Why do we constantly compare ourselves to other people? Psychology research on social comparison helps explain why we measure our success, appearance, intelligence, careers, and relationships against others and when those comparisons can help or hurt us.
Editorial Note
This article is provided for general educational and informational purposes. It discusses psychological research on social comparison, self-evaluation, motivation, social media, and wellbeing, and it should not be used as individualized mental-health or medical advice.
Comparing ourselves with other people is a normal part of human psychology. The goal of this article is not to suggest that comparison is always unhealthy, but to explain why it happens, how different kinds of comparison can affect us, and how we can use comparison more thoughtfully.
We Rarely Evaluate Ourselves in Isolation
Imagine getting a 92 on an exam.
At first, that number may seem excellent. Then you discover that nearly everyone else in the class scored a 98 or higher, and suddenly the same 92 may feel disappointing.
Now imagine the opposite. You earn the same 92, but the class average was 74. The score has not changed, yet your interpretation of it probably has.
That simple example captures something psychologists have studied for decades: people often understand themselves partly by comparing themselves with other people.
We compare grades, salaries, careers, homes, relationships, appearance, athletic ability, parenting, popularity, intelligence, productivity, and almost anything else that can be evaluated. Sometimes these comparisons motivate us. Sometimes they reassure us. At other times, they can make us feel inadequate even when nothing about our actual circumstances has changed.
Psychologists refer to this broad process as social comparison.
The idea is not that people are shallow or obsessed with competition. Comparison often gives us information we cannot obtain by looking at ourselves alone.
Social Comparison Helps Us Answer “How Am I Doing?”
One of the classic ideas in social psychology is that people use others as reference points when objective standards are unavailable or incomplete.
Some questions are easy to answer without another person. If you want to know whether you are six feet tall, you can measure yourself.
Other questions are more difficult.
Am I doing well in my career? Am I a good student? Is my salary competitive? Am I exercising enough? Am I progressing quickly enough in life?
There may be objective information related to those questions, but people often still look around for context.
A salary of $70,000 can feel high or low depending on occupation, location, age, and the people someone regularly encounters. Running a mile in eight minutes can seem impressive in one group and ordinary in another.
Social comparison gives us a reference point.
A major review highlighted by the American Psychological Association found that people frequently select upward comparisons—people who appear to be doing better than they are—and that these comparisons often produce contrast effects, making people feel worse about their own performance in the moment.
That sounds negative, but comparison serves more than one psychological function.
We Compare Upward, Downward, and Sideways
Not all comparisons work the same way.
An upward comparison happens when we compare ourselves with someone we perceive as better off on a particular dimension. A student might compare their grades with the highest-performing student in the class, an employee might compare their career with a more successful colleague, or someone exercising might compare their fitness with an athlete.
A downward comparison involves comparing ourselves with someone we perceive as worse off. Someone frustrated about a career setback may feel differently after seeing another person facing more severe difficulties.
People can also make lateral comparisons, comparing themselves with others they view as roughly similar.
Each type can serve a different purpose.
Upward comparison can provide information about what is possible. Downward comparison can create perspective or reassurance. Lateral comparison can help us determine whether our experiences are typical.
Research examining social and monetary comparisons also suggests that upward and downward comparisons interact with neural systems related to rewards and losses. Meta-analytic neuroimaging findings have reported that downward comparisons can recruit reward-related regions, while upward comparisons can produce patterns resembling the processing of relative loss.
That does not mean the brain literally treats another person's success as losing money. It does suggest that relative position can matter psychologically in ways that extend beyond abstract reasoning.
Upward Comparison Can Inspire Us
Seeing someone who performs better can sometimes be useful.
A young athlete watching an elite player may think, “I want to become that skilled.” A new teacher may observe an experienced educator and identify techniques worth learning. A student may see a classmate's excellent research project and realize that a higher standard is achievable.
In these situations, the comparison becomes informational.
The other person is not simply evidence that we are behind. They become evidence of what may be possible.
Social comparison can even be deliberately used to influence behavior. A recent meta-analysis of 79 randomized controlled trials involving more than 1.3 million participants found that interventions incorporating social comparison produced small but measurable changes in behaviors across areas including health, performance, environmental behavior, and services.
The effects were not enormous, and the evidence varied in certainty, but the findings illustrate an important point: knowing what other people are doing can influence our own choices.
Comparison can provide a benchmark.
The problem appears when the benchmark becomes a verdict on our worth.
The Same Comparison Can Make Us Feel Behind
Suppose you are satisfied with your career until you learn that a former classmate was promoted to a senior position.
Nothing about your job changed.
Your salary did not fall. Your accomplishments did not disappear. Your opportunities did not suddenly become smaller.
Yet dissatisfaction can appear almost instantly.
