There assumed to be two types of comparisons: social comparison (Festinger, 1954) and temporal comparison (Albert, 1977). The purpose of the present study was to examine which of these comparisons would occur when people experience either success or failure. Two hundred and twelve undergraduate students were given 14 short senarios which described fictious situations containing either success or failure. They were told to assume these situations happened to them and asked to choose one of five alternatives of comparison. The alternatives were: past self when succeeded; past self when failed; similar other; superior other; other answers (Subjects were asked to describe). The first two alternatives represented temporal comparison and the third and fourth alternatives represented social comparison. The last alternative was added to examine other possibilities of comparison, if any. The data indicated that subjects preferred temporal comparison when succeeded. On the other hand, social comparison was preferred when failed. Furthermore, multidimensional scaling (MDS) analysis revealed the latent structure of given situations. Three dimensions were extracted: success-failure; causal attribution; importance.
