Examples Of Social Comparison Theory

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Every two years in September, The Nobel Committee will be sending the nomination forms to a total of 3000 individuals who they think are qualified to be nominated as the Nobel Prize achiever. After going through some thorough voting and discussion, the nominees will then be reduced to only a small amount of people who are agreed by each committee members as the well-deserved recipients. Therefore, given a chance to choose as one of the Nobel Committee member, I would definitely suggest Leon Festinger who has founded the social comparison theory as one of the most deserving recipient. Social comparison theory explains that we learn about our own abilities and attitudes by comparing ourselves to other people. When experiencing uncertainty to evaluate our own abilities, we tend to compare ourselves with other people to get an idea of the amount of quality that we have. People may compare themselves with another person of similar background which will help in giving an accurate assessment of their abilities and opinion. Individuals who compare themselves with persons who are similar to them are skilled at producing accurate appraisals of their capabilities and beliefs. Comparisons are more sensible when the comparison target has the same aspects, such as gender…show more content…
On the one hand, upward comparisons may boost self-concepts when individuals believe that they can improve their own performance and become as good as the comparison target. On the other hand, downward comparisons may reduce self-concepts when people believe that they may become as worse as their comparison target. Through the understanding of this theory, we are able to relate and adapt to the pros and cons of downward and upward comparison theories and decide on which theory is best to be applied in our life. Rather than complicating ourselves with unnecessary comparison we could direct our energy towards efforts of becoming

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