Social Comparison

Understand the reasons people make social comparisons.

• leon festinger- theorized that people compare themselves to others to fulfil a basic human desire- self evaluation (social comparison theory)

• social norms and the opinions of others

  • we compare out own opinions and values to others when our own self evaluation is unclear

  • opinions of others: when we do not know how to feel about a topic, we look to others to fill in the gaps.

  • social norms: observing social norms and conforming to them in new situations.

• Ability and performance

  • need for self evaluation is driven by the desire to grow and preform better.

  • measure our own growth and benchmark out performance against another person

• Relevance and Similarity

  • we only make social comparisons if they are relevant to the self. this includes personal interest (drawing more social comparisons in areas that interest you)

  • we also require the comparison to be similar. we are unlikely to make comparisons to people who are either above or below us. we also are more likely to make comparisons to people with more intersectional similarities.

• people may compare themselves to other to make them feel batter about themselves.

Identify consequences of social comparison.

• can impact self esteem

• can lead to feelings of envy and regret

• behavioral consequences

  • may behave more competitively - can increase performance but may also lead to hostile or mean behavior.

• there is greater chance of more positive behavior (working harder to preform better) if there are future chances to “self repair”

Understand the Self-Evaluation Maintenance Model.

• model that builds on social comparison theory

• when people are close to another with motivation to perform well, their competitiveness increases.

Explain situational factors that can affect social comparison.

• number

  • as the number of people we compare ourselves to increases, social comparison decreases. ex- you are more likely to try harder if there are less people to compete with.

  • N-effect: finding that the increasing number of competitors will lead to decreases motivation to outperform the rest.

• Local

  • Local Dominance effect: people are more likely to be influenced by social comparison if the comparison is personal, not general.

• Social Category Lines:

• dunning kruger- according to the study, those who did poorly ranked themselves higher and those who did well ranked themselves lower.

Counterfactual thinking

the “what might have been” - mentally comparing actual events with fantasies of what could have happened in an alternate scenario. silver and bronze medal example.

Downward comparison

comparing ourselves to someone who is worse than us. usually heightens self esteem.

Dunning-Kruger Effect

unskilled people often think they are on par or superior to their peers in tasks, aka - Overconfident.

Fixed mindset

the thought that personal qualities such as intelligence cannot be grown or developed.

Frog Pond Effect

the group that one compares themselves to effects how they evaluate themselves. notably, people evaluate themselves lower when they are placing themselves in a high performing group.

Growth mindset

the thought that personal qualities such as intelligence can be improved upon with hard work.

Individual differences

psychological traits that vary from person to person

Local dominance effect

Mastery goals

focuses on the improvement of intelligence, learning, competence.

N-Effect

Personality

a person’s relatively stable thoughts, emotions, behavior. what people are known for, their character.

Proximity

Self-enhancement effect

when we compare ourselves to others and it makes ourselves feel better.

Self-esteem

the confidence one holds in their own self worth.

Self-evaluation maintenance (SEM)

Social category

a group that is defined by the similarities in their members. this can be religious, ethnic, or even athletic.

Social comparison

• making understandings about one’s self by comparing themselves to others.

Upward comparisons

making comparisons to people who are better than us. usually is paired with the feeling of being inferior, lowered self esteem, or a motivation to perform better.