Citation

Krause RJ, Rucker DD. Psychol. Sci. 2020; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Affiliation

Marketing Department, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, Association for Psychological Science, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1177/0956797620909742

PMID

32315251

Abstract

To avoid threats to the self, people shun comparisons with similar-yet immoral, mentally unstable, or otherwise negatively viewed-others. Despite this prevalent perspective, we consider a contrarian question: Can people be attracted to darker versions of themselves? We propose that with self-threat assuaged, similarity signals self-relevance, which draws people toward those who are similar to them despite negative characteristics. To test this general idea, we explored a prevalent context that may offer a safe haven from self-threat: stories. Using a large-scale proprietary data set from a company with over 232,000 registered users, we demonstrated that people have a preference for villains-unambiguously negative individuals-who are similar to themselves, which suggests that people are attracted to such comparisons in everyday life. Five subsequent lab experiments (N = 1,685) demonstrated when and why similarity results in attraction toward-rather than repulsion from-negative others.

Language: en

Keywords

characters; interpersonal attraction; open data; preregistered; self-relevance; similarity; stories