Home Psychology Social Comparison: Four Reasons Why We Compare Ourselves To Others

Social Comparison: Four Reasons Why We Compare Ourselves To Others

These are memories that we all likely have in our heads. Do you recall your mother comparing yourself to someone younger than you? Do you remember your mother comparing yourself to someone younger than you?

Some people might say, “Are there only memories too?” I’m comparing my self to others right now. I can hear you say. It is. They said that we All of us should compare ourselves to others in order to feel better. Determine yourself and your own We can be good, beautiful, ugly or successful.

Psychology is the science of comparing one’s abilities or characteristics with others in order to assess oneself. Comparison of social factors. Let’s do a simple experiment. Imagine that we are in psychotherapy. I ask you, “Were you successful at school?” I pose a question. You will likely interpret the term’success’ in the question as academic success. Success by making a comparison To determine whether or not you are successful, look at the success of others students.

These comparisons are harmful?

Social comparison is one concept whose effects are remarkable The outcome of a comparison can have an impact on how the situation changes. Imagine a situation in which a person is able to compare their position with someone who is better than them while evaluating the problem. They will likely make a negative evaluation in that situation. Contrarily, if he is comparing himself to someone who is less fortunate than him, he will feel more fortunate and happier. Both types of benchmarking are possible to benefit. It seems impossible to avoid problems, but we can find the balance and continue living our lives with this perspective. Let’s all see if it is.

If we compare ourselves to people who are better than us, we will undoubtedly make mistakes. Wrong evaluations. This person could consider himself to be unlucky, unsuccessful, and/or incapable.

While it is not harmful to compare ourselves with people with worse circumstances, this can lead to incorrect evaluations. It is possible to make wrong judgments based on such a comparison. person may develop Excessive self-confidence or the belief that he doesn’t need to work hard enough. As a negative effect, this will be returned to the individual.

If we agree that any comparison can have an impact, why benchmark? negative effect if overdone?

Here are four reasons to social benchmarking

1. Self-evaluation is essential

Because we feel the need of evaluating ourselves, we often compare ourselves to other people. It is necessary to gather information about ourselves in order to know more. To find out if we are overweight, for example, we need to know. You need to be aware The ideal weight. It can be difficult to find the right information. Sometimes we need to gather information from others in order satisfy our need for self-evaluation.

2. Self-development is vital

Humans are made up of one thing: the desire to move beyond where they are standing. There is a natural desire to Develop talents and skills We do. This is why we often compare ourselves with others in order to improve our own performance. This is why we compare ourselves to others. People who think You are far ahead of us. But Doing this constantly can make you feel insignificant. It would be a good idea to see if we have missed the dose.

3. Self-exaltation is a must

Though it may seem excessive to criticize ourselves based upon thought, we all have an innate ability to do so. Deep need to honour and glorify ourselves and our existence. We often compare ourselves with someone in a worse situation than we are. This compares our situation to someone else and tells us we are ‘good. We believe we are in good shape and have the ability to meet our need.

4. The need to be together

We are social beings after all. Feeling safe and comfortable around people with similar characteristics is a great way to feel secure. This is where we can compare ourselves with other people with similar conditions and problems. We see that we have the same thoughts and feel the same emotions and we are able meet our need to be with them.

Alternative benchmarking

We discussed the main reasons we make social comparisons, as well as the potential harms. So let me talk about another type, which can be an alternative to the social comparison. Temporal comparison refers to a type of comparison where you are the target. When evaluating or exalting yourself, it is better to use ourselves as a guideline than to compare it with others. All these needs can be met by comparing our present and past selves. You can also invite your future selves to see you by visualizing yourself in the future.