Nicole’s mother bought her a used skateboard for her thirteenth birthday. She was excited until she learned that the girl next door received a brand-new skateboard for Christmas. Nicole’s declining satisfaction illustrates

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BlackTom AI · Accepted Answer

Nicole’s mother bought her a used skateboard for her thirteenth birthday. She was excited until she learned that the girl next door received a brand-new skateboard for Christmas. Nicole’s declining satisfaction illustrates

Option a: learned helplessness. This concept describes a passive resignation that results from repeated uncontrollable failures, not a scenario of comparing oneself with others’ outcomes. In this stem, Nicole is not giving up due to lack of control; she is experiencing a social comparison that lowers her satisfaction when others appear better off.

Option b: biofeedback. Biofeedback involves learning to control physiological processes (like heart rate) through feedback signals, often for stress or tension management. The situation here does not involve physiological self-regulation or feedback loops; it’s about subjective evaluation of relative material status.

Option c: relative deprivation. This term captures the feeling of dissatisfaction that arises when people perceive they are worse off than others with whom they compare themselves. Nicole’s response fits this framing: she feels deprived relative to the neighbor’s brand-new skateboard, even though her own is functionally similar.

Option d: the adaptation-level phenomenon. This concept says that our judgments of things (like happiness) are based on a baseline level formed by prior experiences. While it could influence overall satisfaction, the key element in this vignette is the comparison to someone else’s superior gift, which aligns more directly with relative deprivation than with a general adaptation baseline.

Thus, the reasoning behind each option points to relative deprivation as the most fitting explanation for Nicole’s decreased satisfaction, given the social comparison to a clearly better outcome.

Nicole’s mother bought her a used skateboard for her thirteenth birthday. She was excited until she learned that the girl next door received a brand-new skateboard for Christmas. Nicole’s declining satisfaction illustrates

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Nicole’s mother bought her a used skateboard for her thirteenth birthday. She was excited until she learned that the girl next door received a brand-new skateboard for Christmas. Nicole’s declining satisfaction illustrates

View Explanation

Log in for full answers

Similar Questions

You experience downward social comparison and schadenfreude when you take joy when others fail, and in situations where you perceive that you are better or more deserving.

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