Contextual neglect, self-evaluation, and the frog-pond effect.

Abstract

Social comparisons entail not only information about one's standing in a social group (intragroup or local comparison) but also information about the standing of the group in comparison to other groups (intergroup or general comparison). In Studies 1-3, the authors explored the relative impact of intergroup and intragroup comparisons on self-evaluations and affect. While intragroup comparison feedback consistently impacted self-evaluations and affect, intergroup comparison information exerted a significant impact only when intragroup comparison information was unavailable. The authors refer to this general tendency as contextual neglect. Studies 4 and 5 showed that contextual neglect is due primarily to the fact that low-level, local comparison information displaces or supersedes the effect of higher level, general comparison data and that people clearly recognize the superior diagnosticity of higher level comparisons while continuing to rely on small, haphazard sample data to evaluate their ability.