Compensatory Self-Presentation in Upward Comparison Situations

This article focuses on the communication of compensatory self-presentations (CSP) (i.e., self presentations that people engage in after publicly receiving unfavorable feedback), with prior work showing that people prudently constrain CSP to areas unrelated (vs. related) to the initial feedback. With the current project we examine the influence that upward comparisons (i.e., a better-performing other is privy to the unfavorable feedback) have on the communication of CSP. Results across three experiments provide the first evidence that upward comparisons increase CSP. However, importantly, people did not cautiously restrain the communication of CSP to unrelated areas; rather, CSP was broadened to equally included areas both related and unrelated to the initial comparative topic. This differs sharply from and significantly extends prior CSP work.