Effect of Social Comparison on Self-presentation: Upward, Downward, and Extreme Comparison, Exams of Literature

Download Effect of Social Comparison on Self-presentation: Upward, Downward, and Extreme Comparison and more Exams Literature in PDF only on Docsity! i SOCIAL COMPARISON AS A DETERMINANT OF SELF-PRESENTATION A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES OF MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY BY SILA DEMİR IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY OCTOBER 2017 vii I hereby declare that all information in this document has been obtained and presented in accordance with academic rules and ethical conduct. I also declare that, as required by these rules and conduct, I have fully cited and referenced all material and results that are not original to this work. Name, Last name: Sıla DEMİR Signature : iii viii ABSTRACT SOCIAL COMPARISON AS A DETERMINANT OF SELF-PRESENTATION Demir, Sıla Ph.D., Department of Psychology Supervisor : Prof. Dr. Türker Özkan October 2017, 171 pages As social beings people usually try to project the best image of themselves on their interaction partners. On other occasions, they try to create the image that they think will be advantageous for them in a certain way. These self-presentational efforts may be conscious or automatic, and may be triggered by some situational determinants and be associated with some personality characteristics. Besides, social comparison tendencies may also be associated with self-presentation. People often compare themselves, their abilities, opinions, appearance, accomplishments, and many others with that of the other people. The classical social comparison theory suggests that individuals compare themselves to only similar others, and the outcomes of these social comparisons lead people to either change themselves or the comparison target to reduce the discrepancy, or cease iv ix comparison. In the current thesis, first, the hypothesis that people only compare themselves with the similar others was challenged, and comparison with extremely-better and extremely-worse individuals was investigated. Secondly, the main hypothesis that social comparison may also result in pretending as if you are closer to the better-off others or more different than the worse-off others, but not only changing oneself or the comparison target was studied. Therefore, social comparison orientation should be associated with higher self-presentation tendency. Besides these two broad hypotheses, it was suggested that each comparison direction would lead to different self-presentational strategy, and this relationship would be moderated by the personality traits of honesty/humility, emotionality, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness measured with HEXACO-PI-R, and the self-concept clarity of the individuals. Overall, the hypotheses were supported, except the moderation hypotheses, and the implications and future directions were discussed. Keywords: Self-presentation, social comparison, HEXACO, self-concept clarity. v xii DEDICATION To my husband Başar… viii ix ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, I would like to extend my gratification to Dr. Türker Özkan for walking me through my PhD journey with his incredible guidance, generosity to pass through anything and everything I need to know, and insightful analysis of any problem I was unable to sort out. He enlightened me when I could not see what was out there, and provided the soothing I starved for, by his comforting clarifications and solutions. He is the best advisor I could ever have, and a role model for the type of advisor I wish to be one day. Secondly, I want to thank Dr. Bengi Öner-Özkan for her critical contributions and suggestions for this thesis in every step of it, and making me feel her encouragement for my decisions. Thirdly, I cannot thank enough to Dr. Tarcan Kumkale for witnessing, supporting, and guiding my way from undergraduate to PhD, and for teaching me the ability to analyze and integrate the information, and to utilize it. I also want to thank Dr. Tülin Gençöz for her valuable contributions to the current thesis since its inception in the qualifying exam and her complete support in many stages of my education in METU. Also, I want to thank Dr. Müjde Koca-Atabey for her meaningful input to the current thesis, and for showing me many skills critical in the academic life that makes it easier when you have it all along. No words are capable of expressing my gratefulness to Başar, my husband, even for his sole presence. He has always been loving, caring, and inspiring. He has been the cool, when I panic; the cautious when I rush; the practical when I am dreamy; and the funny when I feel depleted. He has critical and creative contributions to all the parts of this dissertation, and ineffable contribution to my psychological wellbeing during this phase. Thank you for holding my hand ix x whenever I stumble. I am lucky to be with you. I love you… Also, our budgies, Cibi and Cibi, brought me and our home the joy, and the ability to wake up just after the dawn! My companion/company in this PhD adventure even before the first day, Hilal, I am grateful to you for sparing your unstoppable energy, ability to cheer me up anytime, and sharing all my great moments since you have chosen me to befriend. Also, I am indebted to Bilge for her unconditional support, for being funny and lively in times of joy, and for being a mature and a calm shoulder when I feel trapped, for always bringing another point of view to the table. And Nazlı, thank you for being the closest, despite being the physically most distanced. You have been there for me with your absolute acceptance in my every act. Also, I want to thank Ata for his help and assistance during the translation of the scales and data collection in the current thesis. He has been a very valuable help to notice the subtleties. Moreover, I want to thank Asst. Prof. Gülten Ünal for her help in data collection. I am also thankful to the most special group; Bilge Say, Elif Bulut, İlkiz Altınoğlu-Dikmeer, Kadriye Göksel, Miray Akyunus, Müjde Koca-Atabey, and Selda Önen for sharing the most difficult times, celebrating anything with a piece of layer cake (!), and enjoying even the worry and stress together. They might be the greatest example of how good can come out of bad. Finally, my parents, Perin and Osman, and my sister, Seray, are the precious gifts of life for me. I feel that I am the luckiest daughter and sister in the world to have you all by my side anytime. All these would mean nothing without your love and compassion. I also want to thank my new, extended family, Havva, Mehmet, and Deniz, for accepting me to the family and supporting me in my every step. I want to thank TÜBİTAK (the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey) for the financial support throughout my education. xiii 4.5.1. The moderator role of personality. .................................... 72 4.5.2. Self-concept clarity. ........................................................... 75 4.5.3. Additional moderator analyses. ......................................... 77 5. DISCUSSION ............................................................................................ 79 5.1. Self-Presentation .............................................................................. 82 5.1.1. Apology. ............................................................................ 84 5.2. Predicting Self-Presentation ............................................................. 85 5.2.1. Social comparison. ............................................................ 85 5.2.2. Personality. ........................................................................ 87 5.2.3. Self-concept clarity. ........................................................... 89 5.2.4. Authenticity in interpersonal context. ............................... 89 5.3. Extensions to the Social Comparison Theory .................................. 92 5.4. Theoretical Contributions ................................................................. 93 5.5. Limitations and Future Directions .................................................... 95 REFERENCES .................................................................................................... 97 APPENDICES APPENDIX A: INFORMED CONSENT FORM............................................. 122 APPENDIX B: SELF-PRESENTATION TACTICS SCALE .......................... 123 APPENDIX C: IOWA-NETHERLANDS COMPARISON ORIENTATION MEASURE ........................................................................................................ 127 APPENDIX D: SOCIAL COMPARISON SCALE .......................................... 128 APPENDIX E: SOCIAL COMPARISON FREQUENCY ............................... 129 APPENDIX F: HEXACO-PI ............................................................................ 130 APPENDIX G: SELF-CONCEPT CLARITY .................................................. 134 APPENDIX I: DEMOGRAPHICS ................................................................... 136 xiv APPENDIX J: DEBRIEFING ........................................................................... 137 APPENDIX K. TURKISH SUMMARY / TÜRKÇE ÖZET ............................ 138 APPENDIX L: CIRRICULUM VITAE ............................................................ 168 APPENDIX M: ETHIC BOARD APPROVAL ................................................ 170 APPENDIX N: TEZ FOTOKOPİSİ İZİN FORMU ......................................... 171 xv LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Two-component model of self-presentation ......................................... 16 Table 2. Hypotheses, derivations, and corollaries of the social comparison theory (based on Festinger, 1954) ....................................................................... 32 Table 3. Demographic characteristics of the sample. .......................................... 48 Table 4. Descriptive statistics for study variables. .............................................. 56 Table 5. Summary of t test analyses of self-presentation tactics by gender. ....... 58 Table 6. Correlations among self-presentation tactics. ....................................... 63 Table 7. Correlations among main study variables. ............................................ 64 Table 8. Correlations of self-presentation tactics with the HEXACO and the facets of honesty/humility ................................................................................... 65 Table 9. Correlations of self-presentation tactics with the social comparison measures, self-concept clarity, age, and gender. ................................................. 66 Table 10. Summary of linear regression analyses for social comparison orientation and frequency of social comparison predicting self-presentation. .... 67 Table 11. Summary of linear regression analyses for social comparison orientation and frequency of social comparison predicting defensive self- presentation, disclaimer, and justification. .......................................................... 69 Table 12. Summary of linear regression analyses for social comparison orientation and frequency of social comparison predicting assertive self- presentation. ........................................................................................................ 69 Table 13. Summary of linear regression analyses for downward social comparison predicting assertive and defensive self-presentation, and self- presentation tactics scale. .................................................................................... 70 xviii Figure 13. Sincerity moderating the relationship between social comparison and defensive self-presentation. .......................................................................... 77 Figure 14. Sincerity moderating the relationship between social comparison, and overall self-presentation tactics and defensive self-presentation. ................ 