Among the Better Ones

By R. Collins. 2000

138 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Subfields: Social Psychology, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3626f836e98f3a4f2dca40bd0bac49fdf54ffe0b

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Citations in the corpus

Social Comparison: Why, With Whom, and With What Effect? (2002, background): “Collins (2000) reviewed research showing that people intentionally compare themselves with superior others (i.e., upward targets) and that such comparisons can make self-views more positive.”
Social Comparison in the Classroom: A Review (2008, background): “…& Lichtman, 1985) have indeed found evidence for the self-enhancement motive of social comparison by showing, for instance, that individuals, especially when they are under stress, feel better about themselves when they compare themselves with others who are worse off (e.g., Collins, 1996, 2000).”
Psychological climate: A comparison of organizational and individual level referents (2009, background): “Also, people can choose to try to find positive characteristics that they have in common with upward targets in order to boost self-esteem by feeling the sense of belonging to a superior group (Collins, 2000).”
Managing to clear the air: Stereotype threat, women, and leadership (2016, background): “Although comparing oneself to a successful other can potentially be inspiring and offer one hope, it also has the potential of being self-deflating by highlighting how deficient one is in comparison (Collins, 1996, 2000; Lockwood & Kunda, 1999; Suls, Martin, & Wheeler, 2002; Wood, 1989).”
Self-Enhancement: Food for Thought (2008, background): “However, assimilation as well as contrast effects can occur (Mussweiler, 2003), meaning that downward comparisons can be dispiriting (Wheeler & Miyake, 1992) and that upward comparisons inspiring (Collins, 2000).”
Antecedents and consequences of the frequency of upward and downward social comparisons at work (2007, background): “…the fact that the work context represents both a source of uncertainty, which motivates social comparisons, and is also a competitive environment (Kay, Wheeler, Bargh, & Ross, 2004), which may have distinct implications for how social comparisons unfold (Collins, 2000; Stapel & Koomen, 2005).”
A Social Comparison Theory Meta-Analysis 60+ Years On (2017, background): “Collins (1996, 2000) proposed that people may assimilate their self-evaluation upward to those who are better off.”