I Run to be Fit, You Run for Fame: Context Effects Affecting Self-Positivity in Judgments on Consumption Motives and Emotions

Three field experiments demonstrate that judgments of own versus peers' consumption motives and emotions are subject to self-positivity reflecting socially desirable reporting. Changing the order of questions and the type of referent other changes the perceived similarity between the self and the other and attenuates self-positivity and socially desirable responding.