Tidigare forskning har visat att kvinnor jämför sig socialt för att utvärdera sig själva vid exponering för medialt idealiserade bilder av kvinnor i TV, tidningar och pornografiskt material. Aktuell studie avsåg att undersöka dessa typer av media och social jämförelses påverkan på kvinnors globala, kroppsliga och sexuella självkänsla. Etthundratjugo kvinnor besvarade en enkät innehållande reliabla skalor samt egenutformade frågor. Resultatet visade signifikanta effekter av social jämförelse på kvinnors globala självkänsla. Huvudeffekt av pornografikonsumtion på sexuell självkänsla påträffades. Inga signifikanta effekter av konsumtion av media innehållande idealiserade bilder av kvinnor på global och kroppslig självkänsla kunde finnas. Studiens resultat har bidragit till ytterligare kunskap kring social jämförelses påverkan på kvinnors globala självkänsla och kunskap om pornografikonsumtions påverkan på kvinnors sexuella självkänsla.

This research investigated the relationships between reference group choice and job satisfaction, and explored womens definitions of career success. Women working in traditional and non-traditional occupations (N = 52) in a mid-sized university in Western Canada participated in personal interviews. The results revealed that significantly more women compared themselves to others when assessing their job satisfaction than those who did not. No significant differences emerged when comparing levels of satisfaction of women in non-traditional occupations with male reference groups and women in traditional occupations with female reference groups. Similarly, no significant differences in levels of satisfaction emerged between women in non-traditional occupations with female reference groups and women in traditional occupations with female reference groups. However, low power may have accounted for the non-significant findings. Other factors, such as job characteristics, that may be influencing levels of job satisfaction are discussed. Content analysis of womens definitions of career success suggested that women in each type of occupations used similar subjective criteria when defining career success, with the two most frequent coded criteria being happy with work and achieving their goals. Organizational implications of the findings are discussed, including possible factors influencing womens levels of satisfaction, and the development of reward systems reflective of the interests of all employees. Future directions for research are proposed, such as continued investigation of the concept of similar comparison others for women, and womens perceptions of the importance of social comparisons in assessing levels of job satisfaction.

This research investigated the relationships between reference group choice and job satisfaction, and explored womens definitions of career success. Women working in traditional and non-traditional occupations (N = 52) in a mid-sized university in Western Canada participated in personal interviews. The results revealed that significantly more women compared themselves to others when assessing their job satisfaction than those who did not. No significant differences emerged when comparing levels of satisfaction of women in non-traditional occupations with male reference groups and women in traditional occupations with female reference groups. Similarly, no significant differences in levels of satisfaction emerged between women in non-traditional occupations with female reference groups and women in traditional occupations with female reference groups. However, low power may have accounted for the non-significant findings. Other factors, such as job characteristics, that may be influencing levels of job satisfaction are discussed. Content analysis of womens definitions of career success suggested that women in each type of occupations used similar subjective criteria when defining career success, with the two most frequent coded criteria being happy with work and achieving their goals. Organizational implications of the findings are discussed, including possible factors influencing womens levels of satisfaction, and the development of reward systems reflective of the interests of all employees. Future directions for research are proposed, such as continued investigation of the concept of similar comparison others for women, and womens perceptions of the importance of social comparisons in assessing levels of job satisfaction.

