ABSTRACT
H ow people see themselves is inextricably intertwined with how they see others. Self-evaluation does not take place in isolation. Rather the activities from which people infer information about the self are situated in a social context in which the self relates to other objects in the world (Kant 1787; see Baumeister, 1998, for a discussion). As a consequence, the self can only be perceived and its attributes can only be inferred in a relative manner. Such a “relational” perspective is at the core of a number of classic psychological approaches to the self. Lewin (1951), for example, suggested that one's performances are evaluated in comparison to a particular frame of reference. Similarly, Festinger (1954) claimed that there is a drive in the human organism to evaluate one's opinions and abilities and that people use salient comparison standards to do so.
