For better or worse: The impact of upward social comparison on self-evaluations

“When people engage in upward comparisons, they tend to not only enhance between the target person they use for comparison and themselves (Collins, 1996; Wheeler & Miyake, 1992).”

“It may also be that these adolescents are not necessarily among those with lower relative incomes among their peers, but that they rank themselves lower than their household income could justify by engaging in upwards social comparisons with peers who are even better off (Collins, 1996; Suls, Martin, & Wheeler, 2002).”

“According to Collins (1996), upward comparison may be perceived as threatening, and may influence an individual’s selfevaluation unfavourably when the comparing individual feels he or she is clearly inferior to the comparison target.”

“Moreover, since everybody has the instinct to maintain a positive self-evaluation (Tesser, 1988), followers who have relatively worse LMX relationships might suffer drastically because they cannot reach the targets of the upward social comparison (Collins, 1996).”

“The social comparison theory posits that making upward comparison can be threatening because it may lead to negative self-evaluation and feelings of inferiority (Collins, 1996; Major et al., 1991).”

“Firstly, motivation is stronger when the compared entity is perceived as similar and relatable [14,15, 29,74,85], such as peers, part of one ’ s social and professional circles, or with similar socio-economic background, age or political views.”

“However, comparisons between the self and others might also serve other motives such as self-enhancement (Gruder, 1977 ; Hackmiller, 1966 ; Thornton & Arrowood, 1966 ; Wills, 1981 ) and self-improvement (Collins, 1996 ; Marsh & Parker, 1984 ; Taylor & Lobel, 1989 ; Wheeler, 1966 ).”

“For example, Collins (1996) proposed that comparisons with others who are better off than oneself can sometimes produce negative emotions, such as resentment and depression.”

“In terms of how the emulation strategy relates to stability, interpersonal comparison research has shown that upward comparison can be motivating for self-improvement (Collins, 1996), and is more likely to be motivating when we believe a higher performance is attainable for us (Smith, 2000).”

“People can have an upward drive in their comparisons to learn from better-off others, to confirm their similarity to such others, and to get inspiration and hope (Buunk & Gibbons, 2007; Collins, 1996).”

“Social comparisons in diverse contexts are known to modulate situation evaluation (Collins, 1996; Fardouly, Diedrichs, Vartanian, & Halliwell, 2015).”

“Indeed, while prior studies have shown that downward social comparisons promote self-enhancement (Collins, 1996; Gibbons & Gerrard, 1989; Morse & Gergen, 1970; Wills, 1981), they did not test whether the sense of joy and pleasure induced by others’ setbacks (i.e., schadenfreude) might account for…”

“These scores of fellow participants are considerably higher, resulting in an upward social comparison made by the participant (Collins 1996).”

“A positive change of psychological status brought out by upward comparisons appears only when the comparer perceives that the comparison target is not the comparer’s immediate competitor (i.e. ‘dissimilar others’, according to Collins 1996).”

“Furthermore, upward comparison is more likely to occur when the target is perceived as superior to oneself (Collins, 1996), including instances when people compare themselves to celebrity superstars (Lockwood, Jordan, & Kunda, 2002; Lockwood & Kunda, 1997).”

“Social comparison theory also suggests that upwards comparison might instead be advantageous for people with high self-esteem who are comparing themselves to others for reasons of self-improvement (Collins, 1996; Cramer et al., 2016).”

“The direction of the comparison depends on the individual’s objectives in terms of selfenhancement or self-improvement (Collins 1996).”

“As noted already by Wheeler ( 1966 ), and as emphasized in various theoretical statements (eg, Collins, 1996 ; Taylor & Lobel, 1989 ), upward comparisons may not only evoke negative feelings, but may also induce positive feelings when individuals identify themselves with the target.”

“…and motivational antecedents and consequences of upward and downward comparisons has probably received more attention than any other topic in the social comparison literature (see Collins, 1996; Wills, 1991), the social comparison literature has devoted little attention to the horizontal dimension.”