78 xviii 1 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Social psychology is commonly defined as studying the individual during the presence of real, imagined, or implied others. There is no doubt that these real, imagined, and implied others affect how individuals act in a given situation. Also, people define themselves and construct their identities in relation to others. How they relate to others, how they do in comparison to others, and how they are evaluated by others are important factors in individuals’ self-concept. In this social world, people also need to achieve and maintain the acceptance of others, especially those who are important in one’s life, such as family members, current or possible partner, peers, supervisors etc. When interacting with others, whose evaluation would be consequential for themselves, people try to project images that they believe would be advantageous for them for an immediate or a long-term cause (Gibbs, Ellison, & Heino, 2006: Schlenker & Pontari, 2000). Winning the favor of others, getting a promotion in the job, achieving or maintaining the partner’s attraction, or having the friends embrace and regard oneself are some examples of short-term and long-term interpersonal goals. Moreover, the advantageous images are not always positive profiles; but sometimes people benefit from creating an immoral or a rude profile. For example, having subordinates beware of oneself might be advantageous for some high-status people, or some people may try to control their social interactions by creating a distance between themselves and others through an unpredictable image by erratic behaviors. Consequently, the impression people form of others becomes a vital means to these ends. However, the images individuals portray are not always 2 accurate reflections of their self, but also not completely diverted images from the reality. They should strategically balance the desired and the accurate information. In addition to face-to-face interaction, social networking sites are also very fundamental contexts for creating the desired images (Mehdizadeh, 2010). Especially in these online interactions, people are more likely to exaggerate their accomplishments and omit negative outcomes or experiences (Jung, Youn, & McClung, 2007; Papacharissi, 2002). By the rise of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and many others, individuals can reach to various audiences to portray their strategically advantageous images, in addition to all offline contexts. All kinds of acts individuals utilize to serve this end are called “self-presentation” (SP; Goffman, 1959; Jones & Pittman, 1982; Leary, 1995). In Schneider’s words, “self- presentation may be the manipulation of information about the self by an actor” (Schneider, 1981, p. 25). Starting with Goffman (1959) a lot of research have been conducted on self-presentation. Some of these scholars have uncovered the individual difference variables predicting self-presentation, such as Big Five, Dark Triad, self-monitoring, self-consciousness, gender, etc. However, not only individual differences, but also “immediate circumstances, of course, are powerful determinants of the style one adopts in a given situation” (Wolfe, Lennox, & Cutler, 1986, p. 356). Therefore, some contextual effects on self-presentational tendencies have been studied extensively, in addition to personality variables. For example, feelings of superiority and inferiority are one of the fundamental situational determinants of self-presentation that were extensively investigated (e.g. Brown & Gallager, 1992). Another inseparable part of social life is referencing others for evaluating oneself. This phenomenon, social comparison, is suggested as one of the basic drives of human-beings. The social comparison theory was postulated by Festinger (1954) first as “there exists, in the human organism, a drive to evaluate his opinions and abilities” (p. 117). When there are no non-social and objective anchors against which people can assess their own opinions and abilities, they take 5 CHAPTER 2 BACKGROUND 2.1. Self-Presentation Self-presentation is manipulating the image of the self, portrayed to others, in a way that would serve the social or material needs of the individual. Getting the desired outcomes from other people is highly dependent on others’ impression of the individual; thus, people are attentive to the self-relevant information they convey to others (Leary & Allen, 2011). The self-presentations can be influenced from a number of factors; e.g. context of interaction, the interaction partner, nature of the relationship between interacting individuals, the desired outcomes and their value to one, and many others (e.g. Rosenbaum, Johnson, Stepman, & Nuijten, 2010; Swencionis & Fiske, 2016; for a review see Leary, 1995). In that sense, self- presentation is a dynamic activity that is constantly shaped by the changing requirements and the conditions of each social context as people adjust their self- presentational behaviors following their goals (Yang, 2014). Although self- presentation is a fundamental part of everyday social life, it has not attracted the attention of the scholars before Erving Goffman, a sociologist, published his seminal work, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959). He has described the face-to-face interactions in a theatrical analogy, and suggested that, first, the roles are prepared in the backstage, and then performed on the stage by the actor. In this analogy, the stage is the social context where the individual conveys the image that he or she has pondered by oneself earlier, which is the backstage preparation. In Goffman’s analysis, individuals are aware of the multiplicity of the 6 roles that they perform in various situations. Therefore, they need to constantly monitor the impression they project on others. During the same times, Edward E. Jones, a social psychologist, began his work on ingratiation (e.g., getting other people like one’s self though various tactics) as an impression management strategy (1964). Contrary to Goffman’s narrative explanations of his anthropological observations, Jones’ studies on self- presentation included laboratory experiments (e.g. Jones, Gergen, Gumpert, & Thibaut, 1965; Jones, Gergen, & Jones, 1963). He manipulated the conditions in which individuals interact with others, and observed how and in which conditions the individual tried to project an image that would be liked. “When one considers the great number and variety of target persons toward whom ingratiating overtures might be directed, and the many interaction contexts in which such overtures might occur, it is clear that any attempt to develop check list of specific ‘effective’ tactics would be fruitless. It is probably true in general, however, that when we are dealing with ingratiation we are largely concerned with communicative behaviors which reflect the communicator’s view of himself, aspects of the surrounding environment, and his esteem of the target person.” (Jones, 1964, p. 24) He proposed four groups of ingratiation tactics: other-enhancement, opinion conformity, self-presentation, and rendering favors. Nevertheless, at first, self-presentation as a field of study encountered a resistance from some researchers, because, as Baumeister (1986) later interpreted, self-presentation theorists came up with alternative explanations to these researchers’ findings in other domains (e.g. for cognitive dissonance, psychological reactance). In 1970s, however, the self-presentation perspective gained recognition and research in this field flourished. Researchers in this field mostly focused on the personal and the situational determinants of self- presentation, as well as the intra- and interpersonal consequences of it. Keeping up with the recent developments in technology and cyber world, the more recent studies mainly focused on self-presentations in computer mediated and online 7 interactions (Haferkamp & Kramer, 2011; Hendrickse, Arpan, Clayton, & Ridgway, 2017; Michinov & Primois, 2005). 2.1.1. Functions of self-presentation. A functional approach to understand a social phenomenon is to start with the question of why. Understanding why people engage in self-presentation is a complex but productive investigation. To begin with, self-presentation serves many personal and interpersonal functions for the individual, namely interpersonal, self-construction, emotion regulation, evolutionary, and societal functions. First, the self- presentation can be utilized to get the desired interpersonal outcomes through creating positive images on others. Desirable impressions on others helps one have better interactions with others in short-run; and in the long-run, they have richer and more supportive social environments, better jobs and promotions, and therefore, get better social and financial outcomes (Barrick, Shaffer, & DeGrassi, 2009; Leary, 1995). The second function is a more intra-personal one that works even when the individuals do not know the interaction partner, and would have no future interaction, and any social and material gain whatsoever. This function is about constructing and maintaining the self. Undesired impressions usually lower the individual’s self-esteem. Leary (1995) explains this with the operant conditioning theory of learning: People often feel negative emotions when they have made a bad impression on others, and positive emotions when they have made a good impression. These experiences are repeated countless times in our lives, and we come to associate the impressions we make with the reduced or increased self- esteem and the emotions we feel afterwards. Therefore, even after an impression towards a stranger with no future interaction, people elicit the same emotional response, and this affects their self-esteem. For example, embarrassment in front of a stranger is almost as shameful as embarrassment in front of an acquaintance. Moreover, constructing and maintaining private identities require people to portray a consistent image in most occasions. Thus, even when the impression is 10 2.1.3. Impression motivation. The motivation to monitor and adjust one’s impression on other individuals is mutable. This motivation can be affected from the life stages, social goals, the importance of these goals, the discrepancy between the desired and the conveyed impressions, and so on (Leary & Miller, 2000). Overall, it stems from a desire to maximize the rewards and minimize the punishments, as most of the behaviors (Schlenker, 1980). Leary and Kowalski (1990) summarize the factors of impression motivation in three categories: goal- relevance, value of the desired goals, and the discrepancy between the current and the desired image. First, goal-relevance (relevance of the image to the goals) is determined by how public the behavior is performed. As long as the behavior will be heard from secondhand sources, the motivation to manage the impression is reduced, and increased publicity makes the impression more relevant to the social goals (Arkin, Appleman, & Berger, 1980). Also, people are more motivated to monitor their impression on others when they have higher dependency on their interaction partner; for example, their supervisors, teachers, or parents (Kowalski & Leary, 1990). The impression these targets have on the individual is more consequential. Moreover, as social beings, to satisfy the need to belong, people depend on their close others to create lasting relationships (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). Thus, they need to convey the images that will make them accepted in the group and will maintain this inclusion (Leary, 1995). Furthermore, people place high importance on first impressions (Asch, 1946). These impressions are usually fundamental for short-term, and potentially for long-term goals. Therefore, they are more motivated to display a better self when they first meet an individual. And that’s why they get very nervous in the first dates (Leary & Miller, 2000). By time and increased familiarity and security in a relationship, the need to convey a specific image is reduced. Moreover, the marginal effect of each self-presentational effort decreases with increased repertoire of images and impressions about the individual. Finally, this motivation 11 is even increased when the possibility to engage in with an individual in the future increases. This affects the goal relevance of the impression created upon them and people’s concerns of the impression (Gergen & Wishnov, 1965). The implications for the future are higher in this instance, compared to people with whom no possible encounter is anticipated. Secondly, as the goal’s value increases for the individual, he/she would be more motivated to struggle for the desired image. But what influences the value of the goal? First of all, when the resources are limited, their market value increases. Therefore, to get a job with an only one position opening and many candidates, the impression motivation would be very high (Leary, 1995). Or, since people usually have less cross-sex friends compared same-sex friends, the image convey to the cross-sex target becomes much more valuable (O’Grady, Harman, Gleason, & Wilson, 