ABSTRACT
As this volume attests, the assimilation-contrast model continues to be ofgreat use to scholars interested in human judgment and its psychologicaland social implications. Assimilation-contrast models have been particularly important in helping us understand how people use other individuals as standards of comparison in order to evaluate themselves (for reviews see Suls & Wheeler, 2000). As individuals’ evaluations of themselves are central to their psychological experience and social behavior, assimilation-contrast models have illuminated the processes and mechanisms behind individual self-esteem, emotion, motivation to achieve, and cooperation and competition with others (for a review see Buunk & Gibbons, 1997; Suls & Wheeler, 2000). Assimilation-contrast models have also been used to examine the more macro-social phenomena that are linked to evaluation of the group-level self. Thus, assimilation-contrast models have also formed the building blocks in the processes underlying adherence to group norms, polarization of group opinion, group identity, and intergroup competition and conflict (for reviews see Pettigrew, 1967; Turner, 1991; Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell, 1987).
