The Phenomenon of Social Comparison: Its Impact on Self-Esteem
To start with, this is social comparison essay in which this topic is briefly discussed. Social media and social networking sites allow us to use our peers as comparison points, which in turn, affect how we see ourselves. Social comparison in social media, on sites specially like Facebook, can affect our judgement of other people. Depending on how we see those other people, is how we then judge ourselves. The way we judge ourselves can affect our perception of our own attractiveness, success, and value, and as discussed in a study by Lui, it can also affect how we view other people. Their study examined Facebook profiles with narcissist and neutral status updates from fictitious accounts. These results explored how we view certain types of narcissistic status more harshly than others. Although this study focused more on narcissism, which strays from the topic at hand of social comparison, it still demonstrates how participants’ self-reported narcissism was related to their perception of the participants narcissism.
Liu, Li, Cacioppolo, and North expressed it concisely when quoting Mark Twain in that “comparison is the death of joy.” Their study examined the relationship between Facebook usage, self-esteem, and the closeness between the participant and the subject. In this study, participants were asked to choose either a distant or a close friend from their own Facebook friends list. This factor, different from other studies, still helped to suggest that people’s emotions are influences by content on social media. More specifically, it suggested that social comparison has a higher chance of occurring between distant friends. These findings can also be applied towards strangers and to the study at hand where the participants did not know the subject. It even went as far as suggesting that social comparison occurs on a subconscious level, given the amount of time that average users spend on social media. Being on social media for so long and participating in social comparison can deeply affect how we view ourselves, causing us to judge ourselves more harshly.
In a study done by Haferkamp and Krämer, a participants perception of body image was evaluated after reviewing pictures of Beautiful profile pictures than less attractive ones. On the other hand, in the same study, the participants were evaluated on their perceptions of their success after seeing pictures of successful males in social media. Haferkamp and Krämer explain how social comparison studies examine the way the media presents a representation of what is beautiful and successful. In their study, the dependent variables, a participant’s perception of their attractiveness and the perception of their successfulness, were measured using the PANAS scale, Luczak scale, and a career ladder with 10 different levels. After reviewing the profiles, participants use those scales to record their perception. Essentially, the results of this study suggest that viewing the profile of a more attractive user would induce more negative feelings or perceptions in the participant. This was also similar when rating career successfulness within the males more than in females. This is study also suggest a reason for these findings. It suggests that these negative feelings were caused by the idea that participants could not attain that level of success or attractiveness and therefore felt negatively towards it.
More interestingly though, is this phenomenon among emerging adults. A study done by de Vries and Kühne examined this is same concept among adults from ages 18 to 25. They mention how important this age group is too social comparison because of the development of self-perceptions that occur during this time. Similarly, in a study by Lee, it was suggested that students with low self-esteem are more sensitive to their friends reacting to the their posts online. In this study they hypothesized that higher instances of social media usage on sites like Facebook, contribute to more negative social comparison. This, like the previous study explains how this phenomenon is related to lower self-esteem when it comes to attractiveness. The intensity of Facebook use was examined among 340 participants. Scales were then used to measure social comparison on the website and self-perception of competence and physical appearance. This is study also measured a life satisfaction. This study elucidated the phenomena that people who might already participate in negative social comparison experience an exacerbation of this concept due to being on social media more. These studies allow for research to be done analyzing the way participants view themselves in comparison to lower, higher, and average achieving social media users.
In the current study, participants were provided with 1 of 3 social profiles, exhibiting either upward social comparison, downward social comparison, or average social comparison. This closely relates to the current study in that we hypothesize that participants will write themselves more negatively then those who read a social media post from a low performing Facebook user. More specifically, we predict that participants who read posts from higher performing Facebook users, will more strongly resonate with statements like” I feel inferior to others at this moment” and “I feel like I have trouble understanding things” while strongly disagreeing with statements like “I feel good about myself” and “I feel confident in my abilities.”
Overall, social comparison is a concept that affects people in their daily lives. Now, with the modern era of social networking being at our fingertips, we are prone to social comparison even while in the comfort of our own homes. We allow the lives of our peers to dictate our feelings even if we are not with them.
