← all facts
psychology
Your friends' success hurts more when it involves your own talent.
The self-evaluation maintenance model suggests you feel threatened when a close friend outperforms you in a domain essential to your self-identity.
Research shows that if your friend succeeds in a field you do not care about, you bask in their glow, but if they excel in your niche, you perceive their success as a threat to your own value. Your self-esteem is balanced against your physical and emotional proximity to the other person.
Your support for friends is conditional on the areas where you define yourself.
Where this comes from
- Study
- Abraham Tesser, 1988
- What the check found
- The claim accurately reflects the core comparison process of Abraham Tesser's Self-Evaluation Maintenance model.
- Confidence
- Well replicated
Related
One of these every day, and every one names the study it came from. When a finding is contested, it says so.