Che Cheng, He Yuxin, Zhou Miaomiao
School of Economics and Management, China University of Petroleum (East China), Qingdao, China.
Front Psychol. 2025 Mar 31;16:1534275. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1534275. eCollection 2025.
Social comparison, especially upward social comparison, has always been a common concern and experience in people's lives. Although social comparison and its consequences have been extensively studied in previous literature, few scholars have paid attention to its influencing mechanism and boundary conditions on the compensatory consumption of variety-seeking.
This study used experimental methods to investigate whether social comparison is related to variety-seeking behavior, and to explore the mediating role of lack of perceived control and the moderating role of self-reflection.
In total, 414 participants were recruited for 3 experiments. They were divided into groups to complete their respective experimental tasks, including social comparison manipulation, variety-seeking manipulation, self-reflection manipulation, and lack of perceived control scale.
The results of the three experimental studies showed that compared with downward-comparison individuals, upward ones presented higher variety-seeking tendencies and the lack of perceived control mediated between the two, and that was moderated by self-reflection. Specifically, in the absence of self-reflection, upward comparisons will result in a higher propensity for variety-seeking behavior compared to downward ones. However, after engaging in self-reflection, the effect was no longer significant, while the mediating effect no longer held.
The research highlights the relationship between social comparison and variety-seeking behavior, reveals the mediating mechanism between them, and deepens the understanding of how upward social comparison increases variety-seeking behavior. The above research results have positive significance for promoting the theory of social comparison, lack of perceived control and variety-seeking behavior, guiding the marketing practice of enterprises, and helping individuals reduce the negative impact of upward comparison.
社会比较，尤其是向上的社会比较，一直是人们生活中普遍关注和经历的事情。尽管社会比较及其后果在以往的文献中已经得到了广泛研究，但很少有学者关注其对寻求多样化消费的影响机制和边界条件。
本研究采用实验方法，探讨社会比较是否与寻求多样化行为相关，并探究感知控制缺失的中介作用和自我反思的调节作用。
共招募414名参与者进行3个实验。他们被分组完成各自的实验任务，包括社会比较操纵、寻求多样化操纵、自我反思操纵以及感知控制缺失量表。
三项实验研究结果表明，与向下比较的个体相比，向上比较的个体表现出更高的寻求多样化倾向，且感知控制缺失在两者之间起中介作用，这一中介作用受自我反思的调节。具体而言，在没有自我反思的情况下，向上比较会导致比向下比较更高的寻求多样化行为倾向。然而，在进行自我反思后，这种效应不再显著，同时中介效应也不再成立。
该研究突出了社会比较与寻求多样化行为之间的关系，揭示了两者之间的中介机制，加深了对向上社会比较如何增加寻求多样化行为的理解。上述研究结果对于推进社会比较、感知控制缺失和寻求多样化行为的理论，指导企业的营销实践以及帮助个体减少向上比较的负面影响具有积极意义。
