Self-Evaluation Maintenance

Reflection and Comparison Processes

Everyone has seen the reflection process in action. Imagine a conversation at a cocktail party. Inevitably someone casually lets it be known that he or she has some connection with someone who is notably rich, smart, creative, well connected, and so on. That person has not been instrumental in the accomplishments of those others, so it appears as if he or she points out these associations simply to bask in reflected glory. Such associations appear to raise the individual's self-evaluation and are associated with feelings such as pride in the other.

The reflection process has two distinct components: closeness and performance. The reflection process is not enabled by any successful other person. To bask in reflected glory, one must have some connection to the other. Thus, closeness counts. Closeness is defined in very broad terms. Anything that psychologically connects one individual to another increases closeness. Closeness may be based on similarity, family relationships, geographic proximity, and so on.

The second component of the reflection process is the other's performance. If the other's performance is not particularly good, then regardless of how psychologically close he or she is, self will not gain in reflected glory. For example, it is difficult to imagine anyone basking in the reflected glory of a neighbor who tried out for the local orchestra but was not selected or a cousin who was the 25th out of 100 to be eliminated in a spelling bee.

According to the SEM model, the closeness and performance components combine multiplicatively. If there is no association between self and another, then even if that other's performance is superb, there is little potential for gains to the self via reflection. When closeness goes to zero, the level of performance ceases to matter—anything multiplied by zero is zero. In short, the reflection process will produce gains in self-evaluation to the extent that another is psychologically close and that his or her performance is good.

A close other's good performance can raise selfevaluation through the reflection process, but it can also lower self-evaluation through the comparison process. Self's own performance pales in comparison with that of someone who performs better, resulting in a lower self-evaluation and emotions such as envy and jealousy, and decreases in pride. Closeness and performance also play a leading role in the comparison process. If a person has nothing in common with another person, if a person is different with respect to age, gender, race, ethnicity, and so forth, he or she is unlikely to draw comparisons with the other person. However, if the other is psychologically close, comparison processes are more likely to be engaged. A performance that is better than one's own can be a blow to self-evaluation, whereas a mediocre performance is not threatening. Again, closeness and performance combine multiplicatively. If there is no connection to the other person, that is, closeness, then even if the other's performance is superb, there is little threat from comparison. If the others' performance is mediocre, not as good as one's own, then regardless of how close the other is, there is little threat from comparison.

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