Keeping Up With The Joneses: How Cognitive Availability Biases Everyday Social Comparisons

Abstract

This dissertation documents the role that cognitive availability plays in distorting the conclusions that people reach about how they measure up to others in domains of everyday concern. The first chapter provides a review of the social comparison literature and an explanation of how my account of social comparison is novel. The second chapter (N=3,293, 11 studies, 3 pre-registered) documents the fact that most people feel others’ social lives are livelier than theirs, and that this is because they can’t help but to bring to mind highly social exemplars when making such comparisons. The third chapter (N= 2,747, 12 studies, 4 pre-registered) documents a robust tendency to compare to above average standards, which cannot solely be explained by motivational factors like social desirability or self-enhancement—adding a wrinkle to the standard above average effect literature by showing that, although people tend to think of themselves as above average in many domains, they also hold and compare themselves to above average standards. The fourth chapter (N=1,703, 3 studies, 1 pre-registered) documents the fact that people feel they are financially worse off than others when thinking about positive instances of wealth (e.g. having a lot in savings) and that this effect can be reversed if people are made to think of positive instances of low economic standing (e.g. having a lot of debt). The fifth and final chapter synthesizes these empirical findings, summarizes my cognitive availability account of social comparison, reviews why it is a novel contribution, and addresses any outstanding concerns.