Salience of comparison standards and the activation of social norms: Consequences for judgements of happiness and their communication

Abstract

Two studies were conducted in which subjects' reports of their own happiness were influenced (a) by the salience of comparison standards and (b) by the social norm that was activated in the context of communicating those judgements. It was found that the presence of another person who was relatively worse off led to more positive judgements of the subjects' own happiness. This contrast effect was increased when subjects' attention was directed towards the comparison person by a natural salience manipulation in the form of a seating arrangement at the time the questionnaire had to be filled out. The results of the second study, in which the mode of communication (private vs. public) and the apparent state of health of the comparison person were varied (physically disabled or not), show that such contrastive judgements may not be uttered when the judgement has to be reported publicly to the disabled confederate. Taken together, these studies demonstrate how both cognitive and communicative mechanisms must be taken into account to understand the determinants of judgements of subjective well‐being.