2012). Moreover, the interaction partner’s characteristics also play a major role in impression motivation. Usually, people want to impress the attractive, successful, intelligent, social, and powerful people. Better characteristics of the target increase the value of the impression created on them (Zanna & Pack, 1975). For instance, motorists are more likely to pick up attractive hitchhikers (Guéguen, 2007; Guéguen & Fischer-Lokou, 2004). Since self- presentation is usually performed to get the approval of others, the value of this approval is another factor influencing the value of the goal. Situational triggers of recent experiences of failure and embarrassment (Miller & Leary, 1992), and the characteristics of fear of negative evaluation and need for approval (Gregorich, Kemple, & Leary, 1986; Schneider & Turkat, 1975) lead to placing higher value on approval of others. Thirdly, the discrepancy between the current and the desired image, that is how the individual wants to be perceived by others and who he/she is actually perceived, has a direct effect on the level of impression motivation. For that reason, people usually try to compensate for failures or embarrassments by striving to present a better self or balance the negative information with more 12 positive ones (Cheryan, Cameron, Katagiri, & Monin, 2015; Schneider, 1969). This compensation may take different forms; some may use the defensive tactics of excuse or justification, while others may prefer the assertive tactics of entitlement or enhancement (see section 2.1.4.4.). Further, people may also take precautions for possible discrepancies. When they fear a self-relevant information to create a discrepancy from their ideal image, they may try to conceal this information, present that information lightly, or try to compensate for the negative information beforehand (Leary, Landel, & Patton, 1996; Leary & Miller, 2000). Overall, self-presentation serves many functions when employed strategically, from a very intra-individual to a highly social gain. To be able to utilize a self-presentation strategy one needs to be at a certain level of impression monitoring; that is, aware of own impression on others. Furthermore, this awareness is not enough unless the person has a motivation to alter own image portray to the others. 2.1.4. Overview of concepts and methods in self-presentation 2.1.4.1. Self-presentation versus impression management. Many researchers have a tendency to use self-presentation and impression management interchangeably. And many others documented the differences between these two terms. Impression management is defined as an "attempt to control images that are projected in real or imagined social interactions" (Schlenker, 1980, p. 6). The impression management for a person might be performed by third parties, for example friends, partners, and parents, as well as the person himself or herself (Schneider, 1981). When the individual manages the “self-relevant” impression, it would be the “self-presentation” (Schlenker, 1980). In that sense, self- presentation can be considered as a special type of impression management. In the current thesis, the focus is only on the self-presentation, but the impression management other than conducted by the self and for the self is out of the scope. 15 compassion and support. Lastly, ingratiation is used to get the attribution of likability by using various tactics such as other-enhancement and doing favors. Apart from these strategies, two distinct orientations of self-presentation have been suggested: acquisitive/assertive and defensive/protective (Arkin, 1981; Briggs & Cheek, 1988; Lennox, 1988; Lennox & Wolfe, 1984; Tedeschi, 1981; Tedeschi & Lindskold, 1976; Tedeschi & Melburg, 1984). Acquisitive (or assertive) self-presentation is characterized by an active search for social status and power, while defensive (or protective) self-presentation emerges from avoiding social rejection. Lee and colleagues used this framework in development of their self-presentation tactics scale (Table 1; Lee, Quigley, Nessler, Corbett, & Tedeschi, 1999). They categorized excuse, justification, disclaimer, self- handicapping, and apology as defensive tactics, and ingratiation, intimidation, supplication, exemplification, entitlement, enhancement, and blasting as assertive tactics. The defensive tactic of excuse is about verbally denying responsibility of negative events; justification is about providing acceptable reasons for negative acts while accepting responsibility; and disclaimers are about proving explanations and justifications before an act. All these three tactics are about escaping from a criticism or a punishment for a negative act. Self-handicapping is putting an obstacle in the way of own success to prevent any dispositional attributions of the observers; and finally, apologies are communicating the remorse after any harm given to others. Assertive self-presentation, on the other hand, comprise seven tactics. Entitlement is claims of credit for accomplishments; and similarly, enhancement is about emphasizing the positivity and importance of achievements. These two tactics are conceptually close since both are about for getting credit for accomplishments, either achieved by the individual or not. Ingratiation is performing behaviors to get the favor of others. Intimidation is behaving in ways that would threaten the interaction partner by signaling that he/she is powerful and can be dangerous. Supplication is projecting oneself as 16 weak and in-need to get the help and support of others. Blasting is looking down on rival groups or the groups of no association with the actor, and criticizing them publicly. Finally, exemplification is portraying oneself as a person with high morals that should be imitated by others (see Lee et al., 1999). Table 1 Two-component model of self-presentation Defensive SP Assertive SP Excuse Ingratiation Justification Intimidation Disclaimer Supplication Self-handicapping Entitlement Apology Enhancement Blasting Exemplification Note. Table adapted from Lee et al. 1999, p. 704. Table 1. Two-component model of self-presentation Finally, it is noteworthy that although “using strategies” implies conscious behavior, self-presentation does not necessarily work consciously (Leary, 1993). The self-presentation tactics can become automatic if performed regularly, if the requirements of the context are very explicit, or if the image to be presented is internalized by the presenter. Even, self-presentation can be triggered non- consciously by priming techniques (Tyler, 2012). Departing from this nonconscious activation, it is also possible that a social comparison, or an implicit social comparison might activate certain self-presentation tactics. For example, being exposed to someone superior to the self in an important domain might lead the individual to compensate with other qualities. 2.1.4.5. Measuring self-presentation. Just as any behavior might be utilized as a self-presentation strategy, for research purposes any behavior can also 17 be measured and interpreted as self-presentational, if the appropriate factors are present –like motivation to manipulate one’s image for the sake of the desired social outcomes. The literature on self-presentation is mostly built on a wide range of behaviors that are either self-presentational themselves (e.g. promoting oneself) or interpreted as self-presentational, post-hoc (e.g. changing attitudes in the presence of some targets, tuning one’s behaviors to that of the audience, self- disclosure, etc.). Besides these behavioral measures, the categorized strategies and tactics are commonly cited in the literature. Frequently, the self-presentation tactics scale (Lee et al., 1999), modified impression management scale (Bolino & Turnley, 1999), self-presentation style inventory (Leary, Kowalski, Martin, & Koch, 1998), and perfectionistic self-presentation scale (Hewitt et al., 2003) were used to measure the tendency towards self-presentation, or the magnitude or the tactics of it. In addition to the scales of the categorized tactics, the scales of some related constructs have been used as measures of self-presentation. One of the most frequently used scales is the original and revised versions of self-monitoring scale (Laux & Renner, 2002; Nowack & Kammer, 1987; Snyder, 1974). The term “self-monitoring” and the self-monitoring scale was first introduced by Snyder (1974), as he defined a high self-monitor as being sensitive to self-presentation of others in social interactions, and using this information for monitoring own self- presentations “out of a concern for social appropriateness” (p. 528). However, use of the self-monitoring scale to measure self-presentation tendencies has been criticized for its multidimensionality, and absence of negative correlation with private self-consciousness as claimed by Snyder (Lamphere & Leary, 1990; Renner, Laux, Schütz, & Tedeschi, 2004). To compensate, some researchers used the concern for appropriateness scale for defensive self- presentation, and the revised self-monitoring scale developed by Lennox and Wolfe (1984) for acquisitive. Besides, Jones (1964) had suggested need for 20 HEXACO might tap into self-presentation better than the Big Five for the current study. Indeed, the literature supports this premise. The analyses of self- presentation in relation to HEXACO indicate that honesty/humility is negatively associated with self-presentation. For instance, Grieve (2011) found that ability to monitor own self-presentation is moderately associated with honesty/humility (r = -.30, p < .01), and strongly associated with emotional manipulation (r = -.54, p < .001). More recently, an analysis of HEXACO traits in relation to some self- presentation tactics revealed that honesty/humility was negatively associated with all analyzed tactics in moderate to strong magnitude (self-promotion, ingratiation, exemplification, intimidation, and supplication) in both student and adult sample –the adult sample having stronger correlations (Bourdage, Wiltshire, & Lee, 2015). Ogunfowora and colleagues (Ogunfowora, Bourdage, & Nguyen, 2013) point that in the distinction between the acquisitive and protective self- presentation (Arkin, 1981), the strive for approval and social gain in acquisitive self-presentation corresponds to low honesty/humility as it is associated with interest in material goods and social status, and ability to act unethical in the way of obtaining those. Also, the selfish motive of low honesty/humility is likely to correspond to the protective self-presentation, which also is associated with self- serving motive. Furthermore, honesty/humility plays a critical role in job interviews as much as self-presentation, where the applicant is highly motivated to impress the interviewers and tries to convey the best-self to them. A recent research uncovered that honesty/humility is significantly and moderately associated with deceptive self-presentation in job interviews (Roulin & Bourdage, 2017). Moreover, within the work context, the low honesty/humility employees engage in impression management behaviors more often (r = -.52, p < .001) measured with Bolino and Turnley’s (1999) 22-item impression management scale (Wiltshire Bourdage, & 21 Lee, 2013). Moreover, high honesty/humility individuals perform impression management with the motivation of organizational citizenship behavior (Bourdage, Lee, Lee, & Shin, 2012). Besides the studies in work context, de Vries and colleagues (de Vries, Zettler, & Hilbig, 2014) have investigated the role of HEXACO on socially desirable responding via the Balanced Inventory of Socially Desirable Responding (BIDR; Paulhus, 1991) encompassing impression management and self-deceptive enhancement factors. They found that honesty/humility is indeed positively and strongly associated with impression management factor (r = .56, p < .01). Parallel to that, researchers testing the Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian BIDR scale found similar strong correlation (r = .47, p < .001; Subotić, Dimitrijević, & Lovrić, 2016). These results indicate that people who answer socially desirable with the concern of impression management are people who are actually high on honesty/humility. Furthermore, this distinction in the role of honesty/humility in impression management in socially desirable responding and in real life indicates differentiation of these two domains’ underlying psychological mechanisms. Besides, agreeableness and conscientiousness moderately and significantly predict impression management factor. Furthermore, the association between the HEXACO and five-factor model, and the Dark Triad of personality was investigated by Lee and Ashton (2005). The Dark Triad is composed of the personality traits of sub-clinical psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and narcissism, associated due to their inter-correlation and conceptual similarity (Paulhus & Williams, 2002). The results indicate that honesty/humility dimension is strongly and negatively associated with the dark traits (rs = 0.72, 0.57, and 0.53, respectively). On the other hand, their association with the FFM traits remain suboptimal. The dark personalities are called “social chameleons,” and consequently, their self-presentation strategies attracted the researchers’ attention as well. Due to the close association between the dark traits and honesty/humility, and for the sake of brevity in the questionnaire form, the 22 dark triad was not directly included in the current thesis. However, because of this high association with honesty/humility, the findings on the dark triad and self- presentation have some implications in this study. Therefore, its role in the self- presentation literature will be summarized. 