Handbook of Social Comparison

I. Introduction.- 1. A Selective History of Classic and Neo-Social Comparison Theory.- II. Foundations of Social Comparison.- 2. Interpreting and Inventing Social Reality: Attributional and Constructive Elements in Social Comparison.- 3. Stability of Related Attributes and the Inference of Ability through Social Comparison.- 4. "Can I Do X?": Using the Proxy Comparison Model to Predict Performance.- 5. Social Comparison and Influence in Groups.- 6. Opinion Comparison: The Role of the Corroborator, Expert, and Proxy in Social Influence.- 7. Self-Evaluation Maintenance and Evolution: Some Speculative Notes.- 8. Individual Differences in Social Comparison.- 9. Among the Better Ones: Upward Assimilation in Social Comparison.- 10. Assimilative and Contrastive Emotional Reactions to Upward and Downward Social Comparisons.- 11. Examining Social Comparisons with the Test Selection Measure: Opportunities for the Researcher and the Research Participant.- 12. Social Comparison: Lessons from Basic Research on Judgment.- 13. Consequences of Social Comparison: Selective Accessibility, Assimilation, and Contrast.- 14. Evaluating Social Comparison Targets.- 15. Social Comparison, Affiliation, and Emotional Contagion under Threat.- III. Related Social Phenomena.- 16. The Projective Perception of the Social World: A Building Block of Social Comparison Processes.- 17. Social Judgment as Implicit Social Comparison.- 18. Comparing Comparisons: An Integrative Perspective on Social Comparison and Counterfactual Thinking.- IV. Applications.- 19. Social Identity and Social Comparison.- 20. Social Comparison and Fairness: A Counterfactual Simulations Perspective.- 21. Social Comparison Processes in Health and Illness.- V. Commentary.- 22. Toward an Enlightenment in Social Comparison Theory:Moving beyond Classic and Renaissance Approaches.