61. Why we compare ourselves to others

This week we discuss social comparison, the good, the bad, the psychology. We talk about why it is that we compare ourselves to others, the impacts of social comparison and how to break the cycle of judging our attributes and characteristics compared to others.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hello, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties,
the podcast where we talk through some of the big
life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they
mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show.
Welcome back to another episode. New listeners, old listeners, It's

(00:28):
so great to have you here, to have you back
for another topic, one that I am really really excited for.
So today we are going to be discussing comparison and
the dangers of comparing ourselves to others, especially in our twenties.
I'm sure for many of you who are listening right now,

(00:52):
comparison is something that you may have dealt with quite
a bit. I am definitely the same. But today we
really want to dispel some of the negativity around it
and talk about how it's actually a pretty normal human
behavior and there is a lot of psychology and science
that explains why it occurs. I think personally, comparison can

(01:13):
be such an insidious and common cause of insecurity in
our twenties, and it can also undermine our self esteem,
our ability to focus on ourselves, our self worth, our
mental health in this decade. But it's also important to
note it can be an incredibly powerful source of motivation
and inspiration to improve ourselves if we use it for

(01:36):
the right reasons. Of course, I think many times that
is not always the case. Comparison actually brings with it
a lot of negative impacts, and it can be really,
really difficult to break free from it, to stop comparing
ourselves to others, often because it has nothing to do
with them. It's us projecting and reflecting our own insecurities

(01:59):
onto the image of someone else. I think this is
especially common during this decade of our lives, when there
is so much opportunity to compare ourselves to others, so
much diversity and difference in our journeys and those of
our peers and those around us. Our twenties are really
confusing decade for social comparison because I'm sure looking at

(02:23):
your own lives, you know you probably have friends who
are at very different stages. Some of us are traveling,
others of us having children and settling down. You know,
maybe you're still finishing your studies whilst your friends are
receiving promotions and buying houses. People are at so many
different stages in their journey, and that's always on the
micro or the local scale we have. You know, we

(02:45):
cannot talk about comparison. We can't have a discussion about
social comparison without talking about social media and the abundance
of potential. It gives us to be constantly comparing ourselves
to an idealized and artificial version of random people on
the internet. People we've never met celebrities at any time

(03:09):
of the day. At the mere opening of an app,
I really wanted to do this episode today because comparison
and constantly comparing myself to others has been a massive
problem for me recently. I have not been able to
break away from it, but I have been doing some
things that I think might be helpful. I'll be honest.
It has definitely been exacerbated recently by the growth of

(03:32):
this show. It's an absolutely beautiful and wonderful gift, like
truly a blessing that this audience and this community of
listeners has grown so much in the past few months.
But on the flip side, I have also found myself
constantly comparing myself to other people in the field, to
other creators, whether I'm doing this right, whether I fit

(03:56):
the mold, who's doing it differently, who's doing it better,
I've definitely spent quite a few sleepless nights thinking about
these things and comparing myself to other people, other podcasters,
feeling like a failure, like I'm doing something wrong, and
undergoing all of these tiny micro comparisons between me and others,
and then also doing that in my daily life when

(04:17):
I walk down the street, when I interact with friends,
when I go on social media, constantly thinking to myself,
am I as smart as they are? Why don't I
look like that person? Why haven't I achieved as much
as them? Why do they have everything together and I don't.
So here's the thing. Something that I've realized is that
no one's judgments are as strong and powerful and impactful

(04:42):
as our own. Our in twenties present this incredible opportunity,
this incredibly formative time, to intentionally break away from constant
comparison and allow ourselves to experience the freedom of caring
about fewer people's opinion and reflections. So today, let's break

(05:03):
down the psychology and the science behind social comparison. We're
going to discuss the foundations of social comparison, why it
is that we compare ourselves to others, even on an
unconscious level. The mechanisms behind which is influences our behavior,
as well as some of the consequences of unchecked comparison.
But of course this show is never going to be

(05:26):
a pity party. We're all about empowering ourselves to break
out of negative patterns and behaviors and to understand the
psychology behind these behaviors. So I also want to talk
about how it is that we can overcome social comparison
and be free of our own judgments and our own
comparisons with others. So buckle in, let's get into it.

