- published: 12 Oct 2016
- views: 2703
Social comparison theory, initially proposed by social psychologist Leon Festinger in 1954, centers on the belief that there is a drive within individuals to gain accurate self-evaluations. The theory explains how individuals evaluate their own opinions and abilities by comparing themselves to others in order to reduce uncertainty in these domains, and learn how to define the self.
Following the initial theory, research began to focus on social comparison as a way of self-enhancement, introducing the concepts of downward and upward comparisons and expanding the motivations of social comparisons.
The term social refers to a characteristic of living organisms as applied to populations of humans and other animals. It always refers to the interaction of organisms with other organisms and to their collective co-existence, irrespective of whether they are aware of it or not, and irrespective of whether the interaction is voluntary or involuntary.
The word "Social" derives from the Latin word socii ("allies"). It is particularly derived from the Italian Socii states, historical allies of the Roman Republic (although they rebelled against Rome in the Social War of 91-88 BC).
In the absence of agreement about its meaning, the term "social" is used in many different senses and regarded as a fuzzy concept, referring among other things to:
Attitudes, orientations, or behaviors which take the interests, intentions, or needs of other people into account (in contrast to anti-social behaviour) has played some role in defining the idea or the principle. For instance terms like social realism, social justice, social constructivism, social psychology, social anarchism and social capital imply that there is some social process involved or considered, a process that is not there in regular, "non-social" realism, justice, constructivism, psychology, anarchism, or capital.
Comparison may refer to:
Crash Course (also known as Driving Academy) is a 1988 made for television teen film directed by Oz Scott.
Crash Course centers on a group of high schoolers in a driver’s education class; many for the second or third time. The recently divorced teacher, super-passive Larry Pearl, is on thin ice with the football fanatic principal, Principal Paulson, who is being pressured by the district superintendent to raise driver’s education completion rates or lose his coveted football program. With this in mind, Principal Paulson and his assistant, with a secret desire for his job, Abner Frasier, hire an outside driver’s education instructor with a very tough reputation, Edna Savage, aka E.W. Savage, who quickly takes control of the class.
The plot focuses mostly on the students and their interactions with their teachers and each other. In the beginning, Rico is the loner with just a few friends, Chadley is the bookish nerd with few friends who longs to be cool and also longs to be a part of Vanessa’s life who is the young, friendly and attractive girl who had to fake her mother’s signature on her driver’s education permission slip. Kichi is the hip-hop Asian kid who often raps what he has to say and constantly flirts with Maria, the rich foreign girl who thinks that the right-of-way on the roadways always goes to (insert awesomely fake foreign Latino accent) “my father’s limo”. Finally you have stereotypical football meathead J.J., who needs to pass his English exam to keep his eligibility and constantly asks out and gets rejected by Alice, the tomboy whose father owns “Santini & Son” Concrete Company. Alice is portrayed as being the “son” her father wanted.
Social influence occurs when one's emotions, opinions, or behaviors are affected by others. Social influence takes many forms and can be seen in conformity, socialization, peer pressure, obedience, leadership, persuasion, sales and marketing. In 1958, Harvard psychologist, Herbert Kelman identified three broad varieties of social influence.
Morton Deutsch and Harold Gerard described two psychological needs that lead humans to conform to the expectations of others. These include our need to be right (informational social influence), and our need to be liked (normative social influence). Informational influence (or social proof) is an influence to accept information from another as evidence about reality. Informational influence comes into play when people are uncertain, either because stimuli are intrinsically ambiguous or because there is social disagreement. Normative influence is an influence to conform to the positive expectations of others. In terms of Kelman's typology, normative influence leads to public compliance, whereas informational influence leads to private acceptance.
Our video is on Social Comparison Theory, and how it explains and looks at how humans tend to evaluate their self-worth by comparing their attitudes and abilities to other people. We talk about how people often compare themselves when they want to learn about themselves and are unsure about where they measure in a specific ability or trait. We mention Leon Festinger’s Similarity Hypothesis that says we usually compare ourselves with a person who is similar to us in a certain ability but is a little better. This usually happens when comparing positive traits. With negative traits, we compare ourselves with someone who is doing worse than us in a trait. We also look at the two types of social comparison targets. The first is Upward Comparison when we compare ourselves with those who are bett...
This is a small video which talks about the social comparison theory that takes place through out our life. This comparison is often named as a competition however we need to understand that this comparison is harming our lives.
Talk by prof.dr. N.Y. (Nico) van Yperen at the 2014 Heymans Symposium 'Research Worth Spreading' of the Psychology department of the University of Groningen
You can directly support Crash Course at http://www.subbable.com/crashcourse Subscribe for as little as $0 to keep up with everything we're doing. Also, if you can afford to pay a little every month, it really helps us to continue producing great content. *** Why do people sometimes do bad things just because someone else told them to? And what does the term Groupthink mean? In today's episode of Crash Course Psychology, Hank talks about the ideas of Social Influence and how it can affect our decisions to act or to not act. If you are currently in need of help: http://www.mentalhealth.gov/get-help/ -- Table of Contents: Milgram Experiment 0:31 Automatic Mimicry 3:29 Solomon Asch 4:08 Normative Social Influence 5:31 Social Facilitation 5:59 Social Loafing 6:19 Deindividuation, Group P...
