The document summarizes a report on self-esteem, ideal self, and social comparison. It discusses literature on social comparison theory and how people evaluate themselves by comparing to others. It describes a study of 20 adolescents that found body image and peers influence self-perception. The study showed "fat talk" lowers self-esteem and boys compare looks to avoid bullying. Social media allows carefully crafted presentations of ideal selves but comparisons to others on platforms can decrease life satisfaction and increase feelings of inadequacy.

1. Self Esteem, Ideal Self, & Social Comparison
By: Evan Fox, Donna Moulton, Britta Nordstrom, Ryan Wilson

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Table of Contents
Executive Summary………………………………………………………...……….....2
Literature Review……………………………………………….……………….....3 - 7
Experiment Design/Methodology……………………………...…………………..7 - 8
Results of Experiment………………………………………….………………...........8
Discussion of results……………………………………………….………….......9 - 10
References…………………………………………………………….……………....11
Appendix………………………………………………………………………...12 - 25

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Executive Summary
This report will give an overview of the concept of social comparison and how people compare
themselves to others and how that affects how they feelabout themselves and what they buy. The social
comparison theory is that as humans, we have an innate drive to find an accurate comparison of ourselves
and an accurate self-evaluation. We do this through comparing ourselves to others. This report also
analyzes a study that was conducted on 20 students, aged 12-14, focusing on social comparison and body
image in adolescence. Furthermore, scholarly articles on personality and self-comparison through social
media will show the negative effects on self esteem leading to unnecessary consumption. The results of
our survey give us insight into how people think about themselves in reallife and on social media. Based
on our results, we can say that people do compare themselves to others on social media and a large part of
that is comparing how their profiles look, to how many friends they have and if they feel worse about
themselves or less satisfied with themselves after looking at someone elses profile. 23% said they
definitely or probably feelless satisfied with themselves after looking at someone elses profile. It is
definite that some people compare their own life and look to others and as an outcome, feelworse about
themselves.
Literature Review

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Many experiments/studies have been done on the topic of social comparison. One specific study
was done on adolescents and the effects that social comparison has on their lives. The study was done by
A. Krayer,D.K. Ingledew, and R. Iphofen. In their report they suggested that the comparison processes
are used for the purpose of developing a sense of identity. The report identifies other research that has
been done including one by Joanne V. Wood, that states that there are three types of social comparison
appraisals: self-evaluation, self-improvement, and self-enhancement (“Health Education Research”). In
regards to self-improvement, one can learn to improve something about himself by comparing himself to
someone else. This can be relevant information for marketers to know. This is largely related to beauty
and body image advertisements featuring women with bodies that society calls beautiful. The same could
be said of men with big muscles.
The study that Krayer,Ingledew, and Iphofen conducted revolved around 20, 12-14 year old
students who voluntarily agreed to be asked a series of questions by the conductors (“Health Education
Research”). Each student was questioned in a private room in the school with a positive setting. Questions
regarding what type of media they pay attention to, favorite movies or television shows, favorite
actors/actresses,and whether or not their own self esteem was altered when they were shown different
types of media or were around their friends or family.
Results of this study showed that body image was an important aspect of self-representation to
the students. Furthermore, it showed that peers played an important role in how they each perceived
themselves. Students indicated that when they are with their close friends, weight and body shape did not
matter. There was a concept of “fat talk”, where girls would call themselves fat even if they weren’t, to
make it seem like they didn’t think highly of themselves. This solicited reassurance and promoted group
affiliation (“Health Education Research”). The boys shared that they know that girls are more concerned
with their appearance,but for boys it’s more about personality in a friendship. However,there are times
where some of the boys said that they feel down and they compare themselves to people that look good
and one boy even said that he tries to exercise and keep up because he doesn’t want to get picked on.