2.1.5.2. The Dark Triad. The Dark Triad, as mentioned above, is composed of three higher-order personality traits (Paulhus & Williams, 2002). Psychopathy is characterized by lack of interpersonal affect, remorselessness, being arrogant, and impulsive. Many studies on psychopathy have been conducted with prisoners, even though not all people with psychopathy are prisoners (Jakobwitz & Egan, 2006). Machiavellianism is associated with self-interest, manipulating others and using flattery for own gain, and being cold. Finally, narcissism is characterized by excessive self-love, feelings of superiority, and exploitativeness. Although these traits were studied individually previously, they were combined into one, as Paulhus and Williams (2002) suggested that they should be the same, and finally found out to be very similar, but definitely not the same. There is no doubt in literature that the dark personalities use strategies to obtain the desired social consequences. For instance, Rauthmann (2011) investigated the use of protective and acquisitive self-presentation strategies of the dark personalities with the self-monitoring scale (Laux & Renner, 2002) in an online study, and found that Machiavellianists tend to use protective self- presentation style more frequently, while narcissists prefer acquisitive, and psychopaths prefer both protective and acquisitive similarly. Moreover, Machiavellianists tend to use the tactics that were suggested by Jones and Pittman (1982) indiscriminately (Bolino & Turnley, 2003), employ many different personas in different situations, and less likely to use a normative self-presentation strategy (Leary & Allen, 2011). Moreover, they are likely to use perfectionist self- presentation tactics, mediated by their perception of perfectionist expectations of others (Sherry, Hewitt, Besser, Flett, & Klein, 2006). 25 handicapped themselves to both take the credit of partner’s success and free oneself from the negative evaluation in case of a failure (Shepperd & Arkin, 1991). Poor performance expectation might also lead to self-presentational conforming to the experimenter, who will evaluate the performance (Jones, Gergen, Gumpert, & Thibaut, 1965). The more recent studies provided some evidence of cultural differences upon the effect of superiority and inferiority on self-presentation. A comparison of Japanese and Canadian participants revealed that while Japanese hesitate to announce they performed better, Canadians hesitate to announce they performed worse (Heine, Takata, & Lehman, 2000). Another study found that when the Japanese participants failed at a task they evaluated that the task was important and diagnostic more than when they succeeded. Yet, the contrary pattern was observed with the North American participants (Heine et al., 2001). The success-failure, and especially superiority-inferiority studies are based on having the participants compare themselves with a standard, a group norm, another participant, or a confederate. Therefore, it includes a social comparison component. Depending on the study condition, participants are put through upward or downward comparison-like experiences, for instance, announcing they performed better or worse than the other participant. Keeping in mind the consequences of these accomplishments and failures, it can be expected that downward and upward social comparison might have similar consequences in terms of self-presentational behaviors, as they can be perceived as superiority and inferiority. Overall, self-presentation is the management of the self-related information when interacting with other people. Although it is not always deceitful, the image conveyed to the interaction partner most probably highlights some information, while concealing the others. The strategies used for self- presentation have been classified commonly as the defensive and assertive tactics, and which tactic to use depends on the interpersonal and intrapersonal goals of the 26 actor. Furthermore, some people tend to use some tactics over the others, and this is mainly determined by the personality traits. Specifically, studies show that extraversion and openness are related with assertive tactics, while neuroticism is related with the defensive tactics. Moreover, people who are high on agreeableness and conscientiousness are more likely to present themselves in line with the norms of the context. Specifically, the HEXACO trait of honesty-humility is negatively associated with self-presentation. Nevertheless, these relatively stable personality traits are not the only determinants of it; the experiences and the requirements of the context also play an important role in self-presentation. Specifically, experiences of accomplishments and failures lead to self-presentational behaviors. Experiencing a private failure hurts the self-esteem, and to recover and compensate, people tend to present themselves in a favorable light. On the other hand, when they succeed publicly, their superiority is already known to the audience, and they do not brag to look competent, but try to look warm with modest self-presentation. In the center of the current thesis is this association of inferiority and superiority experiences’ role in self-presentation, and the function of personality in this association. 2.2. Social Comparison Social comparison is a central feature of social life, for not only human- beings, but also some other species (Buunk & Gibbons, 2007; Gilbert, Price, & Allan, 1995). Buunk and Gibbons point to the studies of Sheriff (1936) as the beginning of social comparison research. Moreover, they mention the sociological writings of Hyman (1942) also pointing to the essential role of social comparison in evaluating one’s financial, intellectual, and appearance status. However, not until Festinger’s (1954) seminal work, the research in social comparison had expanded. Later, the theory has exceeded its pre-determined boundaries and 27 several researchers contributed to the literature with major theoretical improvements. 2.2.1. Classic social comparison theory. The comparison between self and others is one of the basic drives of human-beings. This comparison process influences individual’s self-evaluations, affect, behaviors, and interpersonal relationships (Corcoran, Crusius, & Mussweiler, 2011). Engaging in a comparative evaluation is so basic that individuals tend to relate when they encounter information about others’ behaviors, triggering the comparison process (Dunning & Hayes, 1996). This fundamental phenomenon of social life has been investigated extensively in social psychology literature starting with Festinger’s (1954) work, comprised of nine hypotheses which were elaborated with eight corollaries and eight deviations (see Table 2). This, one of the most fertile grounds of social psychological research has been initiated with Hypothesis 1 of the social comparison theory of Festinger (1954), suggesting that human-beings have a drive to evaluate their opinions and abilities. However, when there are no objective benchmarks against which people can compare themselves, people create their own benchmarks, and those are, most frequently, the opinions and abilities of other people who are similar to themselves (Hypothesis 2; Festinger, 1954). Thus, social comparison can be defined as the “…process of thinking about information about one or more other people in relation to the self” (Wood, 1996, p. 520). Festinger proposes that people compare themselves with similar others to get more accurate information about themselves. Furthermore, he hypothesizes people will be less motivated to compare themselves with a specific person as the difference between their opinions and abilities increase (Hypothesis 3). Additionally, he specifies that people prefer to compare their abilities (but not the opinions) with those whose abilities are slightly better than themselves, which is called the “unidirectional drive upward” (Hypothesis 4). Supporting this prediction, Blanton and colleagues showed that students nominated same-sex 30 improvement or self-enhancement (Gibbons & Buunk, 1999). These two motives triggered more comprehensive investigations of upward and downward comparison. It has been simply suggested that the self-improvement motive is associated with social comparison towards better others, and the self-enhancement motive towards the worse others (“renaissance of social comparison theory; Buunk & Gibbons, 2000; Buunk & Mussweiler, 2001). Table 2 Hypotheses, derivations, and corollaries of the social comparison theory (based on Festinger, 1954) No. Hypotheses, Derivations, & Corollaries Hypothesis I There exists, in the human organism, a drive to evaluate his opinions and his abilities. Hypothesis II To the extent that objective, non-social means are not available, people evaluate their opinions and abilities by comparison respectively with the opinions and abilities of others. Corollary II A In the absence of both a physical and a social comparison, subjective evaluations of opinions and abilities are unstable. Corollary II B When an objective, non-social basis for the evaluation of one’s ability or opinion is readily available persons will not evaluate their opinions or abilities by comparison with others. Hypothesis III The tendency to compare oneself with some other specific person decreases as the difference between his opinion or ability and one’s own increases. Corollary III A Given a range of possible persons for comparison, someone close to one’s own ability or opinion will be chosen for comparison. Corollary III B If the only comparison available is a very divergent one, the person will not be able to make a subjectively precise evaluation of his opinion or ability. Derivation A (from I, II, III) Subjective evaluations of opinions or of abilities are stable when comparison is available with others who are judged to be close to one’s opinions or abilities. Derivation B (from I, II, III) The availability of comparison with others whose opinions or abilities are somewhat different from one’s own will produce tendencies to change one’s evaluation of the opinion or ability in question. Derivation C (from I, III B) A person will be less attracted to situations where others are very divergent from him than to situations where others are close to him for both abilities and opinions. Derivation D (from I, II, III) The existence of a discrepancy in a group with respect to opinions or abilities will lead to action on the part of members of that group to reduce the discrepancy. 