ArticlePsychology research and behavior management2023
"Comparisons are Odious"? - Exploring the Dual Effect of Upward Social Comparison on Workplace Coping Behaviors of Temporary Agency Workers.
Article in Psychology research and behavior management, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- From executive control to social emotions: mediation analysis of theory of mind linking executive functions to envy but not Schadenfreude.BMC psychology · 2026Article
- The moderating role of perceived injustice in the relationship between being envied and social undermining in public sector organizations.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- The influence mechanism of upward social comparison on work withdrawal behavior of rural-origin civil servants: based on the mediating effect of ego depletion and the moderating effect of social mobility belief.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- How does ego-depletion affect the reemployment intention of county public sector retirees? The mediating effect of psychological ownership and the moderating effect of social trust.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Upward social comparison on network and alcohol dependence in college students: the chain mediation impacts of relative deprivation and anxiety.BMC psychology · 2024Article
- Life Satisfaction Among Chinese Aged Workers: Interplay of Organizational Justice, Workplace Emotions, and Subjective Age Perception.Psychology research and behavior management · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Temporary agency workers are becoming increasingly critical as a supplementary workforce within enterprises, inevitably leading upward social comparisons with permanent employees. However, existing research pays little attention to this phenomenon, which cannot provide theoretical guidance for the management of temporary agency workers. To fill this gap, our study utilizes the cognitive appraisal theory of emotion to construct a dual-path moderated mediation model, examining how upward social comparison is associated with positive and negative behaviors through two distinct forms of envy. Through the questionnaire survey, data is collected from 882 temporary agency workers in a Chinese temporary staffing firm. The results reveal that upward social comparison is associated with both benign and malicious envy, which in turn respectively relate to informal workplace learning and social undermining behavior. Additionally, psychological availability moderates the relationship between upward social comparison and envy, such that when psychological availability is higher (vs lower), the positive effect of upward social comparison on benign envy is stronger and the positive effect of upward social comparison on malicious envy is weaker. Moreover, psychological availability further moderates the indirect effect of upward social comparison on employee behavior. When psychological availability is higher (vs lower), the positive indirect effect of upward social comparison on informal workplace learning via benign envy is stronger, whereas the positive indirect effect of upward social comparison on social undermining via malicious envy is weaker. Our study enriches the theoretical research perspective of upward social comparison and provides insights for managing temporary agency workers. Our study is the first to explore the dual behavioral choices of upward social comparison of temporary agency workers and apply the cognitive appraisal theory of emotion to social comparison. The results indicate that organizations can improve the psychological availability of temporary agency workers to stimulate learning behavior and reduce social undermining behavior to achieve a win-win situation between temporary agency workers and organizations.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.