Contrast Effects

Standards are Not Fixed

Comparison standards are not fixed but rather are highly flexible. They may vary from one situation to another and due to a mere change of the standard, things appear differently although they factually haven't changed at all. For example, in job interviews the interviewer may evaluate the candidates in relation to an ideal perfectly fitting the job. Alternatively, in the course of several interviews, the interviewees could be compared to prior candidates, presumably resulting in very different evaluations. Or, as in the above example, grades can be evaluated referring to the performance of others, one's own expectations, and so forth.

Selection of Standards

If comparison standards are not fixed, a crucial question pertains to what influences their selection. First, relative accessibility of standards determines the likelihood of a comparison standard to be selected. Accessibility means how easily something comes to mind. Imagine you are watching a model contest on television and are suddenly asked to evaluate a partner's or friend's attractiveness. As research has shown, it is likely that your friend would score badly in this situation, just because a particularly high standard (a model) was made accessible through the television show. In most other situations, you would probably rely on more average, less attractive comparison standards (like people on the street or in your class). In more general terms, the likelihood of any piece of information to serve as a comparison standard depends on how easily it comes to mind; that is, how accessible it is in a given situation.

Second, the applicability of a comparison standard also determines its likelihood of selection. For example, imagine you evaluate the size of a person, asking yourself whether this person is tall or small. Obviously, you could apply many different comparison standards, for instance, depending on the person's sex. If the person being evaluated is a female, the average height of the general population is not really meaningful; what would be more meaningful is to refer to the average height of females. But what would happen if the person being evaluated is a professional basketball player? These examples demonstrate that to be used as a comparison standard, the respective piece of information has to be applicable, or meaningful. Interestingly, individuals apply different standards to the social behavior of different groups. As a result, the mildly aggressive behavior of a female is evaluated as more aggressive than the same behavior of a male because, based on existing stereotypes, a higher standard for aggressiveness is applied to men than to women.

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