Abstract
The extant literature has indicated that comparison with high-performers could lead to negative emotions and behaviors among colleagues (including superiors). In contrast, other researchers also demonstrated that comparison can effectively motivate low-performance employees to work hard. In this study, we apply the temporal dimension to social comparison to explore how temporal social comparison influences the actor’s coping behaviors. A scenario experiment and a three-wave questionnaire survey study show that the performance temporal social comparison (PTSC) can lead to the actor’s social undermining towards the target (leveling-down) and effectively promote the actor’s self-improvement (leveling-up) simultaneously. Based on the cognitive appraisal theory of stress, we have further tested the significant mediating effects of challenge/hindrance stress. We also find that the actor’s general self-efficacy is an essential individual characteristic that affects stress perceptions and moderates the indirect effects of PSTC on different coping behaviors. Overall, our findings enrich the social comparisons theory development and provide critical managerial implications for high-potential talent management.
Similar content being viewed by others
Data Availability
The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Code Availability
Not applicable.
References
Albert, S. (1977). Temporal comparison theory. Psychological Review, 84(6), 485–503. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295x.84.6.485.
Breidenthal, A. P., Liu, D., Bai, Y., & Mao, Y. (2020). The dark side of creativity: Coworker envy and ostracism as a response to employee creativity. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 161, 242–254. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2020.08.001.
Breines, J. G., & Chen, S. (2012). Self-compassion increases self-improvement motivation. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38(9), 1133–1143. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167212445599.
Brown, D. J., Ferris, D. L., Heller, D., & Keeping, L. M. (2007). Antecedents and consequences of the frequency of upward and downward social comparisons at work. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 102(1), 59–75. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2006.10.003.
Buunk, B. P., Collins, R. L., Taylor, S. E., Vanyperen, N. W., & Dakof, G. A. (1990). The affective consequences of social comparison: Either direction has its ups and downs. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59(6), 1238–1249. https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.59.6.1238.
Campbell, E. M., Liao, H., Chuang, A., Zhou, J., & Dong, Y. (2017). Hot Shots and Cool Reception? An Expanded View of Social Consequences for High Performers. Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(5), 845–866. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000183.
Chen, G., Gully, S. M., & Eden, D. (2001). Validation of a new general self-efficacy scale. Organizational Research Methods, 4(1), 62–83. https://doi.org/10.1177/109442810141004.
Chen, T., Li, F., & Leung, K. (2016). When does supervisor support encourage innovative behavior? Opposite moderating effects of general self-efficacy and internal locus of control. Personnel Psychology, 69(1), 123–158. https://doi.org/10.1111/peps.12104.
Cohen-Charash, Y. (2009). Episodic envy. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 39(9), 2128–2173. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2009.00519.x.
Dineen, B. R., Duffy, M. K., Henle, C. A., & Lee, K. (2017). Green by comparison: Deviant and normative transmutations of job search envy in a temporal context. Academy of Management Journal, 60(1), 295–320. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2014.0767.
Duffy, M. K., Ganster, D. C., & Pagon, M. (2002). Social undermining in the workplace. Academy of Management Journal, 45(2), 331–351. https://doi.org/10.2307/3069350.
Duffy, M. K., Scott, K. L., Shaw, J. D., Tepper, B. J., & Aquino, K. (2012). A social context model of envy and social undermining. Academy of Management Journal, 55(3), 643–666. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2009.0804.
Festinger, L. (1954). A theory of social comparison processes. Human Relations, 7(2), 117–140. https://doi.org/10.1177/001872675400700202.
Gibbons, F. X., & Buunk, B. P. (1999). Individual differences in social comparison: Development of a scale of social comparison orientation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76(1), 129–142. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.76.1.129.
Hayes, A. F. (2017). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis: A regression-based analysis. Guilford Press.
Jaclyn, M. J., Pankaj, C. P., & Jana, L. R. (2014). Is it better to be average? High and low performance as predictors of employee victimization. Journal of Applied Psychology, 99(2), 296–309. https://doi.org/10.1037/t64895-000.
Jerusalem, M., & Schwarzer, R. (1992). Self-efficacy as a resource factor in stress appraisal processes. Hemisphere.
