A Test of the Similarity Hypothesis: Social Comparison in Deaf and Hearing Students

The present study explored the possibility that deaf and hearing college students would prefer similar social comparisons on achievement tests. It was also expected that deaf students, due to their communication handicap, would most prefer deaf norms on a language-based achievement test. Thirty deaf and 28 hearing college students participated in an experiment ostensibly generating normative information on a new achievement test and gave their personal preferences for the kinds of norms they would like to see: nondisabled, learning disabled, deaf, blind, disabled, or gifted. Along with the social comparison measures, subjects were asked to estimate the performance of the aforementioned groups. Results showed unexpectedly little support for the similarity hypothesis. On one measure, subjects showed a clear preference for information about higher performers. A small preference for similarity appeared on a second measure. In addition, although the deaf expected to do worse on a verbal test than on a logic test, they did not show a greater desire to compare with the deaf on the verbal test. The implications of these results for social comparison research are explored.