Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate how individuals seek information to evaluate themselves in terms of the utility of comparative information and self-esteem, and also to examine Festinger's (1954a) 'unidirectional drive upward'
Ss were 84 undergraduate students (42 male and 42 female students). The experiment, in which Ss were asked to perform two mutually related tasks, was conducted under the pretense of investigating individuals' cognitive flexibility and insight.
After the first task, self-esteem was experimentally manipulated by using high, low or no feedback. The second task, composed of 10 difficulty levels, and the Ss were told to choose one of them they should take. At that time, each feedback group was divided into the following two conditions: One was the predecision condition in which the Ss were told that they would be given comparative information before they decided which level they should take, and the Ss were asked to answer degree of necessity of the information; The other was a postdecision condition in which the Ss were asked to answer degree of necessity of the information after they had already decided.
The results showed that the Ss in the predecision condition sought comparative information more, that is, when an individual was in a situation that he could use the comparative information effectively, his need for self-evaluation increased. The relation between self-esteem and the degree of seeking comparative information was not clear. With regard to unidirectional drive upward, the result predicted from Festinger's assumption was not obtained.