31 Table 2 (continued) No. Hypotheses, Derivations, & Corollaries Hypothesis IV There is a unidirectional drive upward in the case of abilities which is largely absent in opinions. Hypothesis V There are non-social restraints which make it difficult or even impossible to change one’s ability. These non-social restraints are largely absent for opinions. Derivation D1 When a discrepancy exists with respect to opinions or abilities there will be tendencies to change one’s own position so as to move closer to others in the group. Derivation D2 When a discrepancy exists with respect to opinions or abilities there will be tendencies to change others in the group to bring them closer to oneself Derivation D3 When a discrepancy exists with respect to opinions or abilities there will be tendencies to cease comparing oneself with those in the group who are very different from oneself Hypothesis VI The cessation of comparison with others is accompanied by hostility or derogation to the extent that continued comparison with those persons implies unpleasant consequences. Corollary VI A Cessation of comparison with others will be accompanied by hostility or derogation in the case of opinions. In the case of abilities this will not generally be true. Derivation F (from I, II and III) Any factors which increase the strength of the drive to evaluate some particular ability or opinion will increase the “pressure toward uniformity” concerning that ability or opinion. Hypothesis VII Any factors which increase the importance of some particular group as a comparison group for some particular opinion or ability will increase the pressure toward uniformity concerning that ability or opinion within that group. Corollary to Derivation B An increase in the importance of an ability or an opinion, or an increase in its relevance to immediate behavior, will increase the pressure toward reducing discrepancies concerning that opinion or ability. Corollary VII A The stronger the attraction to the group the stronger will be the pressure toward uniformity concerning abilities and opinions within that group. Corollary VII B The greater the relevance of the opinion or ability to the group, the stronger will be the pressure toward uniformity concerning that opinion or ability. Hypothesis VIII If persons who are very divergent from one’s own opinion or ability are perceived as different from oneself on attributes consistent with the divergence, the tendency to narrow the range of comparability becomes stronger. 32 Table 2 (continued) No. Hypotheses, Derivations, & Corollaries Hypothesis IX When there is a range of opinion or ability in a group, the relative strength of the three manifestations of pressures toward uniformity will be different for those who are close to the mode of the group than for those who are distant from the mode. Specifically, those close to the mode of the group will have stronger tendencies to change the positions of others, relatively weaker tendencies to narrow the range of comparison and much weaker tendencies to change their own position compared to those who are distant from the mode of the group. Table 2.Hypotheses, Derivations, and Corollaries of the Social Comparison Theory (based on Festinger, 1954) 2.2.2. Downward comparison theory. Some researchers challenged the Hypothesis 4 of Festinger (1954), and offered that social comparison is not only directed upward, but also downward social comparison has its advantages for the individual. Downward social comparison was first brought to the attention of the researchers by Thornton and Arrowood (1966) and Hakmiller (1966) (see Buunk & Gibbons, 2007). Later, researchers showed that self-esteem-threatened individuals do not prefer to learn information about better-off others (Friend & Gilbert, 1973). Some researchers play an important role in the development of the downward comparison theory. First, Brickman and Bulman (1977) suggested that upward social comparison might be threatening, and, therefore, might be avoided, as worse-off others might be sought for comparison information. Secondly, in his classic paper, Wills (1981) elaborated the theory of downward comparison, contrary to unidirectional drive upward, where he discussed that the downward comparison is triggered with negative affect and low subjective well-being, and results in self-enhancement. In two corollaries, he suggested that people engage in downward comparison either passively (taking the advantage of comparison opportunities with unfortunate others) or actively (by derogating or harming others, and achieving distance from or advantage of others). He also predicted that downward comparison would be more preferable for low self-esteem individuals. 35 not interested in that information. This tendency, in itself, explains the individual differences in social comparison orientation. However, the researchers have identified in their preliminary study that almost all participants indicated that they engage in social comparison at least some of the time, and 80% answered above the midpoint of the 133-mm scale from never to a lot. After a series of studies, depending on Festinger’s (1954) original theorization of social comparison, a two-factor scale was developed –as the first factor reflecting the ability and the second factor reflecting the opinion comparison. The social comparison orientation literature indicates that some personality characteristics are associated with the typical comparer (Buunk & Gibbons, 2007). First of all, chronic activation of self, self-consciousness, is highly associated with high social comparison orientation, as supported with both correlational (Gibbons & Buunk, 1999) and experimental research (Stapel & Tesser, 2001). Secondly, social comparison orientation involves an interpersonal orientation and an interdependent self, composed of high empathy, concern for others’ feelings, and sensitivity to others’ needs (e.g. Swap & Rubin, 1983). Finally, the literature suggests that negative affect and uncertainty about the self, such as low self-esteem, depression, neuroticism (uncertainty about one’s emotions) are related with being more interested in social comparison (Gilbert, Giesler, & Morris, 1995). 2.2.4. Consequences of upward and downward social comparison. Just as the tendency to compare oneself with others differs from one individual to another, the direction of social comparison orientation also varies. Many studies have shown that people prefer to compare themselves with others who are slightly better than themselves (“unidirectional drive upward”; Cruder, 1977; Wood, 1989). On the other hand, many other work has indicated that people are more interested in self-enhancement, rather than self-assessment, therefore, in downward social comparison (Sedikides, 1993; Taylor & Brown, 1988). 36 However, the consequences of social comparison in each direction is not agreed upon in the literature. For example, in work context, Brown and colleagues found that employees who engage in more upward comparison scored lower in job satisfaction and affective commitment to the organization, and vice versa for downward comparers (Brown, Ferris, Heller, & Keeping, 2007). Also, the negative effects of upward social comparison in social networking sites were demonstrated with reduced self-esteem after viewing a Facebook profile including an upward comparison information, compared to a downward comparison information (Vogel, Rose, Roberts, & Eckles, 2014). In an earlier study, the negative effect of upward social comparison on self-esteem was intensified with increased perceived self-inconsistency (Morse & Gergen, 1970). On the other hand, when the target of upward comparison is considered as a part of the self, his/her success is not considered threatening for the individual (Gardner, Gabriel, & Hochschild, 2002). Indeed, Collins (1996) presented remarkable evidence that upward social comparison does not necessarily result in negative self-evaluation, and even it may serve as a self-enhancement means, depending on the construal of comparison information. That is, if the individual perceives an upper standard as reachable, instead of an inferiority indicator, the comparison information may increase one’s confidence towards this higher level. Moreover, for stressed populations, upward comparison information may provide the individual with the possible role models and inspirations if they perceive these individuals as similar – as a self- improvement tool (Taylor & Lobel, 1989). How the information will be digested is likely to depend on the individual’s beliefs or expectations about oneself (for expectations’ shaping judgments, see Manis & Paskewitz, 1984). For example, Buunk and colleagues investigated the factors that moderate the effect of social comparison information. They uncovered that cancer patients’ self-esteem and perceived control, and married couples’ marital satisfaction have a substantial impact on how they perceive and interpret the comparison information, 37 independent of the direction of the comparison (Buunk, Collins, Taylor, Vanyperen, & Dakof, 1990). In that sense, possible moderators for how the individual construes the comparison information should not be excluded from the analyses to get a better understanding the outcomes of social comparison orientation. 2.2.5. Deliberate or automatic? Just as in self-presentation, the expression of “comparison” implies a complete control and intention over the behavior. Furthermore, most of the literature on social comparison have focused on the deliberate strives for comparison information (Wood, 1989). However, people do not always intentionally seek comparison information, but sometimes they encounter that information. These encounters may trigger social comparison both consciously and unconsciously. Even some of our ordinary choices might be result of a social comparison process or an act of avoiding a comparison information (Wood, 1996). In the similar vein, there are experimental studies indicating that social comparison might be performed effortlessly, automatically, and unconsciously (Gilbert, Giesler, & Morris, 1995; Morse & Gergen, 1970). A very recent study has found that social comparison can happen through nonconscious processes and affect conscious self-evaluations (Chatard, Bocage- Barthélémy, Selimbegović, & Guimond, 2017). 2.2.6. Recent extensions to the social comparison theory. Expanding from the primary areas of research, various issues have been investigated from the social comparison perspective, in addition to opinion and ability comparisons. First of all, a plethora of research have been conducted on body image and eating behavior. These studies mainly point to the negative effects of upward social comparison, namely idealization of thin models, on eating behaviors of young women, and increased risk of anorexia, and reduced well-being (Cattarin, Thompson, Thomas, & Williams, 2000; Hendrickse, Arpan, Clayton, & Ridgway, 2017; Pila, Jovanov, Welsh, & Sabiston, 2017). Studies in another domain, the organizational context, reveal that the advantage of being attractive in 40 However, the literature points to the existence of a beyond-the-range social comparison. In that sense, the theory might be extended to include extremely- upward and extremely-downward social comparisons as in a formulation, and their differential effects on the individual’s affect, cognition, and behavior should be investigated systematically. The social comparison theory has evolved fundamentally since its inception in 1950s. Along with many comparison dimensions in addition to abilities and opinions, the importance of downward comparison and the possibility of comparison with very different others (models, celebrities etc.) have been evidenced in the literature. Furthermore, it has been introduced that not all people are equally attentive to the comparison information. The comparison orientation was considered to be a function of personality, and the associated traits were shown to be mainly self-consciousness, interpersonal orientation, neuroticism, and self-esteem. In the classical social comparison theory, Festinger (1954) suggests that in case of a discrepancy between the self and the comparison target, individuals either change themselves or their target, or stop the comparison. In the current study, it is suggested that people can also utilize some self-presentational tactics to look closer to the upward comparison target, or to look different than the downward comparison target. Furthermore, although the possibility of beyond- the-range social comparison has been revealed through many studies on social comparison on social media, and comparison with celebrities, no direct test of these comparison is evident in the literature. Therefore, the frequency of comparison with people who are not very similar to the self is also aimed to unearth in the current study. 