(05:56):
So I think a really great place to start is
to have provide an overview of what social comparison actually is.
So social comparison, it's a psychological concept, and it's the
act of comparing our abilities, our traits, our characteristics to others.
We often come to judge ourselves and interpret our own

(06:20):
self worth by evaluating our behaviors in comparison to others
to confirm whether we're doing the right thing, whether we
are doing a good job. Here's the thing. We constantly
evaluate ourselves across so many different domains like attractiveness, wealth, success, intelligence,

(06:42):
The things that we have a tendency to actually define
our worth by especially in our twenties, when our identities
can be quite shaky and we navigate really massive life
transitions and a shift into adulthood. I found this a
really interesting study while I was looking into this concept
and looking into this episode, and it stated that as

(07:04):
much as ten percent of our thoughts, our everyday thoughts
involve a comparison of some kind, which is honestly kind
of horrific to think about. Right like ten percent of
our everyday thoughts involve some form of social comparison. No wonder,
we as a society are kind of defined in many

(07:25):
ways by our insecurities at the moment. I also think
the statistic is actually quite invaluable in some ways in
demonstrating that these thoughts, that social comparison might actually be
valuable in some way or another for it to be
occurring at such a high frequency. Here's the thing about comparison.

(07:45):
Though it's not a limited activity. It can honestly occur
across any domain of our lives that we deem as important,
from what we look like, our bodies, our achievements, our grades,
our performance at work to you, to things like how
many friends we have, the clothes we wear, our ambitions.

(08:07):
That is I think the most dangerous aspect of comparison.
It's not an isolated social phenomena. It's really wide reaching
and can impact us in any area of life in
which we might be insecure. Often it actually is the
very things that we are most insecure about that we

(08:28):
are most likely or more likely to compare ourselves to
others based on. That's because these attributes, these characteristics are
at the top of our mind. They are the things
that consume us and that we want validation on. So,
for example, if you're really insecure about your career progression,

(08:48):
I know that's a really common one. You know, whether
you're getting the right internships, whether you're pursuing the right opportunities,
whether you're going to be successful. Often that is the
first thing we're going to compare ourselves against when we
meet a new person, asking ourselves these almost implicit questions
of what is this person doing that I'm not, Where

(09:11):
do we stand in relation to each other, valuing their
successes compared to our own. This actually just makes the
insecurity worse right, and it can cause it to become
much larger and much more harmful. The more we feed
the beast of social comparison. The more we feed our
insecurities by comparing ourselves to others, the bigger it gets,

(09:33):
the more fuel it needs to be satisfied, and the
more of our time and our energy and our self
esteem that it takes over. It can also lead to
a level of unhealthy competition between ourselves and others that
can actually sabotage potentially really positive and collaborative relationships. When

(09:54):
social comparison occurs, often our worth becomes centered and determined
on how we perceive others and how we perceive ourselves,
and the outcome of that unconscious comparison between us. We
no longer tend to view the people we meet, our peers,

(10:15):
our friends, as important contributors to our lives, but we
see them as a way to judge ourselves and more
often than not, to put ourselves down. So there are
actually two types of social comparison, and each of them
serve their own independent function. I would say so the
two types are upward and downward social comparison. Most of

(10:40):
the instances of comparison we think about and when we
compare ourselves to others, and the ones that we've discussed
so far have somewhat of a negative outcome. Right, Like,
if we think about an example based in our material worth,
we might meet someone who is a lot wealthier than us,
who wears really nice clothes and has nice things, more possessions,

(11:01):
and we're going to look at that person and see
ourselves as less see ourselves as less worthwhile. And it's
probably not going to make you feel particularly great about
yourself because this instance of social comparison has caused us
to establish almost like a temporary hierarchy with this other
person on the top and us on the bottom. And

(11:24):
this essentially leads us to the belief that we are
less accomplished, we are less successful, and in this instance,
in these instances, we end up feeling a sense of inadequacy,
We end up feeling a sense of really deep rooted dissatisfaction.
This is an instance of upwards social comparison. So we
compare ourselves to someone doing better than us in an

(11:47):
area of life. So, yes, I think this can create
some really negative feelings and reactions that we've discussed. You know,
it makes you feel inadequate, makes you feel shame, it
makes you fee you'll unfulfilled. But an important caveat is
that upwards social comparison can also motivate us towards self improvement.

