Lecture 6. Social Comparison Flashcards
Lui, Baumeister, Yang & Hu, 2019 effects of digital media on wellbeing. What were the outcomes? And why was this study so good?
Digital media enhance wellbeing
- social interactions with important relationship partners
- self presentation
Digital media decrease wellbeing
- content consumption
browsing leads to positively skewed self-presentation and social comparison.
They differentiated in the different activity on Facebook.
Kross et. all (2013) done a research about if Facebook use predicts declines in subjective wellbeing. Why was this study good and what were the outcomes?
It was a longitude study.
The outcomes were that the more you use Facebook the , the worse you will feel at point 2. This was also in the average effect. And they four dat Facebook use at time 1 predicts negative effect at time 2.
What were the 3 different distinct universal motivations for social comparison?
- self-evaluation
- self-enhancement
- self- improvement
What do they mean if they say that social comparison has a universal tendency?
Everyone does it.
There are 2 different biases in social comparison. One of them is Pluralistic ignorance. It has been investigated by Jordan et. al (2011). What is pluralistic ignorance and what did the researchers found?
It is the thought that we are all online with our negtative thoughts and everybody else has a better life.
The reasearchers confirmed this:
study 1: they thought that other experience the bad less, and the good more than we do.
study 2: replicated the study with peers, same results
Did social media bring any new aspect in social comparison?
Think about Hyperpersonal model CMC!
What did the researchers Chou & Edge (2012) found about Facebook use?
Years of Facebook use increase the believe that other people are happier and decrease the believe that life is fair. Number of friends on Facebook: it decreased that other are happier.
Why is downward comparison associated with higher depression symptoms (Steers, Wickham, Acitelli, 2014)
Narcisstic people are insecure about themselves. They need constant validation that they are doing great. You will find downward comparison all the time to feel better (underlying mechanism)
Haferkamp & Kramer, (2011) investigated mood management and social comparison. What were the important outcomes?
- Upward comparison was preferred overall
- upward comparison was lower in negative mood
- downards comparison was higher in negative mood
