Despite the frequency with which individuals compare themselves to a benchmark, little research has examined the implications of such comparisons on willingness to help others. Such comparisons can ...vary in direction by suggesting that one is doing better than a benchmark (a downward comparison) or worse than a benchmark (an upward comparison). We argue and find that by being relatively better off, people making downward comparisons are more likely to view giving as a means of expressing altruistic values (e.g., to give back and be a better person) compared to those making upward comparisons. Consequently, when the context highlights the instrumentality of giving for more altruistic reasons (to benefit others), they are more willing to give than are those making upward comparisons. Furthermore, this difference is mitigated when the context highlights the instrumentality of giving to benefit the self, and is reversed when the instrumentality of giving for benefitting others is challenged. We obtain support for this account across four studies, through both moderation and mediation, and across both monetary and nonmonetary comparison domains.
People are constantly preoccupied with how they are doing compared to different standards. This preoccupation influences judgments of well-being, including depression. However, research on well-being ...comparisons is scarce, also due to a lack of a measure of multi-standard comparisons.
Our research goals were twofold. First, we validated the Comparison Standards Scale for well-being (CSS-W). Second, by drawing on central propositions of the general comparative-processing model, we examined the association of habitual well-being comparisons, their perceived discrepancies with the standard, and engendered affect with depressive symptoms and psychological well-being in dysphoric participants (N = 500). The CSS-W assesses habitual social, temporal, counterfactual, and criteria-based upward and downward comparisons regarding their a) frequency, b) perceived discrepancy, and c) engendered affect.
The findings confirmed the theoretically expected two-factor solution representing aversive (mostly upward) and appetitive (mostly downward) comparisons. Comparison frequency, discrepancy, and engendered affect were associated with depression and well-being. Yet, aversive comparisons displayed higher associations with the outcomes than appetitive comparisons. In particular, frequency of appetitive comparisons was not significantly correlated to depression. In line with our central theory-driven hypothesis, the relationship between frequency of aversive comparisons with depression was partially mediated by serial effects of comparison discrepancy and affect, whereas the relationship with well-being was fully mediated by comparison discrepancy and affect.
The cross-sectional design of the study does not allow for conclusions of causal relations between the measured variables.
The presented framework proves useful in examining significant comparison processes in well-being and depression.
•People regularly compare their well-being to social and other types of standards.•The CSS-W represents a useful measure of aversive and appetitive well-being comparisons.•Aversive well-being comparisons show large correlations with depression.•Comparison discrepancy and engendered affect predict depression beyond comparison frequency.
Students compare their achievement in a subject with their classmates’ achievements (social comparison), their own prior achievements (temporal comparison), and their achievements in other subjects ...(dimensional comparison), which can each be better (upward comparison), equal (lateral comparison), or worse (downward comparison). Prior research has investigated the impact of different comparison motivations on the prevalence of social and temporal comparisons, but no study has examined the same for dimensional comparisons yet. The present study closes this gap: A total of 605 German high school students were presented with four situations, in which a fictitious student receives the same objective feedback for an exam in a certain subject, but is motivated either to evaluate, to enhance, to improve, or to differentiate himself. For each comparison motivation, the participants judged how likely the fictitious student was to draw dimensional, social, and temporal upward, lateral, and downward comparisons. As a central result, dimensional comparisons in all directions had the highest prevalences under the self-differentiation motivation. In contrast, the prevalences of dimensional comparisons were relatively low under the other three motivations. This finding complements the recently developed dimensional comparison theory. For the first time, we could empirically show that dimensional comparisons primarily serve self-differentiation motivations.
Infectious Ideas is a comparative analysis of how Muslim and Christian scholars explained the transmission of disease in the premodern Mediterranean world.
How did religious communities respond to ...and make sense of epidemic disease? To answer this, historian Justin K. Stearns looks at how Muslim and Christian communities conceived of contagion, focusing especially on the Iberian Peninsula in the aftermath of the Black Death. What Stearns discovers calls into question recent scholarship on Muslim and Christian reactions to the plague and leprosy.
Stearns shows that rather than universally reject the concept of contagion, as most scholars have affirmed, Muslim scholars engaged in creative and rational attempts to understand it. He explores how Christian scholars used the metaphor of contagion to define proper and safe interactions with heretics, Jews, and Muslims, and how contagion itself denoted phenomena as distinct as the evil eye and the effects of corrupted air. Stearns argues that at the heart of the work of both Muslims and Christians, although their approaches differed, was a desire to protect the physical and spiritual health of their respective communities.