(12:09):
It's not always a negative thing as we might see
it as. When we meet people who we see as
better than us, as more accomplished, these people can actually
serve as examples from which we model our behavior and
inspire towards It's why having positive and successful role models
can be so important in our lives, because we inherently

(12:31):
compare ourselves to them, and then we perhaps attempt to
emulate their behaviors. This may give us the motivation to
address areas of our lives where we are naturally unsatisfied,
not because of social comparison, but because we innately know
that we can do better for ourselves. That these people

(12:52):
can provide us with a belief that we can be
a better version of ourselves. There is evidence that it
can be done that way. I think social comparison can
be really highly beneficial, especially when we use our social
networks to push ourselves. There was a study that was
done and it found that a level of friendly competition

(13:13):
and friendly upwards social comparison was actually really effective in
pushing people to exercise more often and pushing people to
achieve more because when we see someone else doing really well,
it pushes us to keep up and to do more.
It's known as the social racket effect. Each person's activity

(13:35):
generates more activity amongst others. So social networks in which
people are offered opportunities to inspire each other and given
a healthy amount of competition, can actually be quite helpful.
The very existence and the act of upward comparison is
this confirmation that we can achieve our dreams and our desires.

(13:59):
This links to the second type of social comparison. So
the second type is downward comparison. In this instance, you
compare yourself to someone who is worse off than you.
In this case, this form of social comparison can contribute
to almost a spike in our self esteem, which can

(14:19):
initially make us feel better about ourselves. Right, Like if
we meet someone and we look at them and we're like, oh,
I'm probably better than that person. Of course you're going
to feel great, right, But this can also contribute to
a level of arrogance and a level of overconfidence, as
well as probably making us a little bit unbearable. It's
also worth asking yourself, do you really want to be

(14:41):
the person who only feels good about themselves and secure
about themselves if they're surrounded by people they perceived as
being not as good as them, as being worse off
or not as successful or talented. Do you really want
to derive your self confidence from inherently and unconsciously bringing
others doubt so that you can feel better. So. Although

(15:03):
we have discussed how social comparison can at times be
a tool for self growth and can also impact our
self esteem, especially in downward social comparison, when we're comparing
ourselves to someone who we see is less successful or
worse off than us, another element of this act of
constantly comparing our lives to others, whether we know that

(15:25):
person or not, is that social comparison and the measures
by which we compare ourselves to others are often really unrealistic.
We're not very good at being unbiased judges of things
and seeing things objectively. Every instance of comparison, every time

(15:45):
you look at someone and you think, oh, I'm not
as good as them, or you look at someone and think, oh,
I'm better than them, each of these judgments is in
some way influenced by our own beliefs and our beliefs
about the world we are in each of our own
ways a pretty biased judge. So, for example, say you're
engaging in downward social comparison with a friend, You've compared

(16:09):
yourself to them, almost unconsciously, and believe in some way
that perhaps you're more intelligent, that you're smarter than them.
That judgment is entirely based on your view of the situation,
and it's probably not very accurate. We don't really have
any real way of knowing that for certain. We don't
know the contents of this person's mind. We don't know

(16:30):
how they solve problems, the way they think, the books
they read, the discussions they have. We're basing that judgment
off of our own limited knowledge of a situation, and
most of the time we tend to get it wrong.
This also works in the opposite direction, right when we're
comparing ourselves to others and feel like we're lesser or
not as accomplished, or not as good, we actually don't

(16:54):
know that. Yes, there are obviously external indicators of success,
but most of the time, when we are comparing ourselves
to others, that is just a reflection of what we're
and secure about. It's a projection of our own fear,
our own fears and insecurities, it's important to remind ourselves
social comparison is not the truth, It is not completely factual.

(17:19):
It's based on our own perception of others and our
own perception of ourselves. So why does this happen? What
is it about social comparison that makes the habit so
hard to break? Well, that's our crucial question for the day, right,

(17:39):
why does this happen? Why do we find ourselves in
this constant cycle of social comparison for better or for worse.
While social psychology can actually explain quite a bit of
this social comparison is toxic and dangerous as it can
be when it's out of control, it's actually a fairly
normal behavioral strategy that we use to to understand our

(18:01):
social standing, our status, and to mediate and control our
behaviors to be appropriate. So when we compare ourselves to
others to understand our behavior, we also get a sense
of gauging how we're doing in life and whether we
are fitting in, and this has an evolutionary function. We
want to remain part of the in group, We want

(18:22):
to remain part of the pack, part of the tribe,
and a way that we do this is compare ourselves
to other members of a similar group and judge our
behavior to see if we're fitting in how we're doing,
if we're meeting the social norms and the social mold.
Although it may feel like it social comparison, it's not