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Girls said that they see people in the media who always have perfect skin, slimmer bodies, and that it
makes them feel self conscious.
Overall, the feedback from the students showed that they have an awareness of social standards.
There are negative evaluative comparisons with girls when they see someone that they think looks better
than them, but obviously, being so young, body dissatisfaction alone was not enough for them to do
something about the way they look. However,we see as people get older, and as these students are more
exposed to the media and advertisements, they will be looking at certain products that they can use to
enhance certain features. These are features that consumers are dissatisfied with, and this is how
marketers are able to capture consumers; by exploiting their insecurities.
"Why people post, like, and tweet." UWIRE Text 29 Apr. 2014: 1. Academic OneFile. Web. 23 Apr.
2016.
Ever since the birth of social media and the internet, the youthful generations have been getting
more and more disconnected from each other, while somehow “connecting” at the same time. Robert
Brenneman, doctor of sociology at St. Michael’s College reiterates that “connection makes us feel
happy”. We are social beings by nature, and what we fear most is isolation and disconnection. It is more
evident today with available sociological studies showing that babies can’t survive infancy if they do not
have sufficient interaction and touch, thus fulfilling their needs. Of course, this basic need for connection
and relationships follows us into adulthood as well.
Csepeli, Gyorgy, and RichArd Nagyfi. "Facebook diagnostics: detection of mental health problems
based on online traces/Facebook-diagnostik: erschliebung von mentalhygienischen problemen mithilfe von
spuren im internet/Facebook-dijagnostika: otkrivanje mentalno-higijenskih problema putem online
tragova/Facebookova diagnostika: odhaleni problemu dusevniho zdravi na zaklade on-line stop." European
Journal of Mental Health Dec. 2014: 220+. Academic OneFile. Web. 23 Apr. 2016.
With this idea of human connection and interaction being a necessity, one can not truly have
“friends” on social media. From the European Journal of Mental Health, Gyorgi Csepeli says that
“Friendships between Facebook users can be characterised typically as weak ties showing low values on
measures of the amount of time, the emotional intensity, the intimacy and the reciprocal services which

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are generally seen as major dimensions of any type of interpersonal relationship”. Going off of this, we
humans know when friendships and relationships are not genuine, so why would we continue to use
something that further isolates us from true friends? One could argue that it’s easier and “safer” to
communicate with mass amounts of people all in the palm of the hand, because we desire unlimited
connection in a finite world with infinite demand.
This continuous search for connection and belonging forces us to use social media because it
makes it possible for us “to never feel completely alone or silent” (Brenneman). If we’re not really
enjoying a friends company or time together while online, social media isn’t really fulfilling its promise
of keeping us connected. What social media is allowing however, is the opportunity to endlessly compare
ourselves to others, and judge them as openly as one wants.
Vogel, Erin A., et al. "Social Comparison, Social Media,And Self-Esteem." Psychology Of Popular
Media Culture3.4 (2014): 206-222.PsycINFO. Web. 22 Apr. 2016
This judging that is welcomed on facebook manifests through “likes” and “dislikes” of other
people's’ information. When we positively compare ourselves as being better than what we see,we feel
happier. Conversely, what should happen if we see something “better” than us, negatively affecting our
self esteem? Jealousy and resentment may be some results. In fact,many modern neurologists have seen
the mere stimulus of getting notifications from a liked post triggers a release of dopamine in the brain.
With everyone online eagerly searching for such a sensation, there will surely be those who don’t get this
satisfaction. Since social media is so egocentric, one who does not get connection (notifications) from
these “friends” will look elsewhere for other ways to get the acceptance he desires. It will start with
comparing oneself to the “successful” ones who do get the millions of likes and follows i.e. famous
athletes, and celebrities like Kim Kardashian. As humans, we then internalize these observations and
think that we need to do what the “successful” people do to get connection; or if not, at least consume/use
whatever products they use. The University of Toledo touched on this with a study on social comparison,
social media, and self esteem. They came to a conclusion that, “although upward comparison can be

