'Compared to What?': comparison choice in an internation context

A survey was conducted to assess the prevalence of spontaneous social comparisons in people's ingroup descriptions and to investigate factors involved in the choice of an outgroup comparator. The intel group context was that of different countries within the European Community (EC). Two hundred and ninety-three respondents from six countries provided open-ended descriptions of their own country, rank ordered the twelve EC countries, and selected two other countries for comparison purposes. Social comparisons were made spontaneously by 20% of the sample; temporal comparisons less frequently (11%). There was a general tendency for respondents to choose higher-status comparators. These were still generally somewhat similar to own country except in the case of the two lowest-status countries where the preference was for dissimilar (and superior) outgroups. Regression analysis revealed that threat to national identity was also correlated with comparison choice. The findings are related to classic and contemporary theories of social comparison process. Copyright (C) 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.