Because men and women differ with regard to independent and interdependent
self-construals, we propose that downward comparisons are more likely to lo
wer women's achievement-related self-evaluations compared to men's. We also
hypothesize that gendered self-schemas provide men with advantages in the
processing of self-related dispositional information and women with advanta
ges in the processing of self-related social-contextual information. To the
extent that a downward social comparison presents a potential threat to th
e self men and women differ in how effectively they can fend off the implic
ations of different types of comparisons. Results from three experiments (t
otal N = 393) support these hypotheses, suggesting that gendered responses
to downward comparison are at least in part driven by a culturally normativ
e focus on dispositional information prevalent in the West.