Standards and Expectancies: Contrast and Assimilation in Judgments of Self and Others

This book examines how standards and expectancies affect judgments of others and the self. Standards are points of comparison, expectancies are beliefs about the future, and both serve as frames of reference against which current events and people (including the self) are experienced. The central theme of the book is that judgments can be characterized as either assimilative or contrastive in nature. Assimilation occurs when the target of evaluation (another person, the self) is pulled towa...