Festinger's theory of social comparison

Have you ever heard the expression “comparisons are hateful? The reality is that there are many people who tend to constantly compare themselves to others. But he already spoke of something similar Leon Festinger, social psychologist, in his theory of social comparison (1954).

In this article we will learn what this theory consists of, and how we compare ourselves with others to evaluate our own opinions, capacities and abilities.

• Related article: "Top 10 psychological theories"

Social comparison theory: characteristics

The theory of social comparison (1954) was initially proposed by the social psychologist Leon Festinger, and states that people we evaluate our own opinions, capacities and abilities by comparing them with those of others. It also seems that this is especially true in situations of uncertainty, in which it can be difficult to measure our ability objectively.

Thus, this theory is based on the belief that there is an impulse within individuals that motivates them to obtain rigorous self-evaluations.

Furthermore, the theory of social comparison attempts to explain how social factors influence self-concept.

• You may be interested: "Self-concept: what is it and how is it formed?"

Similarity hypothesis

One of the most relevant hypotheses proposed by the theory of social comparison is the hypothesis of similarity, according to which we prefer to compare ourselves with people similar to us, but specify three points:

1. In capacities

It states that we use a one-way upward momentum to compare ourselves to others; that is, when we evaluate our capabilities, we compare ourselves with better people, for the desire to improve.

2. In opinions

When it comes to evaluating our own opinions, we tend to compare ourselves to those who think differently; If, despite this, they coincide with our position, we perceive a feeling of self-assertion regarding our opinion. Instead, we experience hostility in case of disagreement.

3. In anxiety situations

Faced with situations that generate anxiety, we tend to compare ourselves with people who are in the same situation as us, since that makes us feel better understood and allows these people to empathize with us.

For example, in an exam situation, we will surely compare ourselves with our peers who must also take the same exam. exam, since that will make us feel more understood, than if, for example, we talk with our parents about a situation that generates anxiety.

Need for self-assessment

For the elaboration of the theory of social comparison, L. Festinger took as his starting point the idea that people have a self-evaluating driveIn other words, you need to constantly evaluate their opinions and abilities.

Opinions and capabilities often cannot be assessed through empirical observations. Also, these are good or bad (or right / wrong) depending on who we compare ourselves to, that is, according to the agreement or similarity that occurs and the comparison criteria what do we use.

Social comparison theory also explains why we think differently about ourselves depending on the nature of the comparison we make, and its meaning for U.S.

Premises

The theory of social comparison starts from two premises for its elaboration:

On the one hand, the fact that subjective opinion or ability evaluations are stable, when a comparison can be made with others, whose opinions or capacities are judged to be similar to oneself.

On the other hand, the second premise states that a person will be less attracted to situations in which others are very different from her, than for those where others resemble her, both in capacities and opinions.

Impact on daily life

The theory of social comparison also has implications for the impact of the media and in the idea that people make of ourselves.

Thus, phrases such as "comparisons are hateful" could partly explain some ideas of the theory, since if we compared to people who are better than us, we are more likely to feel worse than if we compare ourselves to people who are worse than U.S.

This last situation can increase our self-esteem, although in reality it does it in an artificial way, since a real improvement in self-esteem implies more profound changes and does not require comparing yourself to anyone.

• You may be interested: "Low selfsteem? When you become your worst enemy"

Reflection

Extrapolating the mentioned phrase to other examples, we can think about the influence of the model prototype, which is based on an extremely thin woman; This can lead to significant problems for the self-esteem of certain women, which even go as far as develop eating disorders such as anorexia.

Similarly, the fact that prototypical male models are strong and hypermusculated, it can also affect the self-esteem of men who do not look the same and who compare themselves constantly.

As already mentioned, we insist that self-esteem must be based more on a comparison with oneself than with others, so that it can be positive and truly satisfactory. In this sense, the objective to achieve a good degree of personal well-being is not to try to compare yourself with anyone, but to try to value the positive things about yourself.

Another Festinger theory

The second theory of L. Festinger, also fundamental in social psychology, is the theory of cognitive dissonance. This theory states that a feeling of dissonance is generated in us when our beliefs conflict with what we do.

The internal state of tension that is generated motivates us to eliminate such dissonance and to actively avoid situations and information that may increase it.

This theory can be related to the theory of social comparison regarding ideas that conflict with our self-concept and give us a more negative image of ourselves.