| Social comparison is ubiquitous in our daily life,and even online situations are full of a large amount of social comparison.When using social networking sites,individuals’ positive presentation preferences and social comparison information available everywhere make individuals appear a large number of upward social comparison behaviors when using social networking sites.Although the use of social networking sites itself does not necessarily have a negative impact on individuals,it often leads to negative results through the intermediary role of upward social comparison.Self-evaluation relevantly related to the social comparison,it is not only the driving force of social comparison,but also the effect of social comparison.When the assimilation effect appears,the upward social comparison will lead to the result that the individual’s self-evaluation is towards the comparative target;while when the comparative effect appears,the upward social comparison will make the individual’s self-evaluation deviate from the comparative target.The factors that affect assimilation effect and contrast effect are individual identity,psychological closeness with comparative target,competition and cooperation with comparative target.This study is divided into three parts,it is the combination of questionnaire and experimental method,from the establishment of the overall model,to the individual level,and then to the relationship between the individual and the comparison target level,to explore the impact of the use of social networking sites on self-evaluation in an all-round way.Previous studies have found that the impact of different social networking sites is also different,so this study chooses Wechat moment,which is the most used social networking site in China,as the scene of upward social comparison.And because some studies have found that in order to maintain a positive self-image,sometimes individuals will take some strategies to avoid negative self-image when facing the upward social comparison information,such as reducing the importance of the upward social comparison content.Therefore,in addition to self-evaluation,the independent variables in Study 2 and 3 also include the importance evaluation of the social comparison content.In Study one,taking the level of self-evaluation as the dependent variable,this paper discusses the influence of Wechat moment on self-evaluation,the mediating role of upward social comparison and the moderating role of Wechat identity.Using the ‘SPSS’ macro program ‘Process’ of Hayes to analyze the conditional process of the data.As the results,that Wechat moment uses positive prediction of upward social comparison,upward social comparison negatively predicts self-evaluation,Wechat identity positively predicts self-evaluation,and Wechat identity moderates the impact of upward social comparison on self-evaluation.In the second study,a single factor inter subject experiment was designed to explore whether there are differences in self-evaluation among individuals with different Wechat identity levels after experiencing social comparison in Wechat moment.The independent variables were different Wechat identity levels(high Wechat identity,low Wechat identity),and the dependent variables were the subjects’ self-evaluation level and the importance score of comparative dimensions.The self-evaluation of the subjects with high Wechat identity was significantly higher than that of the subjects with low Wechat identity after social comparison,and the same result was found in the importance score of the comparative dimension.The third study also adopted the online experiment method and adopted the two factor intersubjective experiment design.The independent variables are the competition and cooperation relationship and psychological closeness(personality similarity and dissimilarity)that affect the assimilation effect and contrast effect,while the dependent variables are the self-evaluation level and the importance of comparative dimension.Through competition and cooperation,personality similarity and dissimilarity degree to manipulate the relationship between the subjects and the comparison target,to explore whether there are differences in self-evaluation between the subjects with different comparison relationship facing the upward social comparison information in the moment.The results show that the main effect of personality relationship on self-evaluation is significant.The self-evaluation of similar personality group is significantly higher than that of different personality group.There is no main effect of competition and cooperation relationship on self-evaluation.The interaction between competition cooperation relationship and personality relationship in self-evaluation is significant.Under the condition of competition,individuals do not pay too much attention to the degree of personality similarity with the comparison target,while under the condition of cooperation,individuals are more sensitive to the personality similarity of the comparison target.On the importance score of the comparison content,there is no main effect and interaction effect in the competition cooperation relationship and personality relationship.To sum up,the high use intensity of Wechat moments of friends can lead to low self-evaluation of individuals through upward social comparison.When the individuals’ Wechat identity is low,this negative effect is strengthened.Through the experiment,it is found that the individuals with high Wechat identity have the assimilation effect of self-evaluation,while the individuals with low Wechat identity have the contrast effect of self-evaluation.The personality similarity and dissimilarity between individuals and comparison targets affect the results of social comparison in Wechat moment.When compared with other people who share the same characteristics,individuals are more likely to have the assimilation effect of self-evaluation. |
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