Digital Story Rutgers University Social Informatics, 2016
A video describing what Social Comparison Theory is and providing two examples of Social Comparison Theory.
Concepts from Chapter 3 -- Self concept vs. Self esteem and reflected appraisal and social comparison
UNC Psychology 260: Applications of Social Psychology Video Project
I Introduction; My name is Jarred Cevallos, the application I’ve chosen to talk about the social comparison theory from chapter 6. This theory states that we evaluate ourselves based on how we compare with others. II Body; • Comparing yourself to friends and their accomplishments • Comparing yourself to other people who you may compete with • Comparing yourself to coworkers III Conclusion We can disclose information about ourselves to others to compare us to them, we do this sometimes without even noticing. It helps us feel good or reach for new goals set by our peers and their actions. I believe we all do this subconsciously because we want to be the best and need something to compare us to. Self-validation to ourselves or someone we look up to or even someone we don’t want to be li...
Group presentation on explaining how social comparison causes dissatisfaction
music credit: Heidi Montag (Superficial) Lamoreaux
Social Psychology project, rating yourself from 1-10 on different attributes
In this video, I outline the three types of social comparison: similar, upward and downward; why we make social comparisons and the consequences of making them.
Our video is on Social Comparison Theory, and how it explains and looks at how humans tend to evaluate their self-worth by comparing their attitudes and abilities to other people. We talk about how people often compare themselves when they want to learn about themselves and are unsure about where they measure in a specific ability or trait. We mention Leon Festinger’s Similarity Hypothesis that says we usually compare ourselves with a person who is similar to us in a certain ability but is a little better. This usually happens when comparing positive traits. With negative traits, we compare ourselves with someone who is doing worse than us in a trait. We also look at the two types of social comparison targets. The first is Upward Comparison when we compare ourselves with those who are bett...
This is a small video which talks about the social comparison theory that takes place through out our life. This comparison is often named as a competition however we need to understand that this comparison is harming our lives.
Talk by prof.dr. N.Y. (Nico) van Yperen at the 2014 Heymans Symposium 'Research Worth Spreading' of the Psychology department of the University of Groningen
You can directly support Crash Course at http://www.subbable.com/crashcourse Subscribe for as little as $0 to keep up with everything we're doing. Also, if you can afford to pay a little every month, it really helps us to continue producing great content. *** Why do people sometimes do bad things just because someone else told them to? And what does the term Groupthink mean? In today's episode of Crash Course Psychology, Hank talks about the ideas of Social Influence and how it can affect our decisions to act or to not act. If you are currently in need of help: http://www.mentalhealth.gov/get-help/ -- Table of Contents: Milgram Experiment 0:31 Automatic Mimicry 3:29 Solomon Asch 4:08 Normative Social Influence 5:31 Social Facilitation 5:59 Social Loafing 6:19 Deindividuation, Group P...
Digital Story Rutgers University Social Informatics, 2016
A video describing what Social Comparison Theory is and providing two examples of Social Comparison Theory.
Concepts from Chapter 3 -- Self concept vs. Self esteem and reflected appraisal and social comparison
UNC Psychology 260: Applications of Social Psychology Video Project
I Introduction; My name is Jarred Cevallos, the application I’ve chosen to talk about the social comparison theory from chapter 6. This theory states that we evaluate ourselves based on how we compare with others. II Body; • Comparing yourself to friends and their accomplishments • Comparing yourself to other people who you may compete with • Comparing yourself to coworkers III Conclusion We can disclose information about ourselves to others to compare us to them, we do this sometimes without even noticing. It helps us feel good or reach for new goals set by our peers and their actions. I believe we all do this subconsciously because we want to be the best and need something to compare us to. Self-validation to ourselves or someone we look up to or even someone we don’t want to be li...
Group presentation on explaining how social comparison causes dissatisfaction
music credit: Heidi Montag (Superficial) Lamoreaux
Social Psychology project, rating yourself from 1-10 on different attributes
In this video, I outline the three types of social comparison: similar, upward and downward; why we make social comparisons and the consequences of making them.
An introduction to the idea of social comparison. Isaacson uses his own quirks and school history to illustrate how we use social comparison to define our identity.
This presentation and discussion was captured on Jan 27, 2017, 2:30 PM EST at Teachers College, Columbia University. Title: Social Comparison as a Means to Improve MOOC Completion Rates Social comparison theory asserts that we establish our social and personal worth by comparing ourselves to others. Online learning environments, however, offer a scarcity of social cues to facilitate social comparison. Can an increased availability of such cues promote effective self-regulatory behavior and achievement in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)? We developed a personalized feedback system that facilitates social comparison with previously successful learners based on an interactive visualization of multiple behavioral indicators. Across four randomized controlled experiments in engineering a...
