The DOI matches its Crossref record; 91 of the 91 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
What is Social Comparison and How Should We Study it?
Abstract
Despite renewed vigor in the social comparison literature, little attention has been paid to methods of studying social comparison. This article examines frequently used measures and procedures in social comparison research. The question of whether a method truly captures social comparison requires a clear understanding of what social comparison is; hence a definition of social comparison is proposed, multiple ancillary processes in social comparison are identified, and definitional controversies are addressed. Then, methods are examined for how strongly they imply social comparison and for whether they capture social comparisons as they would occur naturally. It is argued that some methods may not truly capture social comparison, that some methods may be too vulnerable to alternative interpretations to be useful, and that some methods may paint an inaccurate picture of social comparison.
Overview
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In the citing paper
“Assimilative efforts, on the other side, involve the contrast of a bad present with an attainable positive future and may be enhanced by motivating upward comparisons (see also Carver & Scheier, 1998;Collins, 1996;Wood, 1996;Wrosch & Heckhausen, 1996).”
From The Life-Course Dynamics of Goal Pursuit and Goal Adjustment: A Two-Process Framework (2002) · cites this paper as Wood, 1996
Citations
Cites
A theory of social comparison processes
Festinger, L. (1954) · Human Relations · doi:10.1177/001872675400700202 · Cited by 20,926
Diener, E. (1984) · Social indicators research series · doi:10.1007/978-90-481-2350-6_2 · Cited by 12,609
The case for motivated reasoning.
Kunda, Z. (1990) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/0033-2909.108.3.480 · Cited by 9,022
Illusion and well‐being: A social psychological perspective on mental health
Taylor, S. E., & Brown, J. D. (1988) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/0033-2909.103.2.193 · Cited by 7,814
Unrealistic optimism about future life events
Weinstein, N. D. (1980) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.39.5.806 · Cited by 4,999
Norm theory: Comparing reality to its alternatives.
Kahneman, D. J., & Miller, D. T. (1986) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/0033-295x.93.2.136 · Cited by 3,247
Downward comparison principles in social psychology
Wills, T. A. (1981) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/0033-2909.90.2.245 · Cited by 2,705
Dantzer, R. (1990) · Neuropsychologia · doi:10.1016/0028-3932(90)90065-v · Cited by 2,367
Theory and research concerning social comparisons of personal attributes
Wood, J. V. (1989) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/0033-2909.106.2.231 · Cited by 1,957
Beech, H. R. (1963) · Journal of Psychosomatic Research · doi:10.1016/0022-3999(63)90032-1 · Cited by 1,679
Research works printed but not linked: 21
- Buunk, B. P., Health and coping: Perspectives firm social comparison theory
- Bylsma, W. H., 1990, Group differences in personal entitlement.- The impact of social comparisons and procedural fairness
- Cottrell, N. B., 1977, Social comparison processes: Theoretical and empirical perspectives
- Crosby, E., 1982, Relative deprivation and working women
- 10.1037/0033-2909.95.3.542 · DOI · Paper page
- Fiske, S. T., 1991, Social cognition
- Flett, G. L., 1982, Social comparison preferences: A self presentational analysis
- Giordano, C., Canadian Psychological Association Convention
- Goethals, G. R., Relative deprivation and social comparison: The Ontaio symposium, 135
- Goethals, G. R., 1977, Social comparison processes: Theoretical and empirical perspectives, 259
- Olson, J. M., Relative deprivation and social comparison: The Ontaio symposium
- Ross, M., Relative deprivation and social comparison: The Ontario symposium, 79
- Ruble, D. N., 1987, Social comparison, social justice, and relative deprivation: Theoretical, empirical, and policy perspectives, 81
- Sedikides, C., 1992, Emotion and social behavior: Review of personality and social psychology, 271
- Smith, W. P., 1987, Social comparison, social justice, and relative deprivation: Theoretical, empirical; and policy perspectives, 55
- Suls, J., 1991, Social comparison: Contemporary theory and research
- Tesser, A., 1986, Handbook of motivation and cognition: Foundations of social behavior, 435
- 10.1037/0022-3514.54.1.49 · DOI
- 10.1037/0278-6133.14.2.132 · DOI
- Wheeler, L., 1977, Social comparison processes: Theoretical and empirical perspectives, 335
- Zanna, M. P., 1987, Pathways to women's career development, 28
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Subjective well-being: Three decades of progress.
Diener, E., Suh, E. M., Lucas, R. E., & Smith, H. L. (1999) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/0033-2909.125.2.276 · Cited by 12,910
Gibbons, F. X., & Buunk, B. P. (1999) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.76.1.129 · Cited by 1,813
Passive Facebook usage undermines affective well-being: Experimental and longitudinal evidence.
Verduyn, P., Lee, D. S., Park, J., Shablack, H., Orvell, A., Bayer, J., Ybarra, O., Jonides, J., & Kross, E. (2015) · Journal of Experimental Psychology: General · doi:10.1037/xge0000057 · Cited by 988
Social comparison: The end of a theory and the emergence of a field
Buunk, A. P., & Gibbons, F. X. (2006) · Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes · doi:10.1016/j.obhdp.2006.09.007 · Cited by 1,020
A social comparison theory meta-analysis 60+ years on.
Gerber, J. P., Wheeler, L., & Suls, J. (2018) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/bul0000127 · Cited by 808
Metadata
- Authors
- Wood, J. V.
- Affiliations
- University of Waterloo (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Wood, Joanne V.
- ORCID
- Wood, Joanne V.
- Venue
- Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 1996-05
- Volume
- 22
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 520-537
- ISSN
- 0146-1672 (ISSN-L)
- 1552-7433
- OpenAlex
- W2108334011
- Semantic Scholar
- 340057e64e6beda3379f9c5a28abd0032f2a83ca
- Cited by
- 697
- References
- 87
- Citations by year
- 2026: 36 · 2025: 53 · 2024: 48 · 2023: 64 · 2022: 42 · 2021: 31 · 2020: 35 · 2019: 23 · 2018: 18 · 2017: 18 · 2016: 18 · 2015: 20 · 2014: 32 · 2013: 23 · 2012: 26
- FWCI
- 30.04
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Emotions and Moral Behavior
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Psychometric Methodologies and Testing
- Keywords
- social comparison, social comparison theory, methodological validity
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
