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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Social comparison as a mediator between health problems and subjective health evaluations | | Author(s) | Karen I VanderZee, Bram P Buunk, Robbert Sanderman |
| Journal title | British Journal of Social Psychology, vol 34, 1995 |
| Pages | pp 53-65 |
| Keywords | Health [elderly] ; Attitude ; Evaluation ; Netherlands. |
| Annotation | The role of social comparison in mediating the relationship between `objective' health status and subjective health evaluations was examined in this Dutch study. In a random population sample it was shown that health problems were related to psychological distress, which in turn induced a downward comparison process. This downward comparison resulted in a perception of being better off than others in a similar situation (relative evaluation). While both health problems and psychological distress had strong direct effects on general health evaluations, relative evaluations explained further significant variance. In addition, it was found that although women reported more psychological and physical problems than men, they engaged more often in downward comparison and consistently felt more than men did that their health was better than that of most others. No gender differences in general health evaluations were found. Social comparison had a stronger impact in the general; subjective well-being of women than of men. (AKM). |
| Accession Number | CPA-980106231 A |
| Classmark | CC: DP: 4C: 76H * |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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