Embarrassmet is a very common emotion but usually hard to express, which plays a very important role in social encounter. There are many reasons why people feel embarrassed, like being criticized, making a fool of oneself, performaning inferior to self or other people¡¦s expectation, and so on. The social encounter attribute in service marketing not only is the basic condition for embarrassment but also fits the Social Impact Theory. However, most studies on embarrassment dedicated their attention to personal psychology and social encounter; few of them are about product buying behavior. Therefore this study would verify the impact of embarrassment in service encounter, test how the severity of embarrassing event and numbers of others on site influent consumers¡¦ emotional and behavioral reaction. Besides, researcher puts social comparison theory and consumer pre-consumption mood into the study to verify the impact of consumers¡¦ original mood and others¡¦ relevance to consumers¡¦ percepted embarrassment and behavioral reaction. The research material in Experiment 1 is a story about shopping in a clothe counter in department store. Reseracher finds out that the severity of embarrassing event (the criticism from counter sales representative) and numbers of others on site have different impact on perceived embarrassment. The negative emotion arised from embarrassment mediates their behavioral reaction; the stronger the negative emotion, the stronger ther leaving intention and negative word of mouth are. In Experiment 2, researcher verifies that consumers¡¦ pre-consumption mood and others¡¦ relevance moderate the impact of embarrassment to consumers¡¦emotional and behavioral reaction. The major contribution of this study is that we put ¡§embarrassment¡¨ as the leading role of this study and prove that one¡¦s mood and other customers on site have impact on service encounter. In the end of this article, researcher provides managerial implication, research restriction, and the future research directions.

Social comparison influences well-being, especially during psychological threat. Social comparison outcomes have been theorized to depend on motivation, frequency, contrast versus identification, with a better- versus worse-off other. To reduce this complexity in the theory, 94 senior-housing residents were interviewed and cluster analysis was conducted. Four clusters emerged. Half the interviewees formed a cluster using only adaptive social comparison methods. Adaptives were contrasted with a cluster of indiscriminate comparers, a cluster striving for improvement, and a cluster of participants disagreeing with most questions. Clusters differed especially in patterns of downward identification, upward and downward contrast. Self-evaluation and uncertainty-reduction also differed between clusters; self-enhancement and self-improvement motivations did not. Cluster membership had no direct effect on well-being, but moderation analysis demonstrated threat-buffering of high neuroticism in the adaptive cluster. The benefits were not due to self-esteem or educational level. By separating individuals rather than behaviors, cluster analysis provides a fresh perspective.

An emerging literature stream posits that drawing on users rather than internal designers in new product creation may benefit firms because the resulting products effectively satisfy consumer needs. Four studies conducted in the context of the luxury fashion industry uncover an important conceptual boundary condition of this positive user-design effect. Contrary to extant research, the results show that being "close" to users does not help but rather harms luxury fashion brands. Specifically, the authors find that user design backfires because consumer demand for a given luxury fashion brand collection is reduced if the collection is labeled as user (vs. company) designed. The results further reveal the underlying rationale for this reversal: user-designed luxury products are perceived to be lower in quality and fail to signal high status, which results in a loss of agentic feelings for the consumer. The authors explore several strategies luxury brands can pursue to overcome this negative user-design effect. Finally, they find that negative outcomes of user design are attenuated for luxury fashion products that are not used for status signaling - that is, product categories of a luxury brand that are characterized by lower status relevance for the consumer. (authors' abstract)

Social comparison influences well-being, especially during psychological threat. Social comparison outcomes have been theorized to depend on motivation, frequency, contrast versus identification, with a better- versus worse-off other. To reduce this complexity in the theory, 94 senior-housing residents were interviewed and cluster analysis was conducted. Four clusters emerged. Half the interviewees formed a cluster using only adaptive social comparison methods. Adaptives were contrasted with a cluster of indiscriminate comparers, a cluster striving for improvement, and a cluster of participants disagreeing with most questions. Clusters differed especially in patterns of downward identification, upward and downward contrast. Self-evaluation and uncertainty-reduction also differed between clusters; self-enhancement and self-improvement motivations did not. Cluster membership had no direct effect on well-being, but moderation analysis demonstrated threat-buffering of high neuroticism in the adaptive cluster. The benefits were not due to self-esteem or educational level. By separating individuals rather than behaviors, cluster analysis provides a fresh perspective.

国立情報学研究所で電子化したコンテンツを使用している。

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Ohio University, March, 2010. / Title from PDF t.p. Release of full electronic text on OhioLINK has been delayed until April 2015. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Ohio State University, 2005. / Title from first page of PDF file. Document formatted into pages; contains xiii, 112 p.; also includes graphics. Includes bibliographical references (p. 87-90). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center