Should we ever compare ourselves with others? (Audio version)

One of the main problems with platforms like Instagram and TikTok has a technical name and decades of research behind it: upward social comparison.

In this audio essay:

- The technical name behind a familiar social media problem, and the decades of research behind it.

- What Leon Festinger described in 1954 about how we evaluate ourselves.

- What a 2023 meta-analysis keeps finding about exposure to upward comparison content.

- The parallel process Stuart Albert proposed in 1977, and what comparing backward tends to do.

- An intuition Marcus Aurelius had in Book IV of the Meditations.

- A small antidote: the ordinary.

References:

- A Theory of Social Comparison Processes — Leon Festinger (1954)

- 2023 meta-analysis on social media and upward comparison (Communication Research)

- Stuart Albert on temporal comparison (1977)

- Wilson and Ross on temporal self-appraisals (2000)

- Meditations, Book IV — Marcus Aurelius

Read my original article: https://jmnaranjo.substack.com/p/should-we-ever-compare-ourselves

Imperfectly: short essays on psychology, creativity, and the quieter questions of being human.