That reaction makes sense through social comparison. People do not evaluate outcomes only according to their absolute value. We also evaluate how those outcomes compare with relevant others.
A 2026 meta-analysis involving 54 independent samples and more than 36,000 participants examined upward comparison on social media. Across the research, greater upward social comparison was associated with poorer self-esteem and wellbeing and with higher levels of anxiety, depression, body dissatisfaction, envy, and other negative social-evaluative emotions.
The researchers were careful not to claim that upward comparison automatically causes every one of those outcomes. Much of the literature involves associations rather than proof of simple one-way causation.
The pattern is still worth understanding.
Constant exposure to people who appear wealthier, happier, more attractive, more successful, or more productive can alter the reference point against which we evaluate ourselves.
Social Media Gives Us More People to Compare Against Than Ever Before
For most of human history, comparison was largely local.
People compared themselves with family members, neighbors, coworkers, classmates, and members of their community.
Social media dramatically expands the comparison pool.
A teenager in a small town can compare their appearance with professional models from around the world. A first-year teacher can compare their classroom with polished videos from veteran educators. A small-business owner can compare monthly revenue with an entrepreneur posting about a multimillion-dollar company.
Those comparisons are not necessarily fair.
We may be comparing our ordinary Tuesday afternoon with someone else's most carefully selected moment from an entire year.
Social media also allows people to present highly curated versions of themselves. Users can share vacations while leaving out debt, celebrate promotions without discussing rejected applications, post fitness results without showing years of training, or display happy relationship moments without revealing private conflict.
That does not make the posts fake.
It makes them incomplete.
Research with young adults has repeatedly linked greater upward comparison on social-networking platforms with lower self-esteem, although researchers continue studying how personality, platform use, and individual differences affect those relationships.
The psychological challenge is that our brains may still respond emotionally to an incomplete comparison.
We Usually Compare Ourselves With Relevant People
People do not compare themselves equally with everyone.
A beginning pianist probably does not feel personally threatened because a world-famous concert pianist performs better. The gap is too large and the comparison may feel irrelevant.
But another pianist of the same age who started lessons at the same time may provoke a much stronger reaction.
Psychological research suggests that comparisons can become particularly powerful when the other person feels similar, nearby, or directly relevant to the ability being evaluated. APA's review of decades of social-comparison research found stronger effects when people compared themselves on unfamiliar dimensions or with local, real-world targets.
That helps explain why a stranger's success may barely affect us while a friend's success can trigger intense comparison.
The friend provides a more believable alternative version of ourselves.
“If they did it, why didn't I?”
That question can motivate growth, but it can also become unnecessarily cruel when two lives differ in ways we cannot see.
We Often Compare Outcomes Without Comparing Circumstances
One of the biggest problems with comparison is that people frequently compare visible outcomes while ignoring the conditions that produced them.
Two students may receive different grades, but one may have had years of tutoring, stronger prior knowledge, more study time, or fewer responsibilities outside school.
Two people may reach different career levels at age 35, but one may have entered the workforce earlier, received family financial support, lived in a stronger job market, avoided major health problems, or benefited from mentorship and professional connections.
The outcomes are easy to see.
The pathways are not.
Social media amplifies this problem because context is usually compressed into a photograph, headline, short video, or announcement.
Someone's success appears as an event rather than a process.
We see the promotion but not the twelve years of work before it. We see the degree but not the nights spent studying. We see the successful business without seeing the failed projects that came first.
Comparison becomes misleading when we treat unequal circumstances as though they were identical experiments.
Comparison Can Change What “Enough” Means
Humans are remarkably adaptable.
Something we once wanted desperately can become ordinary once we have it.
Social comparison can accelerate that process by continually moving the reference point.
Someone might once have believed earning $60,000 would represent financial success. After entering a social environment where peers earn $100,000, the original achievement may begin to feel inadequate.
A student who once felt proud of earning mostly As may enter an extremely competitive school and suddenly feel unsuccessful because classmates have higher GPAs, more extracurricular activities, and stronger college résumés.
The underlying achievement remains substantial.
The comparison standard changed.
This can create a psychological treadmill in which “enough” continually moves farther away.
The danger is not ambition itself.
Ambition can be productive.
The problem appears when satisfaction becomes impossible because every accomplishment immediately creates a new group of people who have achieved more.
Downward Comparison Can Make Us Feel Better—But It Has Limits
Comparing ourselves with people who appear worse off can create relief or gratitude.
A difficult week at work may feel more manageable after talking with someone dealing with unemployment. A disappointing test score may feel less catastrophic after realizing the class as a whole struggled.
Neuroscience research has found that downward comparisons can engage reward-related brain systems, consistent with the idea that relative advantage can feel psychologically positive.
