The Impact of Stable and Unstable Attributes on Ability Assessment in Social Comparison

Abstract

Social comparison theory assumes that people rely on the multiple sufficient causes of attributional schema for ability assessment. When standing on performance-related attributes differs between two individuals, ability judgments should be low in confidence to the extent that performance differences are consistent with the attribute differences and high in confidence when the two are inconsistent. The authors argue that this holds true for standing on unstable attributes such as practice but not for stable attributes such as education. Stable attributes serve as cues to ability rather than as alternative interpretations of performance differences. In a series of three experiments, participants’ ability judgments were more confident when performance was consistent with their standing on stable attributes (education, occupation) but less confident when consistent with standing on an unstable attribute (practice).