Based on Stearns's analysis of Muslim and Christian legal, theological, historical, and medical texts in Arabic, Medieval Castilian, and Latin, Infectious Ideas is the first book to offer a comparative discussion of concepts of contagion in the premodern Mediterranean world.
Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is common but difficult to treat. Altering the gut microbiota has been proposed as a strategy for treatment of IBS, but the association between the gut microbiome and ...IBS symptoms has not been well established. We performed a systematic review to explore evidence for this association.
We searched databases, including MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane CDSR, and CENTRAL, through April 2, 2018 for case–control studies comparing the fecal or colon microbiomes of adult or pediatric patients with IBS with microbiomes of healthy individuals (controls). The primary outcome was differences in specific gut microbes between patients with IBS and controls.
The search identified 2631 citations; 24 studies from 22 articles were included. Most studies evaluated adults presenting with various IBS subtypes. Family Enterobacteriaceae (phylum Proteobacteria), family Lactobacillaceae, and genus Bacteroides were increased in patients with IBS compared with controls, whereas uncultured Clostridiales I, genus Faecalibacterium (including Faecalibacterium prausnitzii), and genus Bifidobacterium were decreased in patients with IBS. The diversity of the microbiota was either decreased or not different in IBS patients compared with controls. More than 40% of included studies did not state whether cases and controls were comparable (did not describe sex and/or age characteristics).
In a systematic review, we identified specific bacteria associated with microbiomes of patients with IBS vs controls. Studies are needed to determine whether these microbes are a product or cause of IBS.
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Population‐adjusted indirect comparison (PAIC) is an increasingly used technique for estimating the comparative effectiveness of different treatments for the health technology assessments when ...head‐to‐head trials are unavailable. Three commonly used PAIC methods include matching‐adjusted indirect comparison (MAIC), simulated treatment comparison (STC), and multilevel network meta‐regression (ML‐NMR). MAIC enables researchers to achieve balanced covariate distribution across two independent trials when individual participant data are only available in one trial. In this article, we provide a comprehensive review of the MAIC methods, including their theoretical derivation, implicit assumptions, and connection to calibration estimation in survey sampling. We discuss the nuances between anchored and unanchored MAIC, as well as their required assumptions. Furthermore, we implement various MAIC methods in a user‐friendly R Shiny application Shiny‐MAIC. To our knowledge, it is the first Shiny application that implements various MAIC methods. The Shiny‐MAIC application offers choice between anchored or unanchored MAIC, choice among different types of covariates and outcomes, and two variance estimators including bootstrap and robust standard errors. An example with simulated data is provided to demonstrate the utility of the Shiny‐MAIC application, enabling a user‐friendly approach conducting MAIC for healthcare decision‐making. The Shiny‐MAIC is freely available through the link: https://ziren.shinyapps.io/Shiny_MAIC/.
•A sample of college students were assessed at three time points over 22 months.•Narcissism at T1 was positively related to problematic SNS use at T3.•Ability comparison mediated the link between ...narcissism and problematic SNS use.•Opinion comparison did not mediate the narcissism-problematic SNS use relation.
The present study aimed to explore whether the tendency to compare one’s abilities and opinions to those of others (social comparison orientation) could longitudinally mediate the association between narcissism and problematic SNS use. A total of 1,196 college students were assessed at three time points over 22 months. The results showed that narcissism at time 1 was positively related to problematic SNS use at time 3 and that ability comparison at time 2 longitudinally mediated the association between narcissism at time 1 and problematic SNS use at time 3, whereas the longitudinal mediating effect of opinion comparison at time 2 was not significant. These findings suggest that narcissism more distally and ability comparison more proximally may be risk factors for engaging in problematic SNS use, and it is important to distinguish between types of social comparisons in problematic SNS use behaviors.
