Assimilation Effect And Contrast Effect On Athletes In The Situation Of Competition And Cooperation

Social comparison is an idea that Festinger, an American social psychologist, proposed in1954. The aim of this study to explore the context of competition and cooperation, athletes' social assimilation effects and contrast effects, and on this basis, to explore if self-esteem is a moderator in the context of cooperation.In Experiment1,120participants were randomly assigned to competition situation group and cooperation of the situation averagely. Participants were asked for completing implicit memory task, which activate their upward comparison and downward. The results found that in the competition situation, the athletes tend to produce contrast effect; In cooperation situation, self-evaluation level of upward athletes dropped, whereas self-evaluation level of downward athletes went up.In experiment2, the mediated effects caused by i self-esteem between social comparison and self-evaluation were tested. The participants filled out Rosenberg self-esteem scale and completed implicit memory task as experiment1. The results show that self-esteem is a moderator between social comparison and self-evaluation in cooperation situation. The self-evaluation level of low self-esteem athletes reduced comparing with excellent athletes, whereas arised comparing with little bad athlets. In contrast, High self-esteem athletes went up when they compared with better athlets.The present research validated Stapel's [CM and demonstrate that self-esteem is a moderator between social comparison and self-evaluation in cooperation situation. It is pointed out that considering athlete level of self-esteem especially in cooperation situation to avoid unnecessary influences on their self-evaluation under Chinese cultural background.