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The objective of this study was to analyze children's perceptions of characters who try to disguise expressions of success and failure in situations of social comparison. In the case of upward comparison, when the character was surpassed by a peer, his/her expression was either one of disparagement or of admiration for the successful peer. In downward comparison situations, the character gained public social recognition for his/her achievement, and s/he expressed either modesty (self-depreciation) or immodesty. From these expressions of the character, participants (six and eight years old; N = 100) assessed the character's ability and niceness, and the appropriateness of his/her attitude. All the children reported that the unsuccessful envious character in the disparagement condition was unskillful and unfriendly, and his/her response was inappropriate; conversely, in the admiration condition, the unsuccessful character was considered skillful, friendly, and appropriate. Moreover, all participants believed that the successful character was skillful, regardless of his/her modest or immodest response. Only eight-year-olds considered the immodest response to be inappropriate and nasty. We discuss the results considering the consequences of following display rules and the dilemma of being honest in both social situations., Author(s): Laura Quintanilla [sup.1] , Marta Giménez-Dasí [sup.2] , Elena Gaviria [sup.3] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.10702.34, 0000 0001 2308 8920, Departament of Methodology of Behavioral Science, Faculty of Psychology, National [...]

We examined the role that witnesses play in triggering humiliation. We hypothesized that witnesses trigger humiliation because they intensify the two core appraisals underlying humiliation: unfairness and internalization of a devaluation of the self. However, we further propose that witnesses are not a defining characteristic of humiliating situations. Results of a preliminary study using an event-recall method confirmed that witnesses were as characteristic of humiliating episodes as of those that elicited shame or anger. In Experiments 1 and 2, we manipulated the presence (vs. absence) of witnesses when a professor devalued participants and the hostile tone of this devaluation. As hypothesized, in both experiments, witnesses indirectly increased humiliation via the appraisal of unfairness. Results of Experiment 2 revealed that the presence of witnesses also interacted with hostility, enhancing humiliation. As expected, this moderating effect occurred via the other key appraisal of humiliation (i.e., internalization). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do we see ourselves? How do we think other people see us? And how would we like others to see us? The answers that humans have considered for these questions separately and the relation among them, have been the focus of attention of an important set of studies in social psychology since several decades. However, although this question has been studied deeply at the individual level by self-verification theory, the collective and the group levels need to be explored. Verification is an additional proof that something that was believed is correct. The main aim of the present paper is to argue that verification phenomena stem from a motive that manifests itself not only at the individual and the collective level but at the group level as well. We propose that feeling that one is understood when aligned with a group represents a fundamental line of research for intergroup relations and needs to be explored. In addition, we will try to establish a bridge between two important lines of research in social psychology: the self and social identity theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]