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Social Comparison Theory

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It has long been known that the social context in which we see others affects the way we perceive them. Studies on social comparison began as early as the 1930’s with Sherif’s pioneering research on the effects groups had on the development of one’s reality. In his 1936 study, Sherif designed a box that showed a pinprick of light. He then asked participants to report when they saw the light begin to move and how far they estimated it had moved from its beginning location. Unbeknownst to the participants, the light never actually moved. As the experiment carried on, it was discovered each participant would develop a unique reference point from which they always measured the light’s movement. However when participants were exposed to the light …show more content…

Social comparison theory states that individuals desire to determine the accuracy of their beliefs and behavior. As stated by Festinger (1954), people will judge their behaviors and opinions by comparison to the behaviors and opinions of others. Furthermore, individuals are more likely to compare behaviors and opinions to those of individuals who are similar to themselves. The more different one is from another, the less likely it is that they will be influenced by each other. In the context of a social group, Festinger stated that the members of a group will do their best to make themselves as similar to each other as possible; for example, think of the stereotypical high school clique in which all members dress alike and have the same interests. Social comparison can be either upward or downward. Upward social comparison means comparing oneself to someone “better,” while downward social comparison means comparing oneself to someone …show more content…

The way others perceive us—and we perceive them—affects the way we think of ourselves. Studies show that social comparison is prevalent within the psychology of body image formation and eating behaviors. It is usually in the context of upward social comparison, which causes the individual to feel less perfect than the one being compared to (Wheeler & Miyake, 1992). Morrison, Kalin & Morrison (2004) administered questionnaires to over 1,000 high school students in order to determine the effects of social comparison on body image. Participants were exposed to magazines and television programs that contained idealistic body imagery along with images of well-known fashion models. Results showed that comparing oneself to a universalistic figure, such as one found on television or in a magazine, could have significant negative effects on self-esteem, increase the use of diets, increase body dissatisfaction, and increase potentially harmful weight control practices. Banfield and Macabe (2002) defined body image as “a loose mental representation of body shape, size, and form which is influenced by a variety of historical, cultural and social, individual, and biological factors” (p. 374). Body dissatisfaction occurs when one’s body image does not match up with her perceived ideal body image. Body dissatisfaction is associated with eating disorders; the more dissatisfied someone is with appearance, the more likely the

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Leon Festinger defines social comparison theory as the inclination of humans to assess themselves by comparing them to others (Festinger, 1954). Essentially, this theory says that people use comparison to evaluate their knowledge, beliefs, and feelings, particularly when they feel uncertain about themselves. Other social psychologists describe social comparison theory as the natural drive in people to better themselves and reduce the gap in the level of performance between themselves and other people (Garcia et al., 2013). Festinger came up with two categories of social comparison: upward comparisons, in which people assess themselves against those deemed to be in a better situation, and downward comparison, in which people assess themselves

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675 Words | 3 Pages

At the end of the experiment, researchers found out that familiarity did not have strong effect on the people; however, students perceived attractiveness and similarity more often. People considered more attractive the woman they saw more in classroom. Besides of this, the participant rated more similar to them the woman they saw more. This is one clear example of the mere exposure effect theory or familiarity principle.

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TKAM Mini-Research Paper Everyday, people are judged by the way they look or act. They are judged because people are either ignorant or too lazy to find out who a person really is on the inside. Some have tried to help this issue by saying, “don’t judge a book by its cover”, however the act of stereotyping this theme is evident in today’s society. It was also evident during the Great Depression and in the plot of the novel, “To Kill A Mockingbird” by Harper Lee. In both real life and in the novel, and it is not until someone walks in another's shoes that they know what their life is actually like.

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Crowd behavior also termed Mob or Herd mentality explains the cohesive social behavioral patterns exhibited by individuals who are in a large group- in essence, large number of people acting coherently in the same manner. To discover the psychological basis for this coherence, this paper will explore the implications of social identity theory on crowd behaviors. Utilizing, Social identity theory to understand the bias that permeate in various social context such as the “Racist Chelsea Fans” controversy in 2015. Social Identity Theory coined in 1970 by Henri Tajfel and John Turner explores the social dynamics of intergroup relations and its implications to normative behavior (Tajfel & Turner, 2004). Centralized around the multifaceted social

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Social groups have specific characteristic; they consist of two or more people who interact in an ordered fashion, share specific values and norms and have at least some sense of unity and common goals. One of the main influence that groups exercise over their members lives in their capacity to induce conformity the process through which modify their behavior to comply with the groups norm or decision. In this essay, we discuss some of the group conformity related experiments and their reflection in society.

