When given the opportunity, who do we compare ourselves to, and how might that affect what we feel?
In an article recently published in Psychological Bulletin,opens in new window Gerber, Wheeler, and Suls reviewed six decades of research on social comparison, examining the classic questions of who we choose to compare with (selection studies) and the effects of those comparisons (reaction studies), while looking at moderators for both stages of the process.
Social comparison research has some very well defined experimental procedures, and the authors narrowed down an initial 1200 papers to 145 that met their strictest method requirements.
The authors found that people generally tend to choose an upward (rather than downward) comparison target and, surprisingly, that threat leads to increased upward comparisons. Previous interview-based accounts suggested that threat leads to downward comparison.
With respect to reactions to comparison, the authors found a general contrast effect (people feel worse after an upward comparison, better after a downward comparison) and that these effects were strongest for the most direct measures (i.e., people's feelings about the ability they just compared).
Thinking about (or priming) similarity before conducting a comparison lessens this effect, largely in line with current accounts. In line with Festinger's (1954) theory, comparisons have stronger effects if they are on novel dimensions and/or with local/in-vivo targets.
The work also examined many indicators of publication bias, none of which suggested any revision to the underlying results.
It appears that social comparison is a robust research area, perhaps because of careful methods, perhaps because of good curation. Whatever the source, the study suggests that a thorough-going despair about psychology or meta-analysis is unfounded.
Citation
- Gerber, J. P., Wheeler, L., & Suls, J. (2018). A social comparison theory meta-analysis 60+ years on. Psychological Bulletin, 144(2), 177–197. https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/bul0000127
Note: This article is in the Social Psychology & Social Processes topic area. View more articles in the Social Psychology & Social Processes topic area.