Impact of upward and downward social comparisons on self esteem: Importance of activated identity.

It has been argued that upward comparison with members of an ingroup can be both enhancing and threatening to self-esteem. We propose that the superior performance of ingroup members on ability domains, that are relevant to self-esteem, will be enhancing if the group is threatened on such domains. However, this self-protective strategy should be available only via ingroup identification. We tested this hypothesis with women exposed in a threatening domain to either upward or downward comparison information about the performance of a woman or a man. Our results show a positive effect on self-esteem of downward comparisons regardless of the membership of the comparison target. However, upward comparisons with men were harmful for women's self-esteem whereas upward comparisons with women were not. The latter protected self-esteem via ingroup identification. Indeed, when upward comparisons occurred in a threatening domain, the effect of the target's group membership on self-esteem was mediated through ingroup identification. A second experiment tested the contextual or chronic nature of this self-protective strategy. Women were exposed to either downward or upward comparison information about the performance of a man or a woman but in a context that made their personal identity salient. There was a main effect of comparison direction : downward comparisons had a positive effect on self-esteem whereas upward comparisons had a negative one. The potentially beneficial role of ingroup comparisons in an intergroup context is discussed.