The present research examined the joint effects of social, dimensional, and temporal comparisons on students' academic self-concepts and parents' beliefs about their children's competencies during ...students' transition phase from elementary school to junior high school. To this end, we tested the newly developed 2I/E model using longitudinal data including 2,417 students between Grades 6 and 7 and 1,846 parents. We found strong social comparison effects and moderate dimensional and temporal comparison effects on students' self-concepts. In line with our assumption that students should be particularly sensitive to changes in their achievements during phases of school transition, the temporal comparison effects were stronger than in any prior study of the 2I/E model. Parents' ratings of their children's competencies were also predicted by social, dimensional, and temporal comparisons. However, whereas the social comparison effects on students' and parents' ratings were equally strong, the dimensional and temporal comparison effects were stronger on students' ratings. We finally tested how social, dimensional, and temporal comparisons affected changes in students' self-concepts and parents' competence beliefs over 1 year. Although the effects of all 3 comparisons were still significant, we found drastic changes in their strengths, with the strongest effects on changes in competence beliefs occurring for temporal comparisons. Overall, our study provides a variety of new insights into the impact of comparison processes on the formation of competence beliefs. In particular, it emphasizes the role of temporal comparisons. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Educational Impact and Implications Statement
Individuals use different kinds of comparative information in forming their beliefs about their competencies: Social comparisons involve comparing one's performance with that of others, temporal comparisons are comparing one's current performance to previous performance, and dimensional comparisons are comparing one's performance in different subject areas. The present study investigated how these comparison processes influenced students' beliefs about their own competencies and their parents' beliefs about their children's competencies across a major transition occurring in most U.S. schools-the elementary to junior high school transition. Results showed that students and their parents used all 3 kinds of comparative information, but in general students used temporal and dimensional comparisons more than did parents. Moreover, the influence of temporal comparisons on students' competence beliefs was stronger than in prior studies examining these effects during periods where no school transition took place. The study's findings have implications for teachers' understanding of students' development of their competence beliefs and the kinds of messages they can give to both their students and their students' parents to enhance students' beliefs in their competencies at the time of transition.
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CEKLJ, FFLJ, NUK, ODKLJ, PEFLJ
Background
Migration and the resulting challenges in the host country can have a profound impact on the mental health of refugees and intensify preoccupation with one's own well‐being. Yet, cognitive ...factors underlying the adverse impact of postmigration stressors are poorly understood.
Objective
We aimed at exploring the frequency and nature of well‐being comparisons in the context of flight and migration using the Comparison Standards Scale for Well‐being (CSS‐W), which assesses well‐being related social, temporal, counterfactual, criteria‐based and dimensional aversive and appetitive comparisons. We further aimed at examining the mediating role of well‐being comparisons and general self‐efficacy in the relationship between postmigration stressors and psychological well‐being.
Methods
We conducted a survey with 1070 Arabic speaking forcibly displaced people in Germany assessing well‐being comparisons, general self‐efficacy, postmigration stressors, subjective well‐being and social media engagement.
Results
Factor analysis of the CSS‐W yielded a theoretically grounded two‐factor structure proposing an aversive (mostly upward) and an appetitive (mostly downward) comparison factor. Aversive and appetitive comparisons were reported by more than 99% of participants, with temporal comparisons being reported by 98.7% of participants. Postmigration stressors were significantly related to subjective well‐being and aversive well‐being comparisons and general self‐efficacy partially mediated this relationship. Appetitive well‐being comparisons, however, were not significantly related to neither postmigration stressors nor general self‐efficacy.
Conclusion
Aversive well‐being comparisons and general self‐efficacy seem to play a significant role in the adverse effects of postmigration stressors on subjective well‐being. Longitudinal research is needed to examine the directional dynamics between general self‐efficacy, well‐being comparisons and postmigration stressors.
The Friedman rank sum test is a widely-used nonparametric method in computational biology. In addition to examining the overall null hypothesis of no significant difference among any of the rank ...sums, it is typically of interest to conduct pairwise comparison tests. Current approaches to such tests rely on large-sample approximations, due to the numerical complexity of computing the exact distribution. These approximate methods lead to inaccurate estimates in the tail of the distribution, which is most relevant for p-value calculation.
We propose an efficient, combinatorial exact approach for calculating the probability mass distribution of the rank sum difference statistic for pairwise comparison of Friedman rank sums, and compare exact results with recommended asymptotic approximations. Whereas the chi-squared approximation performs inferiorly to exact computation overall, others, particularly the normal, perform well, except for the extreme tail. Hence exact calculation offers an improvement when small p-values occur following multiple testing correction. Exact inference also enhances the identification of significant differences whenever the observed values are close to the approximate critical value. We illustrate the proposed method in the context of biological machine learning, were Friedman rank sum difference tests are commonly used for the comparison of classifiers over multiple datasets.
We provide a computationally fast method to determine the exact p-value of the absolute rank sum difference of a pair of Friedman rank sums, making asymptotic tests obsolete. Calculation of exact p-values is easy to implement in statistical software and the implementation in R is provided in one of the Additional files and is also available at http://www.ru.nl/publish/pages/726696/friedmanrsd.zip .
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