With whom do people compare at work? The role of regulatory mode and social comparison motives

Abstract

We investigate whether people's regulatory mode (assessment and locomotion) and social comparison motives (self-evaluation vs. self-enhancement) jointly influence with whom—either a peer or their leader—individuals prefer to compare. In three preregistered studies (N = 839), we measured participants' chronic regulatory mode and assessed their comparison target preference separately for different social comparison motives. For each motive, participants indicated with whom they would prefer to compare, using choice (Study 1) and rating (Studies 2 and 3) measures. Supporting our predictions, assessment interacted with social comparison motives such that assessment was positively associated with preferring to compare to peers for self-enhancement motives, but unrelated to comparison target preference regarding self-evaluation motives. In addition, and as predicted, locomotion was consistently positively associated with preferring leaders as comparison target, independently of social comparison motives. These results contribute to emerging research highlighting the key role of individuals' regulatory mode in understanding interpersonal dynamics at work.