Social Comparison Research Paper

In the alleged undeveloped social orders, components of radical political, monetary and social change are broadly apparent. For sure such social orders have seen significant advances in industrial change, mass transportation and correspondence, and also technology advances. In many parts of the world, change of economics activities and their expulsion from the family and community settings and in addition modifications in the family structure and labor market differing qualities is generally clear (CCP, n.d). In many social orders, the transition procedure from traditional settings to modern settings is moving along quick without the essential time period for modification. The same changes that took Europe and North America eras to finish are accomplished inside a range of era in present day creating social orders. Thus, the transition procedure is regularly described by disturbance, flimsiness, and fast social disintegration.

In everyday life, we are always comparing, even subconsciously with even knowing it. When we compare things, we look at what the similarities are in said items such as a popular brand or a generic one. Comparing things such as two literary works, Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, and, Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad, both have a lot of similarities that we will look at.

I am Allison Zelinskas, daughter, granddaughter, cousin, Ohioan, friend, only child, athlete and more. I am unique because there is no one else like me. All the labels above make who I am as an individual. Self-concept is “The relatively stable set of perceptions each individual hold of herself or himself” (Ronald Adler, 2015). For the purpose of this paper, I put myself into four categories, culture, gender, reflected appraisal, and social comparison. The four categories combined will give you a picture of who I am as an original. I picked these four categories because I felt I could share this information about myself. These categorizes have built my self-confidence and self-esteem.

Social Interest to me is when you communicate and work with people to help them.

It’s human nature to compare ourselves to others, whether it’s to our family members, peers or even celebrities we see in the media. We base our judgments of ourselves and others on these comparisons. Judging others, sometimes

The society in which we live in today places an enormous amount of pressure on individuals to be better than others, and failure in this is not an option. There is a belief that success is only success if you are doing better than the people around you. This competition has become part of who we are, almost as though it is part of our core, meaning ere our self-image is so important to us that preserving it is a vital part of how we attribute success. A part of having a high self-esteem and positive self-image is the idea that Myers defines as self-serving bias “the tendency to perceive oneself favorably” (Myers 63). Although the self-serving bias contributes to a positive self-image,

How we think of ourselves relates to society, and how we compare ourselves to it. A reference group is “a group that helps us understand or make sense of our position in society relative to other groups” (Conley, 2015, p. 161). An example of reference group that affected how I felt about myself was models. I am sure that every teenager felt self-conscious about themselves, however when you are a teenager you feel like you are the only one. I used to watch Americas Next Top Model, and felt so out of place, because all these girls who were eighteen and beautiful, looked completely different than I did, although I was watching the show at sixteen. Everything about these women

The ‘better-than-average’ (or BTAE) effect states that certain individuals would evaluate themselves more positively than the average person. Within this, there is argument to suggest that there are both positive and negative implications linked to this theory. The concept of ‘self’ plays a large role in discovering whether these factors affect the individual, whereas social comparison is also a great aspect in understanding how the better-than-average effect can include itself into everyday society, therefore creating an unrealistic divide between different groups.

Leon Festinger (1954) was the first to explore the Social Comparison theory and give it a definition. He tested several hypotheses and concluded that human beings experience a socio-psychological process which drives the necessity for them self evaluate and to do so by comparing themselves to others (Festinger, 1954). George R. Goethals and John M. Darley (1987) later defined the theory as an interpersonal process in that “one person evaluates his or her own opinion or ability by comparing it with the opinions expressed or abilities displayed by other people” (p. 21). They also noted that when a person is going to compare his or herself to another, he or she will often choose a person who is similar is such categories as gender and age (Goethals & Darley, 1987).

For instance, if one’s friend posts herself graduating from a university, the viewer may be inspired to continue her education at college as well. Hamblin further argues that on Facebook people suffer the consequences of comparing him or herself to peers who are showing off the highlights or successful moments of their life but does not include the alternate perspective. In terms of success, Khazan too excludes the benefits of comparison, at least in the work field. For example, competition or comparison in general, may motivate one to do better, allows for collaboration, provides for opportunity to learn from others and keeps one at the top of their potential. When one is constantly bringing their best foot forward, it may positively increase how they view themself. Yet, I do understand that this comparison can also have a negative impact on one’s self

Example: I tend to compare myself to others with a higher fitness and education level and feel worse about my life.

Normative (social) influence is defined as “an influence to conform with the positive expectations of another” (Deutsch and Gerard, 1955). Pressure from other peers tend to lead a person to act the same way. Studies have found that pressure is related to skin care activities (Yeon and Chung, 2011). In addition, in a study by lennox and Wolfe (1984) “participants of the attention to social comparison” (ATSCI) found that a relation between social anxiety and the fear of negative evaluation (Bearden and Rose, 1990). Further, participants that score high in ATSCI are found to be more conscious about others’ reactions towards their own behavior. Within the two studies conducted in a university for the ATSCI It found that “moderate conformity effects under conditions of more direct conformity pressures” (p.468). Further, information found in public self-consciousness (PBC) show that individuals that score higher in PBC are likely to wear more makeup than

Envy occurs when a person compares themselves to the people around them. Botton contends, “our judgment of what constitutes an appropriate limit . . .on wealth or esteem- is never arrived at independently. . .” ;it is formed when a person compares their surrounding with a “reference group” (25). People are compelled to do better because of jealousy and feelings of insufficiency. For hundreds of years, there was the thought that

Festinger’s (1954) seminal paper explained how self-concept is obtained and maintained using social comparisons. Several researchers such as Marsh & Hau (2003) and Marsh & Parker (1984), have also supported Festinger’s (1954) studies by stating that social comparison is used to develop a self-concept. Corcoran, Crusius & Mussweiler (2011) also emphasised the importance of comparisons, stating that “comparisons between the self and others - are a fundamental psychological mechanism influencing people's judgments, experiences, and behavior” (p.119). Humans have a drive to have an accurate appraisal of their abilities, and social comparison provides an efficient way to obtain information about our abilities. (Corcoran, Crusius & Mussweiler, 2011; Festinger, 1954)

Most of us are guilty of comparing ourselves to other people. It happens all the time in so many different situations and environments. Social comparisons take place in the workplace, at school, within friend groups and many other areas. The social comparison theory may give us more knowledge about why and how we perform these comparisons. Leon Festinger was the psychologist who first brought up the idea of the social comparison theory. According to the theory, there exists two types of comparisons- upward and downward. The upward comparisons involve comparing ourselves to other people who we believe hold an advantage in some way. Upward comparisons may cause people to want to change themselves to be on par with those of their comparisons.