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

“Thus, when an individual faces social comparison information, the self-evaluation level displaces toward the comparison goal (Collins, 1996).”

“Since Festinger, research on similar lines has shown that social comparison helps people to self-evaluate (Collins, 1996; Klein, 1997).”

“However, too much exposure to postings from others in SNS may lead to upward social comparison (Festinger, 1954) which happens when individuals compare themselves with those who are better than them; and as a result, it can possibly cause people to lost self-confidence (Collins, 1996).”

“However, while comparing ourselves to others can sometimes be beneficial in non-appearance domains (Buunk, Collins, Taylor, Van Yperen, & Dakof, 1990; Collins, 1996; Helgeson & Taylor, 1993; Wood, Taylor, & Lichtman, 1985), little evidence suggests this is true for the domain of physical appearance.”

“When individuals can identify with similar others who are doing well or better than themselves, upward comparisons may be conducive to positive mood and self-esteem (Collins 1996).”

“Collins (1996) considers that such comparisons may have repercussions on self-assessment, and may be associated with positive or negative feelings.”

“(Wood, 1996) in a comparative manner (Collins, 1996).”

“54 In China, students have a singular experience in secondary school, and most of them only need to consider how to improve their academic performance.”

“Past research suggests that after comparisons with more successful others (upward comparisons), individuals feel worse about themselves and view their own accomplishments to be inferior (for reviews, see Collins, 1996; Wood, 1989).”

“Upward social comparisons on the other hand, may hurt egos but also ameliorate self-assessments (Collins, 1996).”

“One critical factor that contributes to these differing consequences of the same comparison process is whether the standard is attainable or unattainable (Collins, 1996).”

“Relative deprivation and collective action A central way by which humans obtain information about themselves and their social standing in society is through social comparisons [3], and relative deprivation describes a negative evaluation resulting from this [4–7].”

“Conversely, Collins [78] describes upwards social comparison as a person consciously or subconsciously comparing themselves to those that they perceive as better off or coping better, to create a more positive perception of their reality.”

“Engaging in upward social comparisons often leads to self-disapproval and denial, resulting in low self-evaluation and negative emotions (Collins, 1996; Schmuck et al., 2019; Wheeler and Miyake, 1992).”

“According to upward comparison theory (Collins, 1996), people are motivated by self-improvement and self-evaluation, often benchmarking against those who are more successful.”

“core self-evaluation, Collins (1996) pointed out that social comparison results in a contrasting effect (e.”

“Although upward comparisons are largely motivated by self-improvement mechanisms according to social comparison theory (see Collins 1995), these comparisons come with the risk of emphasizing a person’s deficiencies on relevant domains.”

“In contrast to other social comparison theories (Wills, 1981; Collins, 1996; Mussweiler, 2003), SEM considers the intimacy between individuals and their comparison targets.”

“Although there is evidence that upward reference group comparison can inspire individuals (Lockwood & Kunda, 1997) and be used for self-evaluation and self-improvement purposes (Collins, 1996), existing research demonstrates the predominant adverse psychological effects of upward social comparisons.”

“Conversely, upward comparisons often make individuals feel worse because they reflect a relatively lower status compared with others’ career success; at the same time, upward comparison could also motivate individuals to exert more effort on selfimprovement (e.g., Collins, 1996).”

“…to the ones that they perceive as the most effective in the community, networks’ coordinators conduct an upward social comparison, which then builds into part of their standards for defining an effective network and may make the network believe they are part of the elite or superior (Collins 1996).”

“Although social comparison generates contrast or assimilation effects, the salient effect depends on employees’ relationship with their departed coworkers and employees’ underlying motivation for social comparison (Collins, 1996; Mussweiler, 2003).”

“parison is comparison with those considered to be inferior on a specific characteristic.(20,21) If a team manager distributes”

“Since each person values certain traits and wants to excel in those particular traits (Collins, 1996), a woman who identifies a slim body with beauty tends to have greater desire for a slim body, while diagnosing her own body as obese.”

“, 1990; Jagacinski & Nicholls, 1987), upward comparisons have typically been found to foster psychological adjustment across interpersonal, achievement, and health domains (for reviews, see Bailis et al., 2005; Buunk et al., 1990; Collins, 1996; Corcoran, Crusis, & Mussweiler, 2011; Festinger, 1954; Tesser, 1988; Tayl…”

“While comparisons with those perceived as inferior can help maintain a positive self-image, comparisons with superior individuals can inspire self-improvement but may also harm self-esteem (Collins, 1996; Cramer et al., 2016; Van de Ven et al., 2009).”

“After reviewing a series of studies looking at the impacts of upward social comparisons, Collins [33] asserts that “upward comparison is not in confict with the desire for positive self-regard and indeed serves it indirectly (through self-improvement) and sometimes directly (by enhancing the self).”