“In addition, there may be some situations in which upward social comparisons could result in positive psychological outcomes, such as inspiration or optimistic expectations particularly when one’s standing is changeable and controllable (Collins, 1996; Lockwood & Kunda, 1997).”

“By contrast, upward social comparisons highlight how children are worse than others, which could make them feel ashamed of themselves (Collins, 1996; Smith, 2000).”

“Research on social comparison has shown that upward comparisons (i.e., comparisons against better-faring others) can elicit different emotions depending on how people construct the comparisons (Buunk, Collins, Taylor, VanYperen, & Dakof, 1990; Collins, 1996; Smith, 2000).”

“Collins (1996) has suggested that upward social comparison may be more likely to result in negative self-evaluations when that comparison is made against an extreme standard (for example, when comparisons are made to someone who is much thinner than oneself).”

“This has been found to be particularly the case where such relationships are viewed as (i) strong (Collins, 1996); (ii) uncompetitive (Wood, 1989); and (iii) not so significantly inferior that any gap cannot likely be bridged (Lockwood & Kunda, 1997; Wheeler, 1996).”

“The awareness that others are better off raises expectations with respect to one’s own possible outcomes (Collins, 1996).”

“While peer support has the positive potential to inspire hope for recovery through upwards social comparison (Collins, 1996), the current findings indicate that there can be a risk of creating hopelessness and distress when incompatible or different definitions of recovery to one’s own are encountered in a community t…”

“However, people often experience upward comparisons as threatening and ego deflating when they perceive a contrast between themselves and upward comparison targets (Collins, 1996).”

“Research in psychology has found that self-serving biases result from both ‘motivational’ mechanisms, such as the desire to see oneself in a positive light (e.g., Aronson, 1969; Collins, 1996; Greenwald, 1980; Taylor & Brown, 1988), and cognitive mechanisms such as the perfectly reasonable tendency to believe that goo…”

“Kurman, 2006; Sedikides, Gaertner, & Toguchi, 2003) and attributions (e.g. Abramson et al., 1978; Collins, 1996), Coffee and colleagues (Coffee, Rees,”

“…satisfaction with what one has (e.g. Carmon, Wertenbroch, & Zeelenberg, 2003; Medvec, Madey, & Gilovich, 1995; Schwartz et al., 2002), especially when opportunity for improvement (i.e. attaining a superior purchase oneself) seems unlikely (Collins, 1996; Lockwood & Kunda, 1997; Smith, 2000).”

“Conversely, upward comparison to a superior brand, of which the consumer was unaware, although painful (higher experienced regret), can be more valuable, because more useful information may be acquired by observing superior others (Collins, 1996).”

“If that coworker is judged to be particularly skilled at his or her job, one possible outcome of the social comparison is a contrast effect (Morse and Gergen, 1970; Wood, 1989; Collins, 1996; Mussweiler, 2003); that is, the individual’s judgment of his or her own job competence is unfavorably contrasted with the cowor…”

“learning (Berger, 1977; Blanton, Buunk, Gibbons, & Kuyper, 1999; Buunk & Ybema, 1997; Collins, 1996; Lockwood & Kunda, 1997; Miller & Suls, 1977; Seta, 1982; Taylor & Lobel, 1989).”

“Research on the effects of social comparison on the self-concept (Blanton, 2001; Collins, 1996; Markman & McMullin, 2003; Mussweiler, 2003; Pelham & Wachsmuth, 1995) suggests that comparison sometimes results in assimilation (i.e., self-concept displaced in the direction of the comparison target)…”

“With respect to upward social comparison, people compare themselves with those who are better off so as to belong to a superior group (Collins, 1996).”

“Such a comparison can produce positive emotions and reactions (i.e., assimilation effect; Lockwood and Kunda 1997) and negative ones (i.e., contrast effect; Morse and Gergen 1970; Collins 1996).”