Jochen, R., & Greguras, G. J. (2010). Understanding performance ratings: dynamic performance, attributions, and rating purpose. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95(1), 213–220. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0017237.
Kelley, H. H. (1952). Two Functions of Reference Groups. In G. E. Swanson, T. M. Newcomb, & E. L. Hartley (Eds.), Readings in Social Psychology (2nd). Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Kenny, D. A., Mohr, C. D., & Levesque, M. J. (2001). A social relations variance partitioning of dyadic behavior. Psychological Bulletin, 127(1), 128–141. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.127.1.128.
Kim, E., & Glomb, T. M. (2014). Victimization of high performers: The roles of envy and work group identification. Journal of Applied Psychology, 99(4), 619–634. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0035789.
Koopman, J., Lin, S.-H., Lennard, A. C., Matta, F. K., & Johnson, R. E. (2020). My Coworkers are Treated More Fairly than Me! A Self-Regulatory Perspective on Justice Social Comparisons. Academy of Management Journal, 63(3), 857–880. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2016.0586.
Lam, C. K., Van der Vegt, G. S., Walter, F., & Huang, X. (2011). Harming High Performers: A Social Comparison Perspective on Interpersonal Harming in Work Teams. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96(3), 588–601. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021882.
Lazarus, R. S. (1966). Psychological stress and the coping process. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Lazarus, R. S., & Folkman, S. (1984). Stress: Appraisal and Coping. Springer Publishing Company.
Lee, K., & Duffy, M. K. (2019). A functional model of workplace envy and job performance: When do employees capitalize on envy by learning from envied targets? Academy of Management Journal, 62(4), 1085–1110. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2016.1202.
LePine, M. A., Zhang, Y., Crawford, E. R., & Rich, B. L. (2016). Turning their pain to gain: charismatic leader influence on follower stress appraisal and job performance. Academy of Management Journal, 59(3), 1036–1059. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2013.0778.
Li, N., Zheng, X., Harris, T. B., Liu, X., & Kirkman, B. L. (2016). Recognizing "me" benefits "we": investigating the positive spillover effects of formal individual recognition in teams. Journal of Applied Psychology, 101(7), 925–939. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000101.
Lin, K. J., Savani, K., & Ilies, R. (2019). Doing good, feeling good? The roles of helping motivation and citizenship pressure. Journal of Applied Psychology, 104(8), 1020–1035. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000392.
Liu, S. S., Shteynberg, G., Morris, M. W., Yang, Q., & Galinsky, A. D. (2021). How Does Collectivism Affect Social Interactions? A Test of Two Competing Accounts. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 47(3), 362–376. https://doi.org/10.1037/t37920-000.
Luszczynska, A., Scholz, U., & Schwarzer, R. (2005). The general self-efficacy scale: Multicultural validation studies. Journal of Psychology, 139(5), 439–457. https://doi.org/10.3200/jrlp.139.5.439-457.
Messersmith, J. G., Guthrie, J. P., Ji, Y.-Y., & Lee, J.-Y. (2011). Executive Turnover: The Influence of Dispersion and Other Pay System Characteristics. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96(3), 457–469. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021654.
Mitchell, M. S., Greenbaum, R. L., Vogel, R. M., Mawritz, M. B., & Keating, D. J. (2019). Can You Handle the Pressure? The Effect of Performance Pressure on Stress Appraisals, Self-Regulation, and Behavior. Academy of Management Journal, 62(2), 531–552. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2016.0646.
Parker, S. L., Jimmieson, N. L., & Johnson, K. M. (2013). General self-efficacy influences affective task reactions during a work simulation: the temporal effects of changes in workload at different levels of control. Anxiety, Stress, and Coping, 26(2), 217–239. https://doi.org/10.1080/10615806.2011.651616.
Podsakoff, N. P., LePine, J. A., & LePine, M. A. (2007). Differential challenge stressor-hindrance stressor relationships with job attitudes, turnover intentions, turnover, and withdrawal behavior: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92(2), 438–454. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.92.2.438.
Reh, S., Troster, C., & Van Quaquebeke, N. (2018). Keeping (future) rivals down: Temporal social comparison predicts coworker social undermining via future status threat and envy. Journal of Applied Psychology, 103(4), 399–415. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000281.
