Whether people's current motivation levels increase or decline also hinge on their social environment. The current research tightly integrates motivational principles from self-regulation research with social comparison processes. In a preregistered experience sampling study including more than 5,400 social comparison situations from people's everyday life, we investigated how discrepancy assessments between the self and a comparison standard influence people's motivation and affect. Results revealed a nonlinear relationship between negative discrepancies (upward comparisons) and effort investment ("pushing"): Whereas motivational pushing increases with negative discrepancies, more extreme upward comparisons were associated with less pushing, but increased disengagement ("giving up"). The effect of negative discrepancies on pushing motivation was even more pronounced for people perceiving high control in their domain of comparison or when the domain was considered as important. Positive discrepancies (downward comparisons), on the other hand, were related to a reduction in effort ("coasting"). Similarly, emotional responses, such as an increase or decrease in self-esteem, are yet another signal for whether someone needs to invest further effort at a current time. The self-regulatory perspective on social comparison provides a novel framework uniting motivational, emotional, and cognitive processes of social comparison for a better understanding of when social comparison can benefit or hinder people's everyday goal pursuit. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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社会比较的动机框架。

人们当前的动机水平是增加还是减少也取决于他们的社会环境。目前的研究将自我调节研究的动机原则与社会比较过程紧密结合。在一项包含来自人们日常生活的 5,400 多个社会比较情况的预注册经验抽样研究中，我们调查了自我与比较标准之间的差异评估如何影响人们的动机和情感。结果揭示了负差异（向上比较）和努力投资（“推动”）之间的非线性关系：虽然动机推动随着负差异而增加，但更极端的向上比较与较少推动相关，但会增加脱离（“放弃”）。负面差异对推动动机的影响对于在比较领域中感知到高度控制的人或当该领域被认为是重要的时更为明显。另一方面，正差异（向下比较）与工作量减少（“滑行”）有关。同样，情绪反应，例如自尊的增加或减少，是判断某人当前是否需要进一步努力的另一个信号。社会比较的自我调节视角提供了一个新的框架，将社会比较的动机、情感和认知过程结合起来，以便更好地理解社会比较何时可以有益于或阻碍人们的日常目标追求。（PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2021 APA，保留所有权利）。