Abstract

This study examined the three-way interaction effect of success/failure feedback, goal-setting for social comparison and comparison target on experience of self-relevant agitation emotions. A 2(performance feedback: success, failure)×3(goal-setting for social comparison: self-promotion, self-assessment, self-enhancement)×3(comparison target: upward, similar, downward) complete factorial design was used in this experiment. Subjects performed a task and were told that their performance of the next trial would be compared with those of the comparison target the computer arranged. And then subjects rated their self-relevant emotional experience. The results showed that the hypothesized three-way interaction was confirmed. The self-relevant agitation emotion effects of comparison targets were varied according to the goals of social comparison and sucess/failure feedback. To put the three-way interaction effect concretely, in success condition more agitation-related emotion was experienced in self-promotion goal/upward comparison condition than self-promotion goal/downward comparison condition and less agitation-related emotion was experienced in self-prevention goal/upward comparison condition than self-prevention goal/downward comparison condition. And in failure condition more agitation-related emotion was experienced in self-prevention goal/downward comparison condition than self-prevention goal/upward comparison condition. Especially in self-promotion goal/success feedback/upward condition, choice percentage of the upward target was higher than other conditions, and in self-prevention goal/failure feedback/upward condition, choice percentage of downward target was higher than other conditions. The results were discussed in terms of the self-regulation theory of social comparison process(Hahn, 1999), and the implications for future studies were suggested.