SOCIAL-COMPARISON BY DYSPHORIC AND NONDYSPHORIC COLLEGE-STUDENTS - THE GRASS ISNT ALWAYS GREENER ON THE OTHER SIDE

We manipulated information about a comparison-other in order to resolv e contrasting findings regarding social comparisons of dysphoric and n ondysphoric individuals. In Study 1, subjects rated themselves and eit her an average college student, an average depressed college student, or an average nondepressed college student on depression-relevant, non depression-relevant, and depression-irrelevant items. In Study 2, deta iled information about one of five comparison-others ranging from very positive to very negative was presented to subjects. In both studies, dysphoric and nondysphoric subjects did not make pervasively unfavora ble or favorable social comparisons; instead, social comparisons were a function of the similarity between self and other. That favorable, u nfavorable, and evenhanded social comparisons could be observed for bo th dysphoric and nondysphoric subjects by manipulating the identity of the comparison-other suggests that mixed findings for previous social comparison research may be attributed to differences and ambiguities in the comparison-others used.