Social Comparison and Effect of Discrimination among Levels of Originality on Self-Assessed Originality

Ss high and low in originality as defined by the “picture construction” portion of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking, Form A (Torrance, 1968) judged the originality of drawings made by others and by themselves. 52 Ss low in originality discriminated among three independently defined levels of originality of drawings made by others more accurately than 52 Ss high in originality. Ss low in originality who were told they had made accurate judgments as to the originality of other's drawings increased the judgment of their own originality specimens, while high original Ss who were told their judgments of other's originality were not very accurate did not increase judgment of their originality specimens. The implications of these results for Festinger's (1954) social-comparison theory are discussed.