Gb. Arnkelsson et Wp. Smith, The impact of stable and unstable attributes on ability assessment in social comparison, PERS SOC PS, 26(8), 2000, pp. 936-947
Social comparison theory assumes that people rely an the multiple sufficien
t causes of attributional scheme for ability assessment. Wen standing on pe
rformance-related attributes differs between two individuals, ability judgm
ents should be low in confidence to the extent that performance differences
are consistent with the attribute differences and high in confidence when
the two are inconsistent. The authors argue that this holds true for standi
ng on unstable attributes such as practice but not for stable attributes su
ch as education. Stable attributes serve as cues to ability rather than as
alternative interpretations of performance differences. In a series of thre
e experiments, participants' ability judgments were more confident when per
formance was consistent with their standing on stable attributes (education
, occupation) but less confident when consistent with standing on an unstab
le attribute (practice).