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Growing up and even to this day, my sister and I are always being compared to each other. When people compare our appearances, they would point out the same few flaws; such as myself having a rounder

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We all know what it feels like walking through campus with the feeling of being stalked by people silently watching, judging and analyzing. People judge based on the clothes one wears, the shoes he or she wears and even the way one walks and talks. Humans have a natural instinct to place others in a group based on superficial characteristics without knowing them. The film scene from the movie Babe in which I have chosen to analyze suggests that stereotypes or predetermined notions about other individuals without getting to know them are second nature to humans. However, the scene also suggests that if people took the time to get to one another, then humans would realize that people are more than what humans perceive them as at first glimpse.

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749 Words | 3 Pages

Solomon Asch (1951) conducted a simple experiment which is today expressed as a classic in social psychology. The purpose of Asch’s study was to investigate the degree to which group pressure could affect a person to conform. The procedure consisted of one standard line and three comparison lines, where the participants were asked to match the correct comparison line to the standard line in length. 50 male students in the US participated in this task. In each trial of the study, only one real participant was involved with six to eight confederates, which the naïve participant was unaware of.

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457 Words | 2 Pages

One of the main things that Asch’s experiments teach us is that people are extremely determined to fit in with others. In the short video clip titled “Would You Fall For That - Elevator Experiment”, we learned that people conform to the majority rather than risk being alienated from a group. This experiment, in particular, tested the Asch Paradigm to see how far people go to feel like a member of the group. They tested this by means of an elevator experiment in which actors would go in an elevator and face the wrong way and the unsuspecting victims were left to decide for themselves whether or not to conform to the group or to instead do what they felt was considered normal.

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1323 Words | 6 Pages

Social categorization theory developed by Turner (1978) describes the categorization of people based on salient attributes like gender, ethnicity or age, resulting in stereotyping on the basis of these differences. Social categorization theory posits that similarities and dissimilarities of demographics can lead formation of different group with resulting effects on member of in-group favorably themselves to the detriment of members of out-groups social (Turner, Brown & Tajfel, 1979). Self-categorization theory explains when individuals categorize themselves by assigning to themselves the manners, actions and other characteristics they link with association within a specific group (Schmitt, Branscombe, Silvia, Garcia, & Spears. 2016). By means of self-categorization and membership of a group, people cultivate a social identity that functions as a social-cognitive scheme (customs, standards and attitudes) for their group associated action. The tendency is for the perceiver to consider these attributes as vital to his or her own personality and thus use these attributes to label others (Hoffman Harburg, & Maier, 2014).

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105 Words | 1 Pages

The purpose of this paper is to inform the reader of social normalities and prejudice in society. Social normalities can be described, measured, and can influence the expression of prejudice. People adhere firmly to social norms when expression prejudice and the expression of hostility depends on norms. The data can be predicted through many theories and common sense. Individual tolerance often represents group tolerance due to the different norms in that group.

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1152 Words | 5 Pages

Social media plays a big role in how society portrays body image. “Alternatively, an increased number of Facebook friends may provide girls with greater opportunity to rapidly make multiple social comparisons, itself shown to be associated with body image concern”(Tiggemann and Slater 82). According to the survey that was taken by Marika Tiggemann and Amy Slater, the more Facebook friends the girls had, the more likely it was that they had body image concerns. They were able to compare themselves to the other girls that they were friends with, which led to them to have an increase in their drive for thinness. “Further, these comparisons are likely to be with somewhat idealised images, in that girls mostly post photographs in which they look good or are doing something ‘cool’ (and can be digitally altered)”(Tiggemann and Slater 82).

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805 Words | 4 Pages

In this scale, there are three latitudes: The Latitude of Rejection, Latitude of Noncommitment and the Latitude of Acceptance (Sherif & Hovland, 1961). These are all part of the “Ego Involvement” a person has when approached with a new issue. Rejection will get bigger, while Acceptance will get smaller the more passionate one is for something (Sherif & Hovland, 1961). One of my experiences with the Social judgment theory happened to be a few years ago through social media.

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907 Words | 4 Pages

As humans, we are always judging ourselves and others. This theory is how someone will compare themselves to others on a regular basis; an example of this would be looking at someone’s photos and comparing your body to theirs. Festinger (1954) believed that there are three hypotheses to his social comparison theory. The first hypothesis is “there exist, in the human organism, a drive to evaluate his opinions and abilities” (Festinger, 1954) which is described, as that an individual will compare themselves to another person in the room that they believe they are at the same level of self-worth.

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1418 Words | 6 Pages

What is sociological imagination? C. Wright Mills defined the sociological imagination as the capacity for individuals to understand the relationship between their individual lives and the broad social forces that influence them. In other words, the sociological imagination helps people link their own individual biographies to the broader forces of social life: "Neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both" (Mills 1959). In this assignment. I will use the sociological imagination to analyze a situation which had a huge impact on me, which will be body image and how media and family affect it.

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