But downward comparison has limitations.
Feeling better because someone else is struggling more does not solve the original problem. It can also become unhealthy if self-esteem begins depending on finding people who appear less successful.
A healthier use of downward comparison is perspective rather than superiority.
“There are people facing harder circumstances, so maybe this setback is survivable” is very different from “I am valuable because I am doing better than they are.”
The first can build gratitude.
The second makes self-worth dependent on rank.
Comparison Can Motivate Improvement
Social comparison is not inherently harmful because it can provide useful information about standards and possibilities.
Athletes compare times. Businesses compare performance. Students compare academic expectations. Professionals compare qualifications and salaries.
Without any comparison, it would sometimes be difficult to know whether improvement is needed.
A student who believes they are studying effectively may discover that classmates using retrieval practice are remembering considerably more information. That comparison could encourage the student to change strategies.
A teacher may observe another classroom and recognize an instructional practice worth adopting. A business owner may discover that competitors respond to customers much faster and decide to improve service.
The comparison becomes useful when it leads to a concrete question:
What can I learn from this?
It becomes less useful when the question becomes:
What does their success prove is wrong with me?
That distinction changes comparison from information into identity judgment.
Envy Can Contain Information
Envy is uncomfortable, so people often treat it as an emotion that should simply be eliminated.
Sometimes it contains useful information.
If someone feels envy when a friend publishes a book, earns a degree, changes careers, or starts a business, the emotion may reveal something about what the person values.
The useful response is not necessarily to resent the other person's success.
It may be to ask why that particular achievement produced such a strong reaction.
Perhaps it reveals an abandoned goal.
Maybe it exposes dissatisfaction that has been ignored.
Research on upward social comparison has found particularly strong associations with social-evaluative emotions such as envy, shame, and humiliation.
Those emotions can become destructive when they turn into hostility or self-criticism. They can also become informative if they prompt honest reflection.
“What do they have that I actually want?”
That question is much more productive than simply wishing the other person had less.
Students Live in Comparison-Rich Environments
Schools naturally create comparison.
Grades, class rankings, athletic teams, test scores, awards, honor rolls, college admissions, and academic tracks all provide information about relative performance.
Some comparison can help students understand expectations.
Too much can make learning feel like constant competition.
A student who improves from a 65 to an 82 has made substantial progress. If the only reference point is a classmate earning a 98, that progress may feel meaningless.
That is why education needs both social benchmarks and personal growth measures.
Students should understand where their performance stands relative to academic standards, but they should also be able to see whether they are improving compared with where they started.
The two questions are different.
“How am I doing compared with the standard?” matters.
“So how much have I grown?” matters too.
Comparing Students Carelessly Can Damage Motivation
Adults sometimes try to motivate children through comparison.
“Your sister never had trouble with math.”
“Look how much faster everyone else finished.”
“Why can't you get grades like your cousin?”
The intention may be to encourage improvement.
The psychological message the student hears may instead be that someone else's performance determines their worth.
Comparison is more constructive when it focuses on strategies rather than identity.
Instead of saying, “Your classmate got a better grade,” an educator might ask, “What did they do differently that might be useful for you?”
That changes the comparison from judgment into learning.
The other student becomes a source of information rather than proof of inadequacy.
Social Comparison Can Also Distort Our View of Success
We usually compare ourselves on things society makes visible.
Income is visible. Job titles are visible. houses are visible. degrees, awards, followers, and vacations are visible.
Other forms of success are harder to display.
A stable relationship, meaningful work, good health, personal integrity, time with family, emotional stability, or simply enjoying one's daily life may attract less public attention.
This can create a distorted scoreboard.
People may spend years pursuing highly visible achievements partly because those achievements make comparison easier.
The problem is that what is easiest to compare is not necessarily what matters most.
A useful question is therefore not only, “Am I ahead?”
It is, “Ahead at what?”
Winning a comparison that measures something you do not genuinely value may not improve your life very much.
Compare Yourself Across Time, Not Only Across People
One way to use comparison more constructively is to add another reference point: your past self.
How much do you understand today that you did not understand a year ago?
Are you healthier than you were six months ago?
Have you become a stronger teacher, parent, employee, student, or leader?
This does not mean ignoring external standards.
Someone learning mathematics still needs to know whether they can actually solve the problem. A professional still needs to know whether their skills meet industry expectations.
But temporal comparison provides information that social comparison cannot.
Another person's achievement tells you where they are.
Your previous performance tells you whether you are moving.
Those are both useful measures, but they answer different questions.
Curate What You Regularly Compare Yourself Against
People cannot completely stop comparing themselves with others, and trying to eliminate comparison may be unrealistic.
We can, however, become more deliberate about the comparison environment we create.
