Validating Objective Versus Subjective Judgments

Perceivers' interest in social comparison and consistency information for assessing the accuracy of a personal judgment was investigated. Prior to their judging a photograph of a woman, male subjects' perceptions of the causal locus of beauty were manipulated. Subjects were told they would rate the woman again and were asked how interested they were before making their second judgment in seeing (a) additional photographs of the woman (consistency information) and (b) other male subjects' ratings of the woman's attractiveness (consensus or social comparison information). Subjects expressed greater interest in consistency than consensus information. Subjects were more interested in consensus information when they saw beauty as objective than when they saw beauty as subjective. Implications of these results for social comparison theory are discussed.