2.3. Self-Concept Clarity Self-concept is the answer to the question of “Who I am?” The answer to this question includes the set of opinions people hold about themselves, including 41 both personal and social identities, composed of what we know about ourselves, our experiences, all self-relevant information, and more. The conceptualization of self-concept has shifted from a stable, generalized, and monolithic entity to a more differentiated, dynamic, and multifaceted cognitive schema (Campbell, Trapnell, Heine, Katz, Lavallee, & Lehman, 1996). In the current conceptualization, the self-concept consists of the knowledge and the evaluative components. Self- concept clarity is the structural approach to the self-concept. It concerns “the extent to which the contents of an individual's self-concept (e.g., perceived personal attributes) are clearly and confidently defined, internally consistent, and temporally stable” (Campbell et al., 1996, p. 141). Importantly, self-concept clarity is a construct that is distinct from but moderately and positively related with self-esteem (Baumeister, 1993; Setterlund & Neidenthal, 1993; Wu, Watkins, & Hattie, 2010). The literature provides evidence of self-concept clarity being in close relationship with chronic self-analysis and public self-consciousness, namely the verification and enhancement self-evaluation motives (Sedikides, 1993). Among these, the chronic self-analysis is defined as “anxious preoccupation with the self” (Campbell et al., 1996, p. 147) that is in close proximity to social comparison; and public self-consciousness goes hand in hand with self-presentation (Nezlek & Leary, 2002). The limited number of studies exploring the relationship of self-concept clarity with self-presentation and social comparison found out negative associations. Adolescents with lower self-concept clarity were found to be experimenting in their online self-presentation, and favoring the idealized self- presentation. On the other hand, adolescents with stable self-views presented themselves online in parallel to their offline self-presentation (Fullwood, James, & Chen-Wilson, 2016). Similarly, earlier in the university, adolescents face a transitory phase, where the newer identity has not established yet; and the self- concept is challenged by the changing environment. In this initial stage, freshmen 42 are more restricted in their self-presentation, when they do not know their boundaries in their fresh social environment. As they reach towards the end of the semester, they become more automatic and less deliberate with more stable sense of self and relatively more secure network (Yang & Brown, 2016). Another study revealed that self-concept clarity strongly predicts impression management measured with Marlowe–Crowne Social Desirability Scale (Crowne & Marlowe, 1960), β =.50, p < .05 (Story, 2004). Furthermore, in a more indirect association with self-presentation, self-concept clarity was found negatively associated with private (r = -.21) and public self-consciousness (r = -.29), and social anxiety (r = -.26). Furthermore, social comparison is fueled by a need for social information to evaluate the self. As the individual has no clear understanding of oneself, the need to get external verification increases. They search for standards to evaluate the self, and are open to the influence of external anchors to form a clearer sense of self. For instance, Butzer and Kuiper (2006) showed that lower self-concept clarity is associated with general and upward social comparison frequency (rs = - .40, -.32, p < .01). Similarly, another investigation revealed that low self-concept clarity is associated with more social comparison tendencies to obtain information about the self (Stapel & Tesser, 2001). Moreover, low self-concept clarity is associated with internalization of societal standards, body image concerns, and appearance-related social comparisons (Vartanian & Dey, 2013). Parallel to that, these people also internalize the thin-ideal more (Cahill & Mussap, 2007) and this thin-ideal internalization mediates the relationship between self-concept clarity and body image concerns (Vartanian, 2009). From the other way around, studies show that witnessing others success or failure changes one’s salient working self- concept (see Oyserman, 2004). That is, social comparison can also potentially affect one’s self-concept and therefore self-concept clarity. Campbell and colleagues also analyzed the personality correlates of self- concept clarity, and found that the strongest is neuroticism (r = -.64); and 45 Hypothesis 3: Social comparison orientation and the frequency of social comparison are expected to be positively associated with higher tendency to engage in defensive self-presentation. Not only general orientation for social comparison, but also the direction of social comparison should be taken into account. It is assumed that people would be willing to publicize the information regarding their superiority (Webster et al., 2003), and this is possible via assertive tactics of self-presentation. Hypothesis 4: Frequency of downward social comparison is expected to be positively associated with assertive self-presentation tactics. Besides, some personality characteristics should intensify this relationship due to their effect on comparison information construal and expression of this effect. Hypothesis 4.1: Honesty/humility and extraversion should moderate the relationship between downward social comparison and assertive self-presentation by intensifying the association in low honesty/humility individuals and extraverts. On the other hand, upward social comparison sets a higher standard to reach for the individual, which causes anxiety and stress (Jang, Park, & Song, 2016), and which in turn is known to trigger defensive self-presentation (e.g., Leary, 1980; Nezlek & Leary, 2002; Sadler, Hunger, & Miller, 2010). Hypothesis 5: The frequency of upward social comparison is expected to be positively associated with defensive self-presentation tactics. Besides these comparisons suggested by Festinger (1954), the possibility of extremely upward and extremely downward social comparisons are addressed in prior research (e.g., Tiggerman & Polivy, 2010). In this respect, it is possible that an extremely upward comparison information will be associated with an approach motivation towards a possible accomplishment, and an extremely downward will be associated with an avoidance motivation from a possible failure. Depending on this rationale the sixth hypothesis will be tested. 46 Hypothesis 6: Extremely-upward comparison will be positively associated with assertive, and extremely-downward comparison with defensive self- presentation tactics. Besides the ones mentioned above, some effects of personality characteristics are expected to be more determinative. First, highly emotional people may feel higher risk of losing a better status in upward social comparison, and higher risk of becoming like unfortunate others in downward social comparison. Therefore; Hypothesis 7: High emotionality is expected to be associated with defensive self-presentation for both downward and upward social comparison. As mentioned earlier, Wolf et al. (2009) have shown that conscientiousness is negatively associated with protective, and agreeableness is negatively associated with both assertive and protective tactics. Moreover, Worth (2007) has shown that honesty/humility (r = -.59, p < .001), agreeableness (r = - .28, p < .01), and conscientiousness (r = -.23, p < .01) strongly and negatively associated with self-presentation. Therefore; Hypothesis 8.1: Agreeableness, conscientiousness, and honesty/humility should reduce the self-presentation tendencies for high social comparison orientation people, and frequent downward social comparers. Also, Leary and Allen (2011) have shown that agreeableness and conscientiousness was associated with fewer number of self-presentational personas, and more normative and self-congruent self-presentation. Hypothesis 8.2: Agreeableness and conscientiousness should buffer against the comparison information and reduce the self-presentational differences across difference social comparison directions. Since low honesty/humility is characterized by a focus on material gain and personal benefit, and unhesitant acts on self-interest the following two hypotheses are generated. 47 Hypothesis 9.1: Low honesty/humility is expected to be associated with higher supplication for upward social comparers. Hypothesis 9.2: Low honesty/humility is expected to be associated with higher intimidation for downward social comparers. Finally, self-concept clarity is expected to be in negative relationship with both social comparison and self-presentation, parallel to the literature, and to moderate the relationship between social comparison and self-presentation. Hypothesis 10.1: Self-concept clarity should be negatively associated with social comparison and self-presentation. Hypothesis 10.2: Low self-concept clarity should be associated with higher self-presentation tendencies for high social comparison people, while high self- concept clarity should be associated with a lower tendency. 50 something in order to get help;” for entitlement, “I claim credit for doing things I did not do;” for enhancement, “I exaggerate the value of my accomplishments;” for blasting, “I make negative statements about people belonging to rival groups;” and for exemplification, “I try to serve as a model for-how a person should behave.” The SPT has not been adapted to Turkish before, therefore the translation was conducted in the current thesis. First, the scale was translated into Turkish independently by two Ph.D. students, and the better translations were selected among the alternatives in a group work. After, an independent psychologist evaluated the translations in terms of the items’ Turkish grammatical and semantic attributes and offered necessary correction. Lastly, the adaptation was finalized with the thesis advisor in a group discussion, where the original items and the translations were evaluated to grasp the best corresponding meaning in Turkish along with some nuances. The scale is completed on a 5-point Likert type scale ranging from 1 = very infrequently to 9 = very frequently. The internal consistency of the defensive tactics ranges around Cronbach’s alphas of .93 and .94; and .86 and .89 for assertive tactics. In the current thesis, the SPT had a reliability of α = .92; and the defensive and assertive tactics had α = .83 and α = .89, respectively. The reliabilities of each tactic ranged between α = .56 and .81 (see Table 4 for Cronbach’s alphas). 3.3.2. Social comparison. Participants’ social comparison tendencies and directions were measured with three separate scales. Firstly, the tendency of the individuals to compare their abilities and opinions with others have been measured with the Iowa-Netherlands Comparison Orientation Measure (Gibbons & Buunk, 1999; see Appendix C). The scale consisted of 11 items, answered on a 5-point Likert scale from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. Sample items would be “I often compare myself with others with respect to what I have accomplished in life,” and “I am not the type of person who compares often with others” 51 (reverse). The internal consistency of the scale ranges between Cronbach’s alpha = .78 and .85 in the previous studies. The Turkish adaptation was conducted by Teközel (2000) with high reliability (α = .82). The reliability in the current thesis is α = .81. Secondly, the social comparison scale (Allan & Gilbert, 1995; Gilbert & Allan, 1994; Gilbert, Allan, & Trent, 1995; see Appendix D) was used to measure how the individuals feel about themselves in comparison to others. The scale was first developed with 5 items as semantic differentials, and then the 11-item version was developed (Allan & Gilbert, 1995). The original five-item scale was adapted to Turkish by Şahin, Durak, & Şahin (1993). The final version of Turkish adaptation included 18 bipolar items with high reliability (α = .89; Savaşır & Şahin, 1997). The participants rated themselves from 1 to 6 on adjectives, such as inferior-superior, unattractive-more attractive, and weaker-stronger. The scale showed good reliability, α = .88. Lastly, frequency in which individuals compare themselves with people who are better or worse than themselves will be measured with the following 5 items adapted from prior research (Buunk, Zurriaga, Gonzalez-Roma, & Subirats, 2003; Chae, 2017; Vogel, Rose, Roberts, & Eckles, 2014): “How often do you compare yourself (your abilities, opinions, achievements, failures, appearance etc.) with (a) friends, (b) celebrities, (c) people who are better than you, (d) people who are worse than you, (e) people who are way better than you, (f) people who are way worse than you, (g) people who are similar to you?” Participants will answer to the questions on a 5-point Likert scale, labeled 1 (never), 2 (seldom), 3 (sometimes), 4 (often), and 5 (always). In addition to measuring the frequency of social comparison in each direction, the overall social comparison frequency for all directions was calculated with averaging the answers to these five questions (see Appendix E). The scale had a reliability of α = .77. 