as a determinant of self-presentation,” Ph.D. - Doctoral Program, Middle East Technical University, 2017.
METU IIS - Integrated Information Service open@metu.edu.tr