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Why You Secretly Compare Yourself To Others: The Hidden Force That Controls Your Self-Worth

Are you talented, attractive, or intelligent? 

Whether you responded yes or no, the question remains: What measures did you use to gauge your assessments?

Humans have an innate drive to assess our own abilities, beliefs, and emotions, but without objective benchmarks, we evaluate these qualities by comparing ourselves to people around us. 

This idea that we compare ourselves to others to gauge our abilities and worth is called Social Comparison Theory and was developed by psychologist Leon Festinger in 1954.

According to Festinger’s theory, we assess our abilities and attractiveness through comparison, which helps shape our self-worth. 

Festinger theorized that we determine much of our social and personal value based on how our skills, opinions, and emotional reactions stack up against our peers. The comparisons serve as sources of information through which we develop self-assessments. 

Other peoples’ skills and traits become our metrics. We use peers like human yardsticks, subjectively assessing what they have versus what we have and arriving at a verdict that shapes our sense of self.

This means that our self-concept and sense of worth change depending on the bubble we live inside.

Without being fully cognizant, we depend heavily on friends, neighbors, celebrities, etc, to determine how good we are at anything. Our social comparisons serve as barometers through which we develop notions of our overall adequacy and worthiness. 

Festinger (who studied under Kurt Lewin, a pioneer in Social Psychology) was driven by an interest in understanding how individuals deal with inconsistencies or conflicts in their beliefs and attitudes. His groundbreaking study was on cognitive dissonance, a state of mental incongruence that drives people to strive for psychological consistency (and often informs trauma bonding). When someone has two thoughts or beliefs that contradict each other, this causes mental discomfort brought on by inconsistency. 

To resolve the inconsistency, the person is motivated to reduce the dissonance by altering their thoughts, beliefs, or behaviors. (Smoking is a great example of cognitive dissonance. We know it kills us, yet we don’t stop smoking. To explain this away to ourselves, we must convince ourselves that smoking may kill us, but it won’t kill us.)

The relationship between cognitive dissonance and social comparison is tight-knit: Social comparison provides contradictory information that can create dissonance, and the discomfort of that dissonance leads to more social comparison that leads to the discomfort we must resolve by reducing the dissonance. Oof, what a ride.

Festinger found that social comparison unfolds in two stages.

Stage One: Making the initial comparison.

Stage Two: Experiencing an emotional response based on the comparison.

There are two major types of social comparisons:

Upward comparison is when we compare ourselves to those we consider better off or more skilled in some area. This can lower self-worth but also motivate us to improve.

Downward comparison is when we compare ourselves to those we consider worse off. This tends to elicit more positive self-evaluations and feelings.

Both forms of comparison serve a role in shaping our self-perceptions. The key is to harness the information in a productive and self-affirming way.

So, what does this all mean for us?

The drive for self-evaluation through social comparison seems, sadly, deeply ingrained. But by developing awareness and perspective around this tendency, we can use it to spur growth rather than as a source for adversarial self-judgment. The goal is to let social feedback inform, not overwhelm, our self-concept. 

With that in mind, here are some tips:

• Look to surround yourself with well-rounded people with admirable traits (I know, this ain’t easy) and those you want to learn from. Use their skills as motivation. Try and catch yourself when you compare yourself to those who make you feel inadequate. The story you’re telling yourself isn’t true—it’s just a story.

• Don’t forget to check yourself. If your upward comparisons suggest unrealistic goals, consider whether your self-concept needs re-calibration.

• THIS ONE IS VERY HARD, BUT STILL…Be cautious about excessive comparison in subjective domains like attractiveness or popularity where no answers exist.

• Make sure your reference group is relevant. Comparing your law career to medical doctors will skew your perceptions.

• Remember, external benchmarks don’t define our inner worth. Even when improvements can be made, your core value exists beyond objective measures and narrow social groups.

• Take note of people’s life stages and privileges before making comparisons. Someone farther ahead has had more time to capitalize on success. Account for that to avoid discouragement.

Some things to remember: External standards reduce multidimensional humans to limited data points, stripping away all individuality and meaning. There is simply no scoresheet that can quantify the worth of wisdom you’ve attained in your one unique life. Value your singular qualities.

Most importantly, evaluate everything through the lens of internal fulfillment rather than external achievement.

Real worth is felt, not conferred.

And you?

Do you struggle with social comparison? I do—BIG TIME. I’m so curious to hear how you fare out in the wild. Let me know in the comments!

Until next week, I am…

Amanda