Social Comparison Theory and How It Creates Cognitive Dissonance. In 1954 Psychologist Leon Festinger developed a two-directional social comparison theory (upward and downward).

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The Natural Drive to Compare Ourselves to Others

A Social Psychologist Leon Festinger (1919–1989) developed his Theory of Social Comparison in 1954. The YouTube video below is a brief outline of the theory. Festinger believed people are driven to accurately evaluate their ability, opinions, and other aspects of their lives (success, failure, choices, etc) by social comparison.

Risks and Benefits — Social Comparison

The two main ways people compare themselves with others are as follows:-

Upward Comparison: This is when someone compares themselves to someone more successful than they are, which can result in envy and negative feelings. This in turn can prevent someone from working harder to achieve better results. It can lower self-esteem and increase cognitive dissonance.

Downward Comparison: Comparing yourself with someone who hasn’t achieved much can make you feel worse than superior. Knowing you've accomplished a lot can also result in cognitive dissonance.

As you can see the above two ways can both lead to low self-esteem and increased cognitive dissonance. A better way is to compare yourself to others who are similar.

Similarity Comparison: This is a comparison with like-minded people or even slightly more successful people who motivate each other to achieve better results. This is good for high self-esteem and there is less chance of cognitive dissonance. This positive social comparison can motivate and support others to reach higher standards.

“When dissonance is present, in addition to trying to reduce it, the person will actively avoid situations and information which would likely increase the dissonance.” — “A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance” (Leon Festinger, 1962)

Social Comparison Theory and Cognitive Dissonance

When people evaluate themselves by comparison it can lead to cognitive dissonance, when their self-evaluation is at odds or inconsistent with their concept of self. This provokes us to re-align our self-evaluations with our self-concept, either by changing our evaluations or self-concept. If this dissonance isn’t aligned, it can result in lowered self-esteem.

In 1954 Festinger and Carlsmith tested participants in a social laboratory experiment (video below). This shows subjects doing a boring mundane task and being later asked to lie about it to the next participants, saying it was enjoyable and interesting. Some were offered $1 and others offered $20 and the expected outcome was that those who were offered $1 would lie better and say the task was interesting and not boring, given the small amount of money they received. This group experienced more cognitive dissonance and re-evaluated the task as interesting rather than boring, than the group given $20 to lie (as they got well paid, so had no cognitive dissonance). The results from this study were extended to other situations.

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