(18:44):
done at random. Think about when you're on the train
or at the airport. You're not comparing yourself to the
sixty year old man with a wife and children. Often
you're comparing yourself to people of your own age, people
of a similar type and characteristic to you in some way.
That's because we tend to compare ourselves to people that
have similar attributes that are close to our own. The

(19:08):
more similarities we have with people, the worse our level
of social comparison is likely to be, and ultimately the
more useful our minds might find that. I'm just going
to break that down a little bit more so. There's
no point comparing yourself to someone who's thirty forty years
older than you, because the way that they act might

(19:29):
not be the way that you should act. The way
that they are what they're doing might not be what
you should be doing. So instead, our brains get us
to compare ourselves to people who are more similar to us,
because our brains from an evolutionary perspective, find that information
more valuable. I think it's important, though, to bring us
back to reality here and reiterate what we were speaking

(19:52):
about before, which is that our judgments, no matter how
inherent they are, no matter how biologically or evolutionarily natural,
they may feel, they're actually incredibly flawed and they're not
based on the whole truth. When we're unable to recognize this,
when we're unable to realize that we are quite biased,

(20:13):
and we use social comparison as a means to bring
ourselves down, we can fall into that cycle, that spiral
of never feeling good enough, never feeling like we fit
in or that we have value compared to other people
in our lives. This is one of the less helpful
aspects of social comparison, the ones we often recognize. That's

(20:36):
when they rear their head, the impact of social comparison.
It's obviously going to vary based on what insecurity it's
playing into, but mainly what we end up seeing is
a sense of shame, a lower self esteem, fewer positive
statements about ourselves, negative language towards ourselves, and a sense

(20:56):
that we need to conform or change about ourselves, often
in a drastic way. It's really exhausting, I will say,
it's really exhausting spending our waking hours comparing ourselves to
others and performing this mental calculation about where we stand

(21:19):
about who's doing things better than us. Yeah, it's really
tiring and it can be really hard to break out of.
I mentioned this at the beginning, but I do believe,
and a lot of the research confirms as well, that
this is often made worse by the prominence of social
media social comparison. It becomes unavoidable in this environment and

(21:40):
even more severe and unrealistic because when we post on
social media, we're performing for an audience. We're putting forward
an idealized and fake version of our lives. I feel
like I don't need to say that social media is
not real life, right like most of us know that,
but it can be really hard to remember that consciously,

(22:03):
especially when we are constantly exposed to this almost like
torrential flooding of information around and beautiful bodies and perfect lives.
It's really hard to remind ourselves that that's not real.
No one sees the tears behind what is maybe a
perfect relationship, or the insecurity behind someone's dream body or

(22:25):
someone's successful future. No one sees the hard work, No
one sees the sacrifice, No one sees the hard, hard days.
All we are seeing is the highlight reel. But our
brains they're not very good at being realistic about that
and acknowledging it. Recent studies have shown that social media
really encourages unhelpful social comparison, particularly upward social comparison, and

(22:52):
it can reduce our overall self esteem. But being educated
about how this process occurs, why it is that we
compare and contrast ourselves to others and consciously noting when
we find ourselves slipping into unhelpful comparisons can be incredibly
useful and incredibly powerful. So let's discuss how we can

(23:15):
kind of break away from social comparison and use it
for good. Leverage this behavior and this mental activity to
inspire us rather than bring us down. So these next
few kind of like lessons, I guess, or activities. There
are things that I've personally done recently, especially as I've
been struggling quite a bit with social comparison. These are

(23:38):
just things that have helped me that the evidence suggests
might help you as well. Especially as someone in my
twenties who's witnessing so many people at various stages in
their lives, it's important to remind myself really gently that
the story isn't over. This is not my final destination.