In this lecture, Dr. Tom Rudel overviews three classical sociological theorists – Marx, Weber and Durkheim. He notes that all three are structuralists, but that each identifies a different force that structures economic activity and outcomes. He describes Marx’s focus on the factory as the site of consumption and production, and he notes the contemporary theories of the treadmill of production and world systems as deriving from Marx’s theories. He then summarizes the theories of Weber, who sees the rationalized state as structuring production and consumption, and he highlights ecological modernization and notions of a world society as updates of Weber’s theories. Finally, he discusses Durkheim’s ideas about occupations and the division of labor as structuring economic activity, and notes ...
Speaker: Dagmara Celik Katreniak (Research Fellow at the Center for Institutional Studies, International Research Laboratory for Institutional Analysis of Economic Reforms) Substantial progress has been made in improving access to schooling in developing countries. Nevertheless, higher enrollment needs to be accompanied by advances in education quality in order to avoid stagnation or, at worst, quality downturn. A large number of interventions have been implemented with the aim of lowering absenteeism and improving students’ performance. One possible channel is the provision of feedback about the subject’s position in the group. Subjects also seem to improve if evaluated in groups and/or if provided with incentives, such as financial and reputational rewards. This paper contributes to th...
In this video I share 5 positive and encouraging ways we can squish that comparison monster. It can be such a nasty and overwhelming thing. I focus strongly on the biggest cause of it in our society today which is SOCIAL MEDIA. I hope you find this video encouraging and insightful and thought-provoking! Please leave a comment down below if you have struggled with this or still do now and/or if you have found some ways that have helped you overcome this comparison trap, id love to hear from you! *************************************** Hi there! Im Rebekah. Wife to Trent and Mama to Ivey and Ruthie and 3rd sweet babe on the way! Here on my channel you will find encouragement for joyful intentional Christian living! I talk a lot about being a wife, a mother, a homemaker, minimalism, and...
*SPOILERS* I recap and give opinions and theories on Episode 6 of Game of Thrones Season 7!! Share your takeaway and theories down below!! Interesting Game of Thrones videos I came across!: 6 details you may have missed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naHrd5fCz5Q Gray Area - White Walkers Explained! : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_dNVjle-Zk ------------------------------------------------- Maximus Prime Pineapple socks: www.featsocks.com/nikkib ------------------------------------------------- ➢ My website - NikkiB Merch etc - www.nikkiblackketter.com ➢ Shop Gymshark Women here: http://www.gymshark.com ➢ Bite Meals! "NikkiB" Discount Code - https://www.bitemeals.com ➢ MVMTwatches.com - "NikkiB15" $15 off discount code off your watches and sunglasses!! -------------------------------...
A 20 minute screencast on the psychology of Social Influence. I created this presentation to help my students revise material on defining conformity, Deutsch and Gerard's Dual Process Dependency Model, Turner's Referent Informational Social Influence model, compliance, identification, internalisation, anti-conformity and independence.
Subject : Psychology Paper : Social Psychology
Based on a meta-theoretical integration of social and dimensional comparison theories, I demonstrate five seemingly paradoxical frame-of-reference effects in the formation of math self-concept (MSC) that generalize across 68 countries/regions, 18,292 schools and 485,490 fifteen-year-old students. Consistent with extensions of the big-fish-little-pond effect (BFLPE) and social comparison theory, the effects on MSC are negative for: • country-average math achievement (paradoxical cross-cultural effect), • school-average math achievement (the big-fish-little-pond effect), • individual-student year in school relative to age. Consistent with integrations of dimensional and social comparison theories, the effects of verbal achievement on MSC were in the opposite direction to those of math ach...
Lecture series on Management Science by Prof.Anuradha Sharma, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Delhi. For more details on NPTEL visit http://nptel.iitm.ac.in
This film is a remix/mash-up of material from various sources, which are all credited at the end. Particular thanks to the 2006 BBC production of "Big Ideas That Changed the World: Consumerism", the academic studies cited in the credits, and Erin Janus for narration content. Again, this is just a non-profit remix/mashup - with all sources credited, and no copyright infringements (501c3 educational film use). Does the philosophy of materialism work to destroy our identities, experience, and environment? Join narrator Daphne Ellis on a radical romp through the evidence and decide for yourself. "Very well done. A visual treat with its heart in the right place and a clear point of view." Peter Davis - Academy Award-winning Director of "Hearts and Minds". "Handsomely assembled and narrated w...
Can Professionally-employed Mothers Have It All? An Examination of the Relationship Between Social Support, Self-efficacy and Turnover Intentions of First-time Mothers Following Workplace Re-entry The return to work following the birth of a first child is often a period of time when new mothers are working towards mastering the tasks associated with caring for an infant and managing their workplace demands. New mothers may consider leaving their organization if they question their ability to either effectively perform their job or their parenting roles. Drawing from social support and social comparison theories, this seminar explores how supportive work environments shape new mothers’ turnover intention. Using a sample of 695 new mothers who had recently returned to work following the ...
Introducing the Social Learning Theory (SLT) as part of the approaches in Psychology topic for AQA Psychology A Level
Assemblage Thinking Symposium 2017, University of the Aegean - Depart. of Geography (GR) DeLanda Manuel http://assemblage-symposium.aegean.gr