Why Do We Compare Ourselves to Others?

You know the famous words of Shakespeare's Hamlet:

"To be or not to be, that is the question!"

This word from Hamlet expresses not only the pain and difficulties of life, but also the questioning of one's own existence through one's relationship with other people.

The human existence adventure literally begins with birth. A birth is like starting a labyrinth game because life is a complex process that continues with its unknown as well as its known; it is full of non-linear roads, turns, and invisible corners.

In addition, the human mind, by its nature, is in a place that does not like the unknown. It tries to fill the gap in many different areas, to make an evaluation or inference. For this reason, people need to use various indicators to solve their way in this labyrinth of life. The act of “comparing” is one of the indicators that serves this purpose in its simplest form.

Human beings try to reduce the unknowns and to know and make sense of the world, especially their existence, because they do not have definite information about themselves.

Therefore, humans try to evaluate their own situation by making comparisons or contrasts. The "Social Comparison Theory" that we will examine with a scientific perspective in this article is based on a similar idea.

Social comparison refers to people’s evaluation of their abilities and attitudes in relation to those of others. This process plays an important role in people’s self-perception and subjective well-being (i.e., general happiness or well-being) 1 .

The theory has its origins in Leon Festinger’s article A Theory of Social Comparison Processes. Its central argument is that we need to make comparisons with similar people in order to make accurate inferences about our abilities and opinions . 2

There is an important distinction between ability and opinion in Festinger's social comparison theory. Generally, regardless of the form of ability, it is desired to be superior to other people, whereas when it comes to opinions, equality is observed because people feel secure when they have the same opinions as others .

The way people compare themselves to others was first described by Leon Festinger in 1954. The theory posits three types of social comparison :

Upward Social Comparison: Comparing oneself to someone who is perceived to be better than oneself (for example, this person may be wealthier, higher status, or more attractive).

Downward Social Comparison: Comparing oneself to someone who is perceived to be no better (For example, someone who broke up with their romantic partner of two years comparing themselves to people who ended their five-year relationships; we can also place the everyday understanding of “There is worse” here).

Horizontal Social Comparison: Comparing yourself with someone who is relatively similar to you (for example, comparing your job performance with other coworkers who are in the same status).

People often seek social reality rather than physical reality (objective and concrete reality) for their abilities and opinions. This social reality is achieved through social comparison. Social comparison occurs when a person compares himself/herself with another (or others), and the dimension on which the comparison is made can be almost anything .

---