Social Comparison

Definition

Social comparison involves thinking about information about one or more other people in relation to the self. People may compare themselves with other people for a variety of reasons: to evaluate themselves (e.g., How good at math am I?), to learn from others (e.g., How much did that person study to ace that exam?), and to feel better about their own situation (e.g., I may not be great at algebra, but I'm better than 70% of my classmates), to name a few.

History and Background

Early research in social psychology on level of aspiration and on reference groups contributed to Leon Festinger's social comparison theory, which he proposed in 1954. Festinger argued that humans have a drive to evaluate their opinions and abilities. When objective standards for self-evaluation are unavailable, he said, they compare themselves with other people. According to Festinger's similarity hypothesis, people prefer to compare themselves with others who are similar to themselves. He also noted that people have a drive to improve themselves, which often results in upward comparisons, comparisons with others who are superior to themselves or more advantaged in some way.

Social comparison theory has inspired a great deal of research, but the history of the literature is uneven, with spikes of activity in 1966 and 1977, and then a more steady output since the early 1980s. The theory has been applied beyond opinions and abilities to emotions and to all kinds of personal attributes (e.g., personality traits). Although Festinger devoted much of his theory to interpersonal processes—for example, he proposed that the need for similar comparison with others leads to pressures toward uniformity in groups—social comparison researchers have focused mostly on individuals and their selections of individual comparison targets. During the 1990s, studies of the individual's reactions to social comparisons grew more numerous as well.

Who is a Relevant Comparison Target?

The most frequently asked question in the social comparison literature has been, “With whom do people choose to compare themselves?” Festinger's similarity hypothesis was ambiguous as to whether similarity concerns the specific dimension under evaluation or other dimensions. For example, guitarists may compare their playing ability with those of others who are similar in their guitar-playing ability, or with others who are similar in more general ways, such as the kind of guitar and music they play (acoustic or electric, classical or folk) or gender. The most informative, meaningful comparisons may occur with others who are similar in attributes related to the dimension under evaluation. For example, guitarists can best evaluate their playing ability if they compare themselves with other guitarists who play similar instruments and who have been playing about the same amount of time.

Considerable evidence has attested to the importance of such related attributes. It is perplexing, however, that the dimensions of similarity need not always [Page 888]be related to the dimension under evaluation to be relevant. For example, people often compare themselves with same-sex others, even if the dimension of comparison has little to do with gender. Similarly, the effects of comparisons are especially strong when they are with others who are similar, even if the dimension of similarity seems to bear no relation to the dimension of comparison (e.g., comparisons with friends are more potent than comparisons with strangers).

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