PAPER V: FINAL PAPER

 

Social Comparison and Priming: How Social Media Posts Affect People’s Self Perception

Student Name

Florida International University

Social Comparison and Priming: How Social Media Posts Affect People’s Self Perception

It is often acknowledged that people choose to post on social media only the positive things that happen to them. Social media consumers might use how others are doing and what they are doing as a rule of thumb in order to reflect on how they should be doing in their own lives. This can be detrimental in the long run because most people do not necessarily post their hardships on social media, as there is a common social desire to always display the self in a positive manner (Liu et al ., 2016). While 30 years ago our social circle might have included only a few selected people, today we are exposed to thousands of individuals that are just one click away, and many of them share aspects of their lives online. Additionally, since most of those people tend to be friends and family, the potential for social comparison is much higher when information about their lives is so easily available (Liu et al., 2016). The main focus of this study is to analyze how different social comparison conditions can alter a person’s view of their own aptitudes and self-esteem .

The social comparison theory explains how people develop a sense of opinions, abilities, personality, and self-esteem through comparing themselves with others around them (Festinger, 1954). This comparison can therefore affect people’s expectations about themselves. The two types of social comparison conditions in this study are upward and downward social comparison. Downward social comparison is defined as when people compare themselves to those that are in a lower position than them; in other words, they are ‘looking down’ at the other person, which in turn makes them feel superior; while upward social comparison is defined as the opposite, when people are comparing themselves to someone they see as better than them, so they are ‘looking up’ to them. This latter type of social comparison usually results in more negative feelings from people (Wang et al., 2017), as it implies that others are better off than them.

The types of posts others make can affect people directly when they decide to compare themselves to those they see on social media, and studies have shown that social media posts have the ability to influence people’s emotions. In one particular study, Liu and colleagues (2016) showed that Facebook users tend to engage in upward social comparison when exposed to posts from distant friends rather than close friends, which in turn generates more negative emotions. Especially in the case of individuals with a high self-esteem, they experienced negative emotions when reading positive posts from distant friends, meaning they engaged in upward social comparison. Additionally, those individuals reported experiencing positive emotions when they read negative posts, meaning they engaged in downward social comparison. These findings relate to our study because they provide an insight into how looking down at others through downward social comparison can make people feel better about themselves.

Exposure to mostly upward social comparison on social media can have short term as well as long term effects on a person’s self-esteem and self-evaluation (Vogel et al., 2014). Moreover, people who spend greater amounts of time making social comparisons in social media in turn have higher symptoms of depression, higher self-discrepancy, and lower overall wellbeing. Results from the study showed that people who reported spending more time on Facebook engaged in more upward than downward social comparison, and in turn revealed to have lower self-esteem. Other studies have also found that upward social comparison can have a direct effect with symptoms of depression, especially on individuals that fall low on levels of optimism (Liu et al., 2017).

Some say that adolescents and young adults represent a demographic that is affected by early exposure to all the forms of social media available, and this exposure can have strong effects on individuals’ vulnerability at such a young age (Comer et al., 2008). In a study performed by Lee (2014), a sample of college students was chosen because they are more likely to engage in social comparison than adults, more susceptible to influence from peers, and use social media at higher rates. The study found that young people engage in social comparison as a form of self-evaluation, especially when it comes to topics like academic performance and identity development, which are at the forefront of their main priorities at that age. Their findings showed correlations between self-esteem and the frequency of social comparison, with a likeliness of people feeling bad about themselves when they engage in upward social comparison. Online profiles can additionally affect someone’s view of their own body image. In a study performed by Haferkamp and Kramer (2011), findings showed that looking at people deemed as attractive on social media can lead viewers to experience negative emotions and dissatisfaction with their own body. This all ties together with our studies because in order to feel bad about one’s own image after looking at someone deemed as attractive means that there is a degree of upward social comparison taking place.

To get some insight into how social comparison relates to social media posts, we designed a study that shows how other people’s posts on social media can affect a person’s own view of themselves. Participants in this particular study are college students, and they were asked to look at a stranger’s Facebook profile. Depending on the profile they saw, participants fell in one of three conditions, where they would either engage in a downward, upward, or average social comparison.

Our hypothesis was that participants in the condition for upward social comparison would score higher in negative self-perception than participants in the downward and average social comparison condition, so they would agree more with negative statements as: “I feel inferior to others at this moment”, and “I feel like I am not doing well”, while disagreeing more with positive statements. On the other hand, participants in the downward social comparison condition would score higher in positive self-esteem, as they would agree more with positive statements: “I feel good about myself”, and “I feel confident in my abilities” and disagree more with negative statements when compared to those in the upward and average social comparison condition.

References

Comer J. S., Furr J. M., Beidas R. S., Babyar H. M., & Kendall P. C. (2008) Media use and children's perceptions of societal threat and personal vulnerability. Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, 37(3), 622-630, doi: 10.1080/15374410802148145.

Festinger, L. (1954). A theory of social comparison processes. Human Relations, 7, 117–140.

Haferkamp, N., & Krämer, N. C. (2011). Social comparison 2.0: Examining the effects of online profiles on social-networking sites. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 14(5), 309-314. doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.fiu.edu/10.1089/cyber.2010.0120

Lee, S. Y. (2014). How do people compare themselves with others on social network sites?: The case of facebook. Computers in Human Behavior, 32, 253-260. doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.fiu.edu/10.1016/j.chb.2013.12.009

Liu, J., Li, C., Carcioppolo, N., & North, M. (2016). Do our facebook friends make us feel worse? A study of social comparison and emotion. Human Communication Research, 42(4), 619-640. doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.fiu.edu/10.1111/hcre.12090

Liu, Q., Zhou, Z., Yang, X., Niu, G., Tian, Y., & Fan, C. (2017). Upward social comparison on social network sites and depressive symptoms: A moderated mediation model of self-esteem and optimism. Personality and Individual Differences, 113, 223-228. doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.fiu.edu/10.1016/j.paid.2017.03.037.

Vogel, E. A., Rose, J. P., Roberts, L. R., & Eckles, K. (2014). Social comparison, social media, and self-esteem. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 3(4), 206-222. doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.fiu.edu/10.1037/ppm0000047

Wang, J., Wang, H., Gaskin, J., & Hawk, S. (2017). The mediating roles of upward social comparison and self-esteem and the moderating role of social comparison orientation in the association between social networking site usage and subjective well-being. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 9. doi:http://ezproxy.fiu.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.fiu.edu/docview/1918853860?accountid=10901

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