Social Comparison Choices for Evaluating a Sexand Age-Related Ability
Comparison choices to evaluate performance on a sexand age-related ability were examined. Subjects took a test on which they were told that males or females of the same-age, older or younger excelled. Subjects preferred to compare their performance with same-age-same sex others on their first choice and with sameage-opposite sex others on their second choice. The results provide support for the Related Attribute hypothesis and suggest that sameage-opposite-sex comparisons are more preferred than dissimilar age-same-sex comparisons.