Several of our studies indicate that persuasive-arguments theory by itself is an adequate explanation of polarization. Sanders and Baron (Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 1977,13,303-314) criticize this research. More generally, they contend that both argumentation and comparison are involved, “with persuasive arguments facilitating the shifts motivated by social comparison.” We feel ...

Article history: Received 18 September 2014 Available online 22 October 2014 This study investigated the influence of social comparison on career choice certainty and its potential mechanisms: regret as a mediator and vocational identity as a moderator. Before the formal experiment, 30 pairs of vocational values representing typical conflicts in career decisionmaking for Chinese university stud...

Twin research has offered evidence that monozygotic (MZ) twins are more socially close than dizygotic (DZ) twins, but has not paid much attention to the way twins compare themselves with their co-twin. The few studies in this area suggest that 'horizontal comparisons' (social comparison motivated by solidarity or communion with others) matter more for MZ twins than for DZ twins, at least when t...