3.3.3. Personality. The personality questionnaire of HEXACO-PI (Lee & Ashton, 2006) measures 6 basic personality dimensions: honesty-humility, 52 emotionality, extraversion, agreeableness (versus anger), conscientiousness, and openness to experience. The scale differs from the Big Five/Five-Factor Measures with the additional dimension of honesty-humility. This sixth dimension is intended to measure the tendency to manipulate people, to break rules, to attribute importance to material gain, and to hold a strong sense of self-importance. Moreover, the emotionality dimension of HEXACO-PI differs from the neuroticism/emotional stability dimension of the Big Five by the facets of dependence and sentimentality (Ashton & Lee, 2005). Low scores in emotionality may indicate little concern for others and being emotionally detached from them. The scale has two versions: 60-item and 100-item forms. The 60-item version is a subset of the 100-item version, and is advisable to use when the time is short (Lee & Ashton, 2009). Following this suggestion, in the current study, the 60-item version (HEXACO-60; Ashton & Lee, 2009; see Appendix F) was used in 5-point Likert scale from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. The sample items for each factor include: “I wouldn’t pretend to like someone just to get that person to do favors for me” and “I want people to know that I am an important person of high status” (reverse) for honesty/humility; “I feel like crying when I see other people crying,” and “I worry a lot less than most people do” (reverse) for emotionality; “The first thing that I always do in a new place is to make friends” and “I feel that I am an unpopular person” (reverse) for extraversion; “I am usually quite flexible in my opinions when people disagree with me” and “People sometimes tell me that I am too critical of others” (reverse) for agreeableness; “I often push myself very hard when trying to achieve a goal” and “I make a lot of mistakes because I don’t think before I act” (reverse) for conscientiousness; “People have often told me that I have a good imagination” and “I think that paying attention to radical ideas is a waste of time” (reverse) for openness to experience. The factor-level reliabilities of the 60-item scale range from Cronbach’s alpha = .73 to .80 (Ashton & Lee, 2009). The Turkish adaptation of the scale was 55 normally distributed. Mean values signal that both the defensive (M = 3.20, SD = .41) and the assertive (M = 2.48, SD = .40) tactics are used frequently. The descriptive statistics of the HEXACO dimensions indicated that the means range from 3.03 (SD = .58; extraversion) and 3.57 (SD = .52; honesty/humility). The self-concept clarity was not very high on average (M = 2.09, SD = .74) as expected from young individuals, but normally distributed. The Iowa-Netherlands Comparison Orientation Measure indicates that participants had a high tendency for social comparison (M = 3.47, SD = .53). Overall, the social comparison frequency was 2.82 out of 5 (SD = .62). Specifically, people frequently compare themselves with their friends (M = 2.48, SD = .40) and with people who are similar to themselves (M = 2.48, SD = .40). However, they reported that they compare themselves with celebrities rarely (M = 1.86, SD = .95). Moreover, participants reported that they frequently compare themselves with people who are better than (M = 3.09, SD = .97), and who are extremely better than (M = 2.86, SD = 1.04) themselves. Also, they compare with people who are worse than (M = 2.65, SD = .94), and extremely worse than (M = 2.39, SD = .93) themselves. Finally, the semantic differential social comparison measure had a high mean score (M = 4.22, SD = .69; on a 6-point Likert scale), indicating that they do downward social comparison more frequently (as higher scores indicate feeling better about oneself in comparison to others). 56 Table 4. Descriptive statistics for study variables. Variables Scale Range M SD Skewness (SE) Kurtosis (SE) α Self P. Tactics 1-5 2.78 .36 -.12 (.110) .30 (.219) .92 Defensive SP 1-5 3.20 .41 -.26 (.110) .77 (.219) .83 Assertive SP 1-5 2.48 .40 .06 (.110) .04 (.219) .89 Supplication 1-5 2.35 .55 .24 (.110) .14 (.219) .59 Blasting 1-5 2.45 .60 .39 (.110) .75 (.219) .67 Disclaimer 1-5 3.11 .63 -.40 (.110) .45 (.219) .65 Entitlement 1-5 2.35 .55 .20 (.110) .17 (.219) .65 Excuse 1-5 2.94 .66 -.18 (.110) .14 (.219) .74 Exemplification 1-5 3.34 .69 -.45 (.110) -.19 (.219) .77 Self-handicapping 1-5 2.57 .63 .20 (.110) .02 (.219) .58 Ingratiation 1-5 2.56 .58 .03 (.110) -.17 (.219) .81 Intimidation 1-5 1.70 .56 .94 (.110) 1.27 (.219) .78 Justification 1-5 3.27 .64 -.49 (.110) .53 (.219) .76 Apology 1-5 4.07 .48 -.48 (.110) 1.52 (.219) .75 Enhancement 1-5 2.63 .62 .25 (.110) -.16 (.219) .56 Honesty/humility 1-5 3.57 .52 -.28 (.110) .64 (.219) .81 Emotionality 1-5 3.33 .57 -.17 (.110) -.18 (.219) .76 Extraversion 1-5 3.03 .58 -.25 (.110) -.03 (.219) .78 Agreeableness 1-5 3.13 .56 -.35 (.110) .67 (.219) .65 Conscientiousness 1-5 3.37 .57 -.18 (.110) .14 (.219) .77 Openness 1-5 3.60 .56 -.17 (.110) -.07 (.219) .73 Self-Concept Clarity 1-5 2.09 .74 .09 (.110) -.62 (.219) .90 Social Comparison O. 1-5 3.47 .53 -.24 (.110) -.20 (.219) .81 SC 1-5 4.22 .69 -.59 (.110) 1.10 (.219) .88 SC Frequency 1-5 2.82 .62 -.27 (.110) .04 (.219) .77 Friends 1-5 3.34 .92 -.49 (.110) -.14 (.219) – Similar others 1-5 3.55 .91 -.54 (.110) .12 (.219) – Celebrities 1-5 1.86 .95 .95 (.110) .06 (.219) – Upward 1-5 3.09 .97 -.22 (.110) -.43 (.219) – Downward 1-5 2.65 .94 .08 (.110) -.47 (.219) – Extremely upward 1-5 2.86 1.04 -.08 (.110) -.61 (.219) – Extremely downward 1-5 2.39 .93 .20 (.110) -.60 (.219) – Note.SC = Semantic differential social comparison measure, SC Frequency = Social comparison frequency Table 4. Descriptive statistics for study variables. 57 4.2. Self-Presentation Tendency In addition to understanding the prevalence of general self-presentation, it is important to grasp the relative frequency that each tactic is employed. To analyze this inquiry, a repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted. The results revealed significant differences across tactics, Wilks’ λ = .10, F(11, 485) = 383.38, p < .001, ηp 2 = .90. According to the post-hoc analyses, the participants indicated using apology (M = 4.07, SD = .48) significantly more frequently than all other tactics, p < .001. Apology was followed by exemplification (M = 3.34, SD = .69) and justification (M = 3.27, SD = .64), which were reported to be used significantly more frequently than other tactics. The examination of the least frequent tactics revealed that the participants reported using intimidation (M = 1.70, SD = .56) significantly less than all other tactics, p < .001. It was followed by supplication (M = 2.35, SD = .55), entitlement (M = 2.35, SD = .55), and blasting (M = 2.45, SD = .60) as the second least frequent tactics. Overall, it is still clear that the most frequent ones are among the defensive tactics and the least are among the assertive tactics. To examine the gender differences in self-presentational behaviors several t-test analyses were conducted. In general, no differences were observed for the self-presentation tactics scale, t(490) = -.959, n.s. Also, there were no gender differences in defensive self-presentation, t(490) = 1.93, n.s. However, the significant difference in assertive self-presentation (t(490) = -2.91, p < .01) indicated that men (M = 2.56, SD = .40) were more likely to use assertive tactics compared to women (M = 2.45, SD = .39). The tactic-level t-tests indicated that although there were no gender differences in excuse, justification, disclaimer, ingratiation, and exemplification, women scored higher on self-handicapping and apology compared to men; and men scored higher on intimidation, blasting, entitlement, and enhancement compared to women (see Table 5). 60 exemplification-intimidation). All the remaining inter-correlations were significant at p < 0.05 or p < .01. The conceptually similar defensive tactics of excuse, justification, and disclaimer were also strongly related with each other (all r’s > .60, p < .01). Moreover, the conceptually similar entitlement and enhancement were also strongly associated with each other (r = .69, p < .01). The association of the self-presentation tactics scale, and defensive and assertive self-presentation with other main variables was investigated. They were negatively associated with self-concept clarity, though not as strong as suggested by the literature (r’s = -.30, -.30, and -.24, respectively, p < .01). Moreover, they were positively associated with social comparison orientation (r’s = .49, .53, and .37, respectively, p < .01) and social comparison frequency (r’s = .39, .35, and .34, respectively, p < .01). The strong association of social comparison orientation with defensive self-presentation is fundamental since being attentive to comparison information is also associated with not creating a negative impression on other people. Furthermore, the semantic differential social comparison measure was negatively associated with the self-presentation tactics scale (r = -.22, p < .01), and defensive (r = -.24, p < .01) and assertive self-presentation (r = -.17, p < .01). The results indicate that increased downward social comparison was associated with less self-presentation, as the higher scores in this social comparison measure means more downward social comparison. The relationship of overall self-presentation tactics, and defensive and assertive self-presentation with personality dimensions were also analyzed. Importantly, they were negatively associated with honesty/humility (r’s = -.42, - .20, and -.51, respectively, p < .01) and conscientiousness (r’s = -.15, -.12, and - .14, respectively, p < .01). It is also noteworthy that honesty/humility had the strongest association with the assertive self-presentation. It is striking that emotionality is positively correlated with the self-presentation tactics scale (r = .21, p < .01) and defensive self-presentation (r = .34, p < .01), and no correlation 61 with assertive self-presentation was observed (r = .08, ns). Extraversion was only associated with defensive (r = -.12, p < .01), and agreeableness (r = -.16, p < .01) and openness (r = -.15, p < .01) were only associated with assertive self- presentation. Particularly, inter-correlations among the facets of honesty/humility and their relationship with the self-presentation tactics were examined. First of all, even though the scale had high reliability, the facets had low to medium positive correlations among each other (p < .01), except greed avoidance and modesty (r = .49, p < .01). Secondly, the sincerity facet had the strongest association with the self-presentation tactics scale (r = -.42, p < .01), and assertive self-presentation (r = -.48, p < .01), and a relatively lower association with defensive self-presentation (r = -.23, p < .01). Sincerity also had a moderate to high negative association with the majority of the tactics; yet, a positive significant correlation with apology was observed (r = .18, p < .01). Indeed, all facets had positive correlations with apology. In contrast to sincerity, it is striking that fairness, greed avoidance, and modesty had none to medium associations (see Table 8). Social comparison is the second important component of the current investigation, following self-presentation. The correlation coefficients indicate that social comparison orientation had a positive association with social comparison frequency (r = .57, p < .01), and a negative association with the semantic differential social comparison measure (r = -.25, p < .01). This indicates that higher social comparison orientation is mostly related with frequent upward social comparison, instead of downward. The social comparison orientation’s correlation with the HEXACO-PI indicates a positive relationship with emotionality (r = .30, p < .01), and negative relationships with honesty/humility (r = -.22, p < .01) and extraversion (r = -.15, p < .01). Finally, it is worth mentioning that the increased downward social comparison (indicated with the semantic differential social comparison measure) is associated with extraversion (r = .56, p < .01). 62 Lastly, the association of gender (1 = women, 2 = men) with defensive (r = - .10, p < .05) and assertive self-presentation (r = .12, p < .01) is in line with the literature, as women tend to use defensive and men tend to use assertive tactics more frequently. 