“Specifically, upward social comparison (i.e., comparing to others whose performance is better) is effective in shaping continuous motivations for self-improve-ment and goal attainment (Collins, 1996; Harnish & Bridges, 2006).”

“Furthermore, we argue that social comparisons are not symmetric in direction (Collins 1996; Wills 1981), and thus upward and downward referent discrepancy (of varying magnitude) not only occurs but also is likely to occur at different rates.”

“When people make upward comparisons (i.e., measure with people who are better off on a particular aspect), this usually leads to a decrease in body or self esteem (Birkeland et al. 2005 (US); Choate 2005 (US); Spitzer et al. 1999 (Can)), although it can be ego-enhancing because assimilation with the comparison targets…”

“purposes, the critical similarity dimension of social comparison theory has been reconceptualized to include comparisons with others judged to be either more fortunate (i.e., upward comparisons; Collins, 1996) or less fortunate (i.”

“Comparisons between the self and more fortunate others provide an informative and diagnostic basis for one's self-beliefs and aspirations, thus grounding the self-concept in empirical reality (Collins, 1996).”

“…social comparison theory (Festinger, 1954) propose that people use comparisons to similar others in order to (a) reduce their uncertainty about where they might stand on a particular dimension, (b) feel better about their current situation, and (c) be inspired to change (Collins, 1996; Wood, 1989).”

“…self-evaluations but could also be self-enhancing, as it represents a desire for self-improvement (e.g. trying to get a higher salary in the future) (Collins, 1996); meanwhile, downward comparisonmight be regarded as a strategy to enhance one’s subjective well-being and protect selfesteem (Wills,…”

“In this study, upward social comparison on Instagram refers to comparing one’s accomplishments, situation, and experiences with those who are perceived to be better off on Instagram [41,42].”

“For longterm exercise, exercisers may begin to feel helpless if, when comparing themselves invidiously, they see no progress and their superior partner appears indefatigable: forced upward social comparisons, like those employed in conjunctive tasks necessary to elicit the Köhler effect, can depress self-evaluations.(…”

“However, reactions to successful and unsuccessful others do not always follow this pattern (e.g., Collins, 1996; Smith, 2000).”

“Even though one would assume it therefore evokes feelings of inferiority, it can also lead to self-improvement by following one’s role model [30].”

“Adolescents might form their subjective SES through upward (Collins, 1996) or downward social comparison (Wills, 1981) by relying on different reference standards, generating a difference in their subjective SES.”

“In her review of social comparison research, Collins (1996) as well elaborates that upward comparisons may have positive effects on mood in persons with high self-esteem and negative effects in those with low self-esteem.”

“In the literature on general, self-based motivation, self-evaluation motivation has been posited to evoke comparison with others at or slightly above one’s own level, self-improvement motivation has been posited to evoke upward comparison, and self-enhancement (more specifically, self-protection) motivation has been p…”

“Specifically, for emerging adults who perceive a browsing target to be more similar to the self, they may be more likely to engage in assimilative comparisons (Collins, 1996), which elicits positive emotions including inspiration, admiration, and optimism (Smith, 2000).”

“The more employees, for example, believe that people are capable of doing their jobs well if they make the effort, the more they may be driven by self-improvement motives and draw inspiration from a superior colleague ( Collins, 1996; Lockwood & Kunda, 1997; Wood, 1989).”

“…prefer to compare themselves with similar others whose performances are better than theirs, for the purposes of self-evaluation and self-improvement (e.g., Collins, 1996; Taylor & Lobel, 1989; Wood, 1989), even if it is threatening to their self-concept (see Gerber et al., 2018, for a review).”

“When facilitated in the context of PA, it could lead to an enhancement of benefit, while in the context of HE it could serve to reinforce functional decline, possibly through the effect of social comparison and conversation with similar others on self-efficacy (Collins, 1996).”

“People might compare with others who are worse off than the self (i.e., downward comparison) or with others who are better than the self (i.e., upward comparison; Collins 1996).”