Better Than Myself: A Translation and Extension of Internal Comparison Theories in Management

Abstract

Social comparison theory (SCT) is ubiquitous and underlies much of modern management research. However, in addition to comparing ourselves externally to similar others, educational and social psychologists study how internal comparisons affect children. Internal comparison theories (ICTs) fall into two categories that include (a) temporal comparisons, that is, comparisons between our current self-evaluation and a past or future evaluation; and (b) dimensional comparisons, that is, comparisons between our evaluation in one dimension (e.g., teaching skills) to our evaluation on another dimension (e.g., research skills). We compare tenets of ICTs and SCT and present novel theoretical propositions around these tenets, and show how they differentially impact affective, behavioral, and cognitive identity work. Additionally, we offer future directions for how theorizing could be expanded on core internal comparison theories, as well as how ICTs could be used as a theoretical framework for research on identity, stress and well-being, justice, leadership, emotions, and social hierarchy.