The Role of the Big Five Personality Dimensions in the Direction and Affective Consequences of Everyday Social Comparisons
The authors investigated the role of personality in everyday social comparisons. Participants were 133 students who completed the NEO Personality Inventory-Revised. For the following 2 weeks, they recorded their comparisons and positive and negative affect using the Rochester Social Comparison Record. Analysis using Hierarchical Linear Modeling showed that people high in Neuroticism reported a greater increase in positive affect after comparing downward than people low on the dimension. Furthermore, people high in Extraversion and low in Agreeableness compared downward more. People high in Openness compared upward more and reported less of a decrease in positive affect after making these comparisons. These findings are discussed in relation to downward comparison theory, the selective-priming model, and the attributes of the five personality dimensions.