(23:59):
This is not your final destination either. When I compare
myselves to others, what I'm really doing is comparing a
point in my journey with a completely different point in
someone else's journey, and often my assessment of that situation
isn't entirely accurate. I have no way of knowing what's
going on behind the scenes, the stress, the insecurities that

(24:22):
someone may be dealing with. All I can do is
kind of focus on myself. It might even be that
this person is looking at me or at you and
thinking that you've got it all together. The only thing
we can really focus on is how we feel and
how we behave and whether we're happy and satisfied. That
is the only thing within our control, not their actions,

(24:44):
not someone else's successes, not someone else's traits or attitudes.
I think you're allowed to be selfish when it comes
to this and say, you know, I come first, Like
I am allowed to feel good about myself, I'm allowed
to feel valuable, and I think it's also important to

(25:04):
acknowledge that statement from before. Often the things we compare
ourselves based on really a projection of our own unhealed insecurities.
So taking time to really decipher why it is that
you feel the need to compare yourself on these attributes
rather than seeing the whole picture is going to be

(25:24):
really valuable. Allowing yourself to see yourself as a valuable
person that you have strengths. Our twenties are an important
time to develop self awareness, and we can leverage this
insane cognitive growth that we're going to to participate in
some of the hard work and on some of our

(25:45):
deeply rooted insecurities. Also, sometimes you just need to call
yourself out, particularly when you're engaging and downward social comparison
and diminishing your own self worth. Focus on your strengths,
write them down, use comparison as a source of inspiration.
Instead of seeing people as a competition, think about what

(26:07):
they can teach you, what it is about their life
that you find inspiring, that you find desirable. I think
if you find a particular person or a particular profile
as well across social media can be a trigger for
you or a source of negative social comparison. There's a

(26:27):
really easy way to get rid of that constant kind
of sense of contrasting and judging your actions, and that's
just to cull time to get rid of them. Life
is too short and we certainly don't need any more
reasons to bring ourselves down. Make a conscious decision to
create an environment, whether it is online or in person,

(26:48):
that makes you feel valid, It makes you feel worthwhile.
If there's someone on social media who is like gorgeous
and you're constantly looking at bikini photos or photos of
their life or photos of or the travels and feeling
bad about yourself, like, you actually have a choice to
not expose yourself to that, And if that's going to
help you, you should do it. You really should, Like

(27:10):
there's no reason to feel ashamed. Like, if it's something
that upsets you, I think it's well within your rights
to kind of limit your exposure to it. The other
thing I've done recently was I stopped focusing on my
own personal attributes so much, and I focused on the
other amazing things in my life. I focused on practicing gratitude.

(27:30):
I know it sounds a bit wishy washy, but my
really good friend Zoe see, she actually suggested this to
me about a year ago, this amazing tip when I
was going through a really rough time, and the amount
of different elements of my life that it's helped me
with it's actually ridiculous. I tell everyone to do this
every day before you go to bed. We all have

(27:53):
two minutes, just two minutes, to list five things you're
grateful for. I know I've mentioned this in so many episodes,
but I'm going to keep saying it because it's such
a game changer. No matter how harsh you've been on
yourself that day, you can always find just five things
that bring you joy, and it allows you to stop

(28:14):
being so internally focused and concentrate on what you have
rather than what you're lacking. Commit yourself to this practice, like, really,
just give it a go. You have nothing to lose.
I promise you. It's such a game changer. And these
are just some of the things that have really worked
for me, And if you want to give them a try,
I would really recommend it. Please also contribute your own

(28:37):
share your own thoughts on this. I think it's so
valuable to acknowledge how common it is in our twenties
to compare ourselves to others, to think we're not doing enough,
to think we're not good enough. But we can always
refocus this comparison and use it as a strength, use
it for motivation, to embrace the competition, to inspire us.

(28:59):
Thank you so much for listening to this episode a
bit shorter than usual, I know, but I thought we'd
keep it short and sweet. It was so interesting to
research this. Like I'm being quite honest, this has been
really something on my mind recently. It's really kind of
in something I've been struggling with, So I found it
really valuable to understand why it is that it happens,

(29:20):
and to kind of stop beating myself up about it
because it is unconscious. It is really really normal. I
hope that's something you brought away from this episode. And
if you are dealing with social comparison, if you're finding
yourself comparing yourself to others, you're not alone. I promise
You're in a boat with many other people. If you

(29:41):
know the studies are right, probably everyone, everyone is doing
this every moment of their lives. So you're a valuable person.
You are a worthwhile person, and you are doing great things,
so thank you for listening as well. I guess if
you've made it this far, and if you enjoyed this episode,
if you found it valuable Plea, feel free to leave

(30:01):
it a five star review if you feel called to
do so on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you are listening.
Make sure to follow if you'd like to, and give
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and again for the audience to decide what to listen to.
So if that's something you'd like to contribute to, you

(30:24):
have the option, and thank you again for listening. We
will be back next week with a new episode.