If following certain social-media accounts consistently produces feelings of inadequacy without providing useful information or inspiration, reducing exposure may be reasonable.
If an online community encourages learning and provides realistic models of improvement, the comparison may be helpful.
The goal is not to surround yourself only with people doing worse than you.
It is to recognize that repeated exposure changes the reference points your mind uses.
The people and images we repeatedly encounter can quietly redefine what we consider normal.
That deserves attention.
Ask Whether the Comparison Is Fair
Before allowing another person's success to become evidence against yourself, consider what you actually know about the comparison.
Are you at the same stage?
Did you begin with similar resources?
Are you pursuing the same goal?
Do you know the full story?
Are you comparing one area of your life with the strongest area of theirs?
And perhaps most importantly:
Would you actually want their entire life, or only the part you can see?
People often envy individual outcomes while knowing very little about the costs attached to them.
A high-paying career may require hours someone else would not want to work. A public profile may come with little privacy. A seemingly perfect lifestyle may involve tradeoffs that never appear online.
Fair comparison requires more context than we usually possess.
The Goal Is Not to Never Compare
Social comparison is deeply embedded in human psychology.
Trying to eliminate it completely is probably unrealistic and may not even be desirable.
Comparison can tell us what is possible, where we stand, what needs improvement, and what we value. It can provide motivation and perspective.
The goal is to become more aware of what the comparison is doing.
Is it teaching you something?
Is it motivating useful action?
Is it helping you appreciate what you have?
Or is it repeatedly converting someone else's success into evidence that your own life is inadequate?
The same psychological mechanism can produce very different outcomes depending on how it is interpreted.
Key Takeaways
Humans frequently evaluate themselves in relation to other people. Social comparison can help us understand our abilities, performance, status, and progress when objective standards are incomplete or difficult to interpret. Decades of psychological research suggest that people commonly make upward comparisons and that these comparisons can influence how they feel about their own performance.
Upward comparison can provide inspiration and useful benchmarks, but frequent comparison with people perceived as better off can also contribute to dissatisfaction. Recent research on social-media comparison has found associations between upward comparison and lower self-esteem and wellbeing as well as greater anxiety, depression, body dissatisfaction, and negative social-evaluative emotions.
Social media expands the number of possible comparison targets while often presenting only carefully selected portions of other people's lives. That can make comparisons psychologically powerful while leaving out the context needed to make them fair.
Comparison becomes more useful when we ask what we can learn from another person's success rather than treating it as a judgment about our own worth. Measuring personal growth over time can also provide an important counterbalance to constantly measuring ourselves against other people.
The goal is not to stop noticing how we compare with others. It is to use comparison as information without allowing it to become the sole measure of whether our lives are good enough.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do people compare themselves to others?
Social comparison helps people evaluate their abilities, opinions, achievements, and social position when there is no obvious objective standard. Other people become reference points for understanding where we stand.
What is upward social comparison?
Upward comparison occurs when someone compares themselves with a person they perceive as performing better or possessing more of something they value. It can motivate improvement but can also contribute to feelings of inadequacy.
What is downward social comparison?
Downward comparison occurs when people compare themselves with someone they perceive as worse off. It can provide perspective or reassurance, although relying on it for self-esteem can become unhealthy.
Does social media make comparison worse?
Research suggests that upward comparison on social media is associated with poorer self-esteem and wellbeing and higher levels of several negative psychological outcomes. However, the relationship is complex, and not every form of social-media use or comparison affects every person in the same way.
Is comparing yourself to others always unhealthy?
No. Comparison can provide motivation, useful information, perspective, and behavioral benchmarks. Problems are more likely when comparison becomes constant, unfair, or central to someone's sense of self-worth.
Final Thoughts
People compare themselves with others because other people provide information.
They show us what is possible, where we stand, what society rewards, and sometimes what we ourselves secretly want.
That psychological tendency is not inherently a flaw.
But comparison becomes dangerous when we forget how incomplete it usually is.
We see another person's result without seeing every condition that produced it. We compare our ordinary days with moments someone else chose to display. We compare one weakness in ourselves with one strength in another person and then act as though we compared two complete lives.
We did not.
Someone else's success can be useful evidence that something is possible without becoming evidence that we have failed.
That distinction matters for adults, and it matters even more for students growing up in an environment where grades, followers, achievements, appearances, and lifestyles can be compared almost continuously.
Healthy comparison asks, “What can I learn from this?”
Unhealthy comparison asks, “What does this prove about my worth?”
Those are very different questions.
Perhaps the best goal is not to stop looking at other people entirely. It is to become better at remembering that another person's life is a reference point, not a measuring stick for our value.
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Sources
American Psychological Association — Taking a Closer Look at Social Comparison Theory