Richardson, H. A., Simmering, M. J., & Sturman, M. C. (2009). A tale of three perspectives examining post hoc statistical techniques for detection and correction of common method variance. Organizational Research Methods, 12(4), 762–800. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094428109332834.
Schaubroeck, J., & Merritt, D. E. (1997). Divergent effects of job control on coping with work stressors: The key role of self-efficacy. Academy of Management Journal, 40(3), 738–754. https://doi.org/10.2307/257061.
Schwarzer, R., Born, A., Iwawaki, S., Lee, Y. M., Saito, E., & Yue, X. D. (1997). The assessment of optimistic self-beliefs: Comparison of the Chinese, Indonesian, Japanese, and Korean versions of the general self-efficacy scale. Psychologia, 40(1), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1099-1611(199703)6:1.
Stein, M. (1997). Envy and leadership. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 6(4), 453–465. https://doi.org/10.1080/135943297399033.
Tai, K., Narayanan, J., & McAllister, D. J. (2012). Envy as pain: Rethinking the nature of envy and its implications for employees and organizations. Academy of Management Review, 37(1), 107–129. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2009.0484.
To, C., Kilduff, G. J., & Rosikiewicz, B. L. (2020). When interpersonal competition helps and when it harms: an integration via challenge and threat. Academy of Management Annals, 14(2), 908–934. https://doi.org/10.5465/annals.2016.0145.
Troester, C., Van Quaquebeke, N., & Aquino, K. (2018). Worse than others but better than before: Integrating social and temporal comparison perspectives to explain executive turnover via pay standing and pay growth. Human Resource Management, 57(2), 471–481. https://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.21876.
Tse, H. H. M., Lam, C. K., Lawrence, S. A., & Huang, X. (2013). When my supervisor dislikes you more than me: The effect of dissimilarity in leader-member exchange on coworkers' interpersonal emotion and perceived help. Journal of Applied Psychology, 98(6), 974–988. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0033862.
Vecchio, R. P. (2000). Negative emotion in the workplace: Employee jealousy and envy. International Journal of Stress Management, 7(3), 161–179. https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1009592430712.
Vidyarthi, P. R., Liden, R. C., Anand, S., Erdogan, B., & Ghosh, S. (2010). Where Do I Stand? Examining the effects of leader-member exchange social comparison on employee work behaviors. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95(5), 849–861. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0020033.
Webster, J. R., Beehr, T. A., & Christiansen, N. D. (2010). Toward a better understanding of the effects of hindrance and challenge stressors on work behavior. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 76(1), 68–77. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2009.06.012.
Williams, L. J., Cote, J. A., & Buckley, M. R. (1989). Lack of method variance in self-reported affect and perceptions at work: reality or artifact? Journal of Applied Psychology, 74(3), 462–468. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.74.3.462.
Wood, J. V. (1989). Theory and research concerning social comparisons of personal attributes. Psychological Bulletin, 106(2), 231–248. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.106.2.231.
Yu, L., Duffy, M. K., & Tepper, B. J. (2018). Consequences of downward envy: A model of self-esteem threat, abusive supervision, and supervisory leader self-improvement. Academy of Management Journal, 61(6), 2296–2318. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2015.0183.
Zell, E., & Alicke, M. D. (2010). Comparisons over time: temporal trajectories, social comparison, and self-evaluation. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40(3), 375–382. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.737.
Zhang, C., Mayer, D. M., & Hwang, E. (2018). More is less: Learning but not relaxing buffers deviance under job stressors. Journal of Applied Psychology, 103(2), 123–136. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000264.
Funding
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant (Grant numbers 71832006; 71972149).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Ethical Statement
All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Prior to participation in the study, all participants provided informed consent.
Informed Consent
Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
Conflicts of interest
Authors declare that there is no potential conflict of interest pertaining this submission to Current Psychology.
Additional information
Publisher’s note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Zhou, J., Zhan, Y., Cheng, H. et al. Challenge or threat? Exploring the dual effects of temporal social comparison on employee workplace coping behaviors. Curr Psychol 42, 18300–18316 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-02999-y
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-02999-y