Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- List of Tables and Figures
- Introduction
- 1 Selectivity and Failure Compensation as Fundamental Requirements of Human Behavior and Development
- 2 The Life Course as a Context of Action
- 3 Primary and Secondary Control across the Life Span
- 4 A Model of Developmental Regulation across the Life Span
- 5 Developmental Goals as Organizers of Developmental Regulation
- 6 Developmental Regulation in Different Life-Course Ecologies
- 7 Social Comparisons as Prototypical Strategies in Developmental Regulation
- 8 Conclusions and Prospects for Future Research
- References
- Name Index
- Subject Index
7 - Social Comparisons as Prototypical Strategies in Developmental Regulation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- List of Tables and Figures
- Introduction
- 1 Selectivity and Failure Compensation as Fundamental Requirements of Human Behavior and Development
- 2 The Life Course as a Context of Action
- 3 Primary and Secondary Control across the Life Span
- 4 A Model of Developmental Regulation across the Life Span
- 5 Developmental Goals as Organizers of Developmental Regulation
- 6 Developmental Regulation in Different Life-Course Ecologies
- 7 Social Comparisons as Prototypical Strategies in Developmental Regulation
- 8 Conclusions and Prospects for Future Research
- References
- Name Index
- Subject Index
Summary
This chapter will discuss social comparisons as prototypical strategies in developmental regulation. The adaptive nature of strategic social comparisons has been widely studied in other areas of research (see reviews in Suls & Wills 1991; Wood 1989). I shall specifically address social comparisons in the developmental context and show that they are common, powerful, and adaptive strategies in developmental regulation. Together with other strategies, such as temporal comparison with past and future developmental states (e.g., Filipp & Buch-Bartos 1994; Ryff 1991), they help to optimize developmental regulation across the life span. First, this chapter will develop a theoretical model of social comparisons in the developmental context based on the long-standing tradition in social comparison research. Second, the model will be applied to empirical research on the similarities and dissimilarities between age-normative and self-related conceptions about development in adulthood (Study 7). Subsequently, further specific propositions about self-enhancement by social comparison under conditions of threat are derived and empirically investigated in a study on perceived problems for the self and for one's age peers (Study 8). Finally, social comparison processes will be addressed directly in a diary study and investigated in terms of their specific targets, contexts, affective consequences, and interindividual differences in primary and secondary control striving (Study 9).
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- Chapter
- Information
- Developmental Regulation in AdulthoodAge-Normative and Sociostructural Constraints as Adaptive Challenges, pp. 157 - 190Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1998