4.4.1. Self-concept clarity. Self-concept clarity’s negative association with social comparison was established in the literature. In the current investigation, the Hypothesis 10.1 was supported as it has negative correlation with social comparison orientation (r = -.26, p < .01) and social comparison frequency (r = - .23, p < .01). In addition, its association with the semantic differential social comparison measure was positive (r = .44, p < .01), indicating that high self- concept clarity is related with downward social comparison. Furthermore, the prediction about self-concept clarity–self-presentation association was supported as both the self-presentation tactics scale (r = -.30, p < .01), and defensive (r = - .30, p < .01) and assertive self-presentation (r = -.24, p < .01) were negatively correlated with self-concept clarity. Finally, the association of self-concept clarity with the personality dimensions indicate that it has positive correlations with extraversion (r = .32, p < .01), conscientiousness (r = .23, p < .01), and honesty/humility (r = .16, p < .01), but negative correlation with emotionality (r = -.19, p < .01). 65 Table 8 Correlations of self-presentation tactics with the HEXACO and the facets of honesty/humility. Sincerity Fairness Greed Av. Modesty H/H E X A C O Excuse -.29** -.18** -.18** -.23** -.31** .22** -.10* -.06 -.13** -.03 Justification -.25** -.14** -.19** -.22** -.28** .13** -.03 .01 -.01 .06 Disclaimer -.23** -.05 -.13** -.05 -.16** .26** -.14** .11* -.08 -.03 Self- Handicapping -.09* -.03 -.04 .04 -.05 .31** -.17** -.06 -.25** .04 Apology .18** .18** .12** .17** .24** .22** .04 .31** .13** .14** Ingratiation -.51** -.20** -.24** -.21** -.41** .14** .02 .02 -.16** -.04 Intimidation -.31** -.17** -.29** -.33** -.39** -.15** .04 -.33** -.14** -.14** Supplication -.44** -.21** -.17** -.08 -.32** .14** -.13** .00 -.33** -.17** Blasting -.35** -.31** -.34** -.33** -.48** .05 -.03 -.37** -.11* -.13** Entitlement -.36** -.23** -.28** -.37** -.44** .00 .15** -.16** -.12** -.11* Enhancement -.28** -.10* -.24** -.29** -.32** .06 .05 -.13** -.08 -.12** Exemplification -.10* .12** -.16** -.17** -.11* .11* .09* .17** .19** -.03 Note. **. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). *. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). A = Agreeableness, C = Conscientiousness, E = Emotionality, X = Extraversion, H = Honesty/humility, O = Openness. Table 8. Correlations of self-presentation tactics with the HEXACO and the facets of honesty/humility 6 5 66 Table 9. Correlations of self-presentation tactics with the social comparison measures, self-concept clarity, age, and gr. Table 9 Correlations of self-presentation tactics with the social comparison measures, self-concept clarity, age, and gender. SCO SC Freq SC SCC Age Gender Excuse .39** .25** -.22** -.24** -.06 -.02 Justification .48** .36** -.13** -.19** -.01 .04 Disclaimer .47** .28** -.20** -.22** -.06 -.03 Self-Handicapping .20** .19** -.25** .34** .04 -.24** Apology .21** .06 .05 .05 -.05 -.09* Ingratiation .28** .33** -.18** -.26** .08 .05 Intimidation .06 .11* -.08** -.09* .08 .13** Supplication .26** .26** -.25** -.30** .08 .10* Blasting .24** .23** -.17** -.19** .08 .12** Entitlement .24** .25** -.08 -.17** .04 .10* Enhancement .26** .23** -.07 -.15** .08 .10** Exemplification .31** .21** .00 -.03** .00 -.02 **. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). *. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). SC = Semantic differential social comparison measure. SC Freq = Mean score of social comparison frequency towards all directions, Gender: 1 = Women, 2 = Men. 6 6 67 4.5. The Relationship between Social Comparison snd Self-Presentation The second hypothesis and the basic premise behind all the subsequent hypotheses is, basically, that social comparison would predict self-presentation. First, this main hypothesis (Hypothesis 2), and then the hypotheses 3, 4, 5, and 6 were tested with linear regressions. Specifically, Hypothesis 2 predicted that the social comparison orientation and the frequency of social comparison are expected to be positively associated with the tendency to engage in self-presentation. The linear regression analysis supported this prediction for social comparison orientation and the frequency of social comparison, β = .49 and β = .39, respectively, p’s < .001 (Table 10). Table 10 Summary of linear regression analyses for social comparison orientation and frequency of social comparison predicting self-presentation. B SE (B) Beta t Sig. Model 1 SCO .34 .03 .49 12.55 .000 Model 2 SC Freq. .23 .02 .39 9.31 .000 Table 10. Summary of linear regression analyses for social comparison orientation and frequency of social comparison predicting self-presentation. Furthermore, prediction of self-presentation by social comparison was tested by using the frequency of social comparison directions as the indicators of social comparison latent and the defensive and assertive self-presentation as the indicators of self-presentation latent via STATA 14 (see Figure 2). The prediction of Hypothesis 2 was supported in this analysis as well, in addition to providing an understanding of how each measurement helps to explain the main constructs, even though the data did not provide a good fit to the modified model, RMSEA = 70 presentation tactics scale was also weak but significant (β = .19, p < .001; Table 13). Table 13 Summary of linear regression analyses for downward social comparison predicting assertive and defensive self-presentation, and self-presentation tactics scale. B SE (B) Beta t Sig. DV: Assertive SP DSC .08 .02 .18 3.98 .000 DV: Defensive SP DSC .07 .02 .15 3.46 .001 DV: SPT DSC .7 .02 .19 4.23 .000 Table 13. Summary of linear regression analyses for downward social comparison predicting assertive and defensive self-presentation, and self-presentation tactics scale. On the other hand, the moderation Hypothesis 4.1. suggested that honesty/humility and extraversion would moderate the downward social comparison and assertive self-presentation relationship. However, the moderation analysis conducted by using Hayes’ PROCESS macro did not support this hypothesis (Figure 3). Figure 3. Honesty/humility and extraversion moderating downward social comparison and assertive self-presentation relationship. The fifth hypothesis that the frequency of upward social comparison (USC) would be positively associated with defensive self-presentation tactics was also supported by linear regression analysis, and a moderate relationship was found, β = .26, p < .001. Moreover, upward social comparison was moderately and 71 significantly related with assertive self-presentation, β = .26, p < .001. Finally, it was moderately associated with SPT, β = .29, p < .001 (Table 14). Table 14 Summary of linear regression analyses for upward social comparison predicting defensive and assertive self-presentation, and overall self-presentation tactics. B SE (B) Beta t Sig. DV: Defensive SP USC .11 .02 .26 5.92 .000 DV: Assertive SP USC .11 .02 .26 5.99 .000 DV: SPT USC .11 .02 .29 6.74 .000 Table 14.Summary of linear regression analyses for upward social comparison predicting defensive and assertive self-presentation, and overall self-presentation tactics. Furthermore, extremely-upward comparison (E-USC) was positively associated with assertive (β = .26, p < .001), and extremely-downward comparison (E-DSC) with defensive self-presentation tactics (β = .14, p < .01), as suggested by Hypothesis 6. In addition, extremely-upward comparison was positively associated with defensive (β = .25, p < .001), and extremely-downward comparison with assertive self-presentation tactics (β = .18, p < .01). Finally, extremely-upward comparison and extremely-downward comparison were positively associated with SPT, (β = .29, p < .01; β = .18, p < .01; respectively; Table 15). 72 Table 15 Summary of linear regression analyses for extremely-upward social comparison and extremely-downward social comparison predicting assertive and defensive self-presentation. B SE (B) Beta t Sig. DV: Assertive SP E-USC .10 .02 .26 5.97 .000 E-DSC .08 .02 .18 4.02 .000 DV: Defensive SP E-USC .10 .02 .25 5.80 .000 E-DSC .06 .02 .14 3.04 .003 DV: SPT E-USC .10 .02 .29 6.67 .000 E-DSC .07 .02 .18 4.05 .000 Table 15. Summary of linear regression analyses for extremely-upward social comparison and extremely-downward social comparison predicting assertive and defensive self-presentation. 4.5.1. The moderator role of personality. Emotionality was tested as a moderator in the relationships of upward social comparison and downward social comparison with defensive self-presentation, for the seventh hypothesis. However, the moderation analysis did not lend any support (Figure 4). Figure 4. Emotionality moderating upward (left) and downward (right) social comparison’s association with defensive self-presentation. On the other hand, emotionality significantly moderated the associations of upward social comparison and downward social comparison with assertive self- presentation (Figures 5, 6, and 7). However, the explained variance for the interactions was very low (ΔR2 = .01, ΔF(1, 492) = 3.61, p < .06; ΔR2 = .01, ΔF(1, 492) = 4.18, p < .05, respectively). 75 Furthermore, the suggestion of Hypothesis 8.2. that agreeableness and conscientiousness should reduce the self-presentational differences across different social comparison directions was not supported (Figure 9). Figure 9. Conscientiousness and agreeableness moderating the relationship of downward, upward, extremely-upward, extremely-downward social comparison with self-presentation. Finally, hypotheses 9.1. and 9.2 predicted that honesty/humility would be negatively associated with higher supplication for upward and downward social comparers (Figure 10). However, these two hypotheses were not supported neither. Figure 10. Honesty/humility moderating the relationship between upward social comparison and supplication (left), and between downward social comparison and intimidation (right). 4.5.2. Self-concept clarity. Self-concept clarity was predicted to be negatively associated with both social comparison and self-presentation in Hypothesis 10.1. The linear regression analysis supported the hypothesis, as self- 76 concept clarity was significantly and negatively associated with social comparison orientation (β = -.26, p < .001) and self-presentation (β = -.30, p < .001; Table 16). Table 16 Summary of linear regression analyses for self-concept clarity predicting social comparison orientation and self-presentation. B SE (B) Beta t Sig. DV: Social Comparison Orientation Self-Concept C. -.19 .03 -.26 -6.06 .000 DV: Self-Presentation Self-Concept C. -.15 .02 -.30 -6.94 .000 Table 16. Summary of linear regression analyses for self-concept clarity predicting social comparison orientation and self-presentation. Furthermore, in addition to the personality moderators of social comparison and self-presentation, self-concept clarity was hypothesized to play a moderator role, as well (Hypothesis 10.2). Self-concept clarity significantly moderated the relationship between social comparison orientation and self-presentation tactics scale (Figure 11). Yet, the explained variance for the interaction was very low (ΔR2 = .01, ΔF(1, 492) = 3.73, p = .05). Besides this hypothesized relationship, self-concept clarity moderated the association between social comparison with celebrities and defensive self-presentation (Figure 12). However, again, the significant relationship had no correspondence in the explained variance for interaction (ΔR2 = .01, ΔF(1, 492) = 5.29, p < .05). Figure 11. Self-concept clarity moderating the relationship between social comparison and self- presentation. 77 Figure 12. Self-concept clarity moderating the relationship between social comparison with celebrities and defensive self-presentation. 4.5.3. Additional moderator analyses. In addition to the hypothesized moderator analyses, some supplementary analyses were run. The results indicated that the sincerity moderated the relationship between social comparison scale and defensive tactics, but the additional variance explained was very low (ΔR2 = .013, ΔF(1, 492) = 7.05, p < .01; Figure 13). Furthermore, sincerity moderated the relationship of extremely downward social comparison with self-presentation tactics scale and defensive self-presentation with low additional variance explained (ΔR2 = .01, ΔF(1, 492) = 8.13, p < .01 for SPT; ΔR2 = .02, ΔF(1, 492) = 7.95, p < .01 for defensive SP; Figure 14). Figure 13. Sincerity moderating the relationship between social comparison and defensive self- presentation.