“In particular, people tend to make upward comparisons when they experience uncertainty (e.g., when encountering stress, new things, and changes; Gibbons & Buunk, 1999) and when they are motivated to achieve goals or improve themselves (Collins, 1996).”

“In doing so, the subjective understanding of one’s relative social standing is based on the meaning construed from daily performance rather than as a response to structural inequality (Alicke et al. 1995; Collins 1996).”

“From this respect, social comparison can satisfy individuals ’ internal drive to self-evaluate, and orient their social behaviors to protect or improve the selves (Buunk & Gibbons, 2007; Festinger, 1954).”

“…many process models of how individuals engage in self-evaluation using comparison (described in Gerber et al., 2018), including but not limited to downward comparison (Wills, 1981), upward assimilation (Collins, 1996, 2000), and selective accessibility (Mussweiler, 2003; Mussweiler & Strack, 2000).”

“Although people are more likely to learn from competent others than incompetent ones, research shows that if the role model ’ s achievements seem unattainable, it may result in a negative social comparison and lead to discour-agement (Collins, 1996).”

“In healthy individuals, social comparison increases or decreases the value of the consequences of own actions and performances depending on the outcomes of others [41 – 48].”

“…al., 2019), and the opportunity to be selected as a future HL may emerge for those who are similar to a current or former HL. Supporting this idea, Collins (1996) explored the potential positive effect of upward social comparisons with those who were similar to the referents (comparison with the…”

“…testing upward comparison effects on self-evaluation, self-esteem and affect concluded that upward comparison is not in conflict with the desire for positive self-regard, but rather serves it indirectly through self-improvement and sometimes directly by self-enhancement (Collins, 1996, 2000).”

“Bien que l’on puisse se comparer à quelqu’un de supérieur sur un attribut et encore améliorer son estime de soi (Collins, 1996), dans l’immense majorité des cas une comparaison dans ce sens est toujours délétère pour l’individu (Lyubomirsky et Ross, 1997).”

“Downward comparison, where an individual compares themselves to someone they perceive as inferior in the social hierarchy, usually leads to improved mood and positive self-evaluations (Collins, 1996; Buunk and Gibbons, 2006, 2007).”

“Assimilating with a superior target enhances self-evaluation because individuals equate their competence level with that of the envied (Collins, 1996, 2000; Rheu et al., 2023; Wheeler and Suls, 2007).”

“…time on downward social comparisons (comparing themselves with less successful peers) or lateral social comparisons (comparing themselves to equally successful peers) to “ con-fi rm ” their worth and social status (Collins, 1996; Wood et al., 1994), even if their main focus remains on mastery goals.”

“The change of self-evaluations is the most obvious influence of social comparison (Collins, 1996; de Vries & Kühne, 2015).”

“, people compare themselves to other people that do worse) comparison, which may not only produce a contrast effect [12] or an assimilation effect [13] on individual self-evaluation, but also produce two completely opposite ef-”

“For example, people may make an upward comparison (compared with a superior other) hoping to improve their abilities (Collins, 1996) or make a downward comparison (compared with an inferior other) to increase self-evaluations (Wills, 1981).”

“…generally engage in upward comparisons (Gerber et al., 2018) and this is thought to provide them with motivation to perform at a higher level (Collins, 1996); however, in some circumstances such as when a person feels they do not have the ability to perform better or the situation is beyond…”

“Upward comparison is seen as a potential antecedent predictor of parents’ tutoring anxiety (Wills, 1981; Collins, 1996; Gentile et al., 2019).”

“This is the faith that the vision of the organization will be achieved [26].”

“Comparing one ’ s self to others with higher status can create feelings of insecurity and prompt upward social comparisons (Collins, 1996).”

“…seeking to achieve higher levels of status in areas of high income inequality, they may be inclined to make upward comparisons, given that people tend to compare themselves with others who are superior to themselves when their motivation is to improve their attributes or abilities (Collins, 1996).”

“Research shows that most employees tend to engage in upward comparisons (Lee & Griffith, 2019), which causes feelings of envy (Collins, 1996).”

“Moreover, positive social comparisons could lead to a broad range of psychological outcomes (e.g., in self-evaluation, political attitudes, and risk-taking behaviour; Collins, 1996; Festinger, 1954; Payne et al., 2017).”

“In other words, reflecting the success of others may increase global, general positive self-regard, because individuals view themselves as sharing the achievements of the successful other, but such reflection may not increase motivation or performance (Collins, 1996).”

“Comparing oneself to someone relatively better off (e.g. a silver medallist comparing themselves with a gold medallist) is considered an upward social comparison (see Collins, 1996).”