Social Comparison Is Quite Beneficial if You Do It Right

You don’t have to stop comparing yourself to others.

We all, now more than ever, suffer from the consequences of social comparison. This is thanks to our endless exposure to the glamorous façade of the lives of random people we rarely even know or have met, all through social media and the internet.

We dread being compared to others, but we do it internally in our heads and most often than not aim for the sky rather than feeling secure in our spot, even if it took plenty of work to get there. We ignore our achievements and rather than giving a friendly tap on our shoulders, we mercilessly shout in front of our own faces.

The excessive amounts or the irrelevant comparisons we do turn out to be quite harmful to our well-being. Such that articles and quotes like “stop comparing yourself to others” “compare yourself only to your past self” are afloat because of this detrimental effect of comparison on us. But social comparison isn’t such a negative concept as it’s thought to be.

We need to make social comparisons to healthily function and survive. Leon Festinger proposed the Social Comparison Theory in 1954 explaining this tendency of humans to do social comparisons as an innate drive. And he adds;

“People most strenuously seek to evaluate performance by comparing themselves to others, not by using absolute standards.”

It’s not healthy or adaptive to turn our backs and only focus on what we do individually, rather than checking out every once in a while what others around us manage to do. The goal of comparing ourselves to only our past and nothing else is an unrealistic goal.

We need the best of both worlds to compare but to do it in a way that will benefit us and not the other way around. Thankfully, you can succeed at that goal with the help of social psychology.

According to Social Comparison Theory, we make social comparisons in 2 ways, one is downward comparison, and the other is upward comparison. They both come with 2 different ways to interpret the comparison that is made, yielding 4 types of outcomes of the comparison process.

The positive interpretations involve one recurring theme: the connection to your sense of self. You’ll understand this as we progress through the article. Now let’s investigate each type of social comparison and identify how we can interpret comparisons in a positive light and create positive outcomes from the comparisons we make.

Comparing Yourself to Better Examples

Comparing yourself to a better-off individual — in any aspect or in general — is called upward comparison. The most frequent and mostly negative type of usage of this would be comparing yourself to the successes and welfare of others you see from the surface, and after, brutally criticizing yourself for not being as good as them. We can also call this the social media effect.

But this isn’t always the case. Upward comparison can actually be very beneficial and positive in certain cases. If you stumble upon/hear good news from a person who you perceive as relevant and close to your own concept of self; their successes, progress, the things they achieve, the luxurious vacations they take, or fancy clothes they possess; it all will make you happy for them and motivate you further to reach your own goals.

As you can relate to them, feel connected to them with a part of yourself, share similar goals and values in life, share a part of your identity with, dream about being like them someday, or simply deeply care about them; be it a famous singer, actor, writer, or a close friend, you get to put yourself in their shoes and as you can imagine yourself in that position too, it will make you happy, inspired, and motivated to pursue your dreams.

This only motivates you further to reach your goals and become the person you want to be. Then, making an upward comparison, comparing yourself to a better-off individual with whom you share a sense of connectedness will motivate you to become the better version of yourself.

“…But a role model in the flesh provides more than inspiration; his or her very existence is confirmation of possibilities one may have every reason to doubt, saying, ‘Yes, someone like me can do this.” — Sonia Sotomayor

That shared sense of self and relating to them in some way is the secret ingredient for a healthy comparison, the one that boosts you and not puts you down. Use upward comparison to boost your motivation, inspiration, and productivity further via comparing yourself to people you share a part of yourself with; your close friends, role models, and people who overall inspire you.

Let the prosperous lives or humongous successes of these people motivate you further to reach a point you want to reach, and not crawl and bawl your eyes out because you can’t ever have what a certain person has when this person or what they have is irrelevant to your self and goals in life.

Comparing Yourself to Worse Examples

But making comparisons isn’t limited only to comparing yourself to a better-off individual. The opposite of this type of comparison exists as downward comparison, and actually helps boost our self-esteem and ego in most cases.

This type of comparison essentially makes you feel better about yourself as you make a comparison with a worse-off individual — worse in a particular area or in general — and feel a sense of relief or superiority because you’ve managed more or did better than them.

This makes you feel better about your progress, your work, or your current status rather than throwing yourself under a truck for perceiving yourself to be worse than a top-notch individual. When stated like this, downward comparison sounds a bit malicious. It almost comes off as narcissism and needless pride.

But just like upward comparison, downward comparison works in two ways too. Opposite to making you feel relieved and stopping you from working more, it can also act as a motivator to make you work harder on your work, like upward comparison, but in a different way.

Again, if you share a part of your identity, your sense of sense, your specific goals, etc. with the person you’re comparing yourself with, seeing that person do worse than you can give you anxiety and make you realize you also have the possibility to fail and be in their position, thus it motivates to work harder on your work or yourself.

Importance of the Self, and Keeping the Balance

We all know that everyone, with different frequencies and weights given to a certain type of comparison, makes all these types of comparisons and interpretations of comparisons.

As psychologist Hart Blanton, Ph.D., who has conducted a study about the automaticity of social comparison with Diederik Stapel, Ph.D., stated;

“An accurate self-perception is crucial because it is necessary for navigating and responding to the social world — and to help develop an accurate self-perception we make social comparisons.”

But more often, we use the negative, detrimental aspect of making a social comparison. That is why we feel desperate after seeing 50 random people popping on our Instagram feeds that display their highlighted lifestyle living our dreams without seemingly putting in much effort or experience sadness and frustration as we didn’t fill our resumes as much as the next person we saw on LinkedIn.

If you always compare yourself with better-off individuals that have little relevance to you at the moment, — like comparing yourself to every person you see online — you’ll constantly feel you’re not enough, you are not worth it, that you are incompetent, and hardly will be satisfied with where you’re standing.

In contrast, if you excessively compare yourself with worse-off individuals with little relevance to you, you’ll remain satisfied on the same spot you’re standing, you’ll create an illusion that you are perfect and you don’t need to do much in terms of improving yourself. Thus, you’ll get stuck in the same position, without evolving and flourishing. You’ll overestimate your successes and prevent yourself from moving forward with this narcissistic view you got on yourself.

When you do either upward or downward comparison but with the people or things connected to your sense of self, you’ll be motivated to be better at your game, feel hopeful about yourself, or simply bolster your work because you don’t want to end up in a bad position.

Takeaways

While making comparisons, it’s of crucial importance to be aware of who and what you are comparing yourself with, in terms of extracting healthy outcomes out of those comparisons.

The person or thing you compare to yourself and your progress should be relevant to you, doesn’t matter if what you do is upward or downward comparison, if the person or the aspect you compare yourself with is related to your sense of self, you’ll use that information to improve and flourish, if not, it will likely be needless and detrimental.

It’s necessary to make comparisons to survive, so why not make it a positive experience? So next time when you compare yourself with an individual, their success and progress, their belongings, or any other specific parameter you’re comparing, ask yourself these questions:

• Is this person relevant to me and my life? Are they a close friend, a role model, an inspirational person in my life or not?
• How relevant is this information to me? Why am I comparing this person and their happiness, achievements, etc. with mine?
• Does it motivate me and make me feel happy for that person or just plain makes me feel worse about myself or makes me quit doing what I do because of hopelessness?

The answer you give to these questions will reveal if it’s really necessary to compare yourself with that person or their specific achievements/belongings.

Next time when you stumble upon a comparable picture or an update of status on socials, remind yourself of these questions to refrain from unhealthy practices and detrimental effects of social comparison.

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