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beneficial when it inspires people to become more like their comparison targets, it more often cause
people to feel inadequate, have poorer self evaluations, and experience negative affect” (Vogel, 206).
This practice of looking to external role models for self evaluation and comparison is a toxic
habit, because it influences our true selves. On social networking sites, one posts exactly what he wants
his audience to view, not truthful representations of what his life is actually like.
From the Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, it perfectly describes this as the role of
Facebook: “it’s usage has proliferated because it offers users the ability to present carefully crafted
presentations of their idealized selves to others”. This is the closest thing to formulating a perfect concept
of oneself, which is unhealthy because not one person will ever be perfect.
“Does Facebook Usage Lead To Conspicuous Consumption? The Role of Envy, Narcissismand
Self-Promotion” Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing:Taylor-Strutton
Upon reading the article by Taylor and Strutton and looking over our research findings 69% of
our participants were between the ages of 18-24 years old, and 18 out of 76 (23%) panelists said that they
definitely compare themselves to others on social media networking sites. It is very clear that social
media users do tend to compare themselves to other social media users when using these networking sites.
This goes along with this quote “Facebook users have demonstrated higher levels of envy and lower life
satisfaction (Krasnova et al., 2013). They also frequently perceive others as being happier and having
better lives (Chou and Edge, 2012).” For example social media network users will tend to have a lower
self esteem when they see posts from peers that appear to have a more desirable social standing than they
have, but these social media users do not take into account that many of the “friends” that create these
posts are a form of their elaborate social impression management. “These best-selves are manifested
through carefully crafted written and pictorial portrayals of positional goods. Positional goods function as
implicit or explicit proxies of the well-being and/or happiness of people consuming them. Because most
humans care deeply about the impressions others formulate about them,Facebook users generally put their
best face forward.” (Taylor-Strutton, 2016) The problem with social comparison based social media

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postings is that users do not see the “behind the scenes” private lives of their friends. These users do not
see the fights or arguments or the unhappy moments of those that they follow. Since social media users
only see the positive moments, these posts are what all these users are using to compare their social
standing and lives to- fabricated lives of perfect selves. In reality all we see is what’s happening on the
surface,not the underlying attributes that make up the users actual self.
Experiment Design/Methodology
Our experiment was conducted through a qualtrics survey
(https://qtrial2016q2az1.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_2h4f7qFtIAiRCux) which allowed us to see the number of
respondents, how many respondents responded to each answer,and overall Qualtrixs allows us to see
whether or not our peers and social media have an affect on our self concept and to what extent do people
compare themselves to others on social media. When we put together our survey our group dispersed it
throughout the Sacred Heart University’s campus population though methods such as email, and
word of mouth. We also had each group member post on social media the link to the survey for
other Sacred Heart University students to see, so we could reach a sufficient majority of the
campus population to better gather conclusive results for our research. We chose to use a
modified likert scale because it was the best choice for analysing our data, we wanted to find on
a scale of 1-5 our respondents level of agreement or disagreement on a symmetric agree-disagree
scale for a series of statements. In doing this the range captures the intensity of their feelings for
a given item. We also used other survey questions such as Dichotomous Questions or Yes and
No questions, and cumulative or Guttman scale questions. In doing so we developed a 20
question survey that provided conclusive findings for our research assignment.

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Results of Experiment:
The data that we collected from our Qualtrix survey we had 76 respondents but there was
a dropout rate of 28% once respondents began the survey. Which means that many respondents
once reaching the first few questions dropped out of finishing the survey that they began. The
majority of our survey questions were answered by around 53-56 respondents. Our results
showed that 69% of respondents were ages 18-24, people that would most likely be in college. Because
we sent this survey out to mostly people from Sacred Heart University we can assume that those who
were in that age group do attend college. 29% said they were in a sorority and or a fraternity and 48% said
that they were involved in 1-2 activities while 22% said they were not involved at all. Only 49% said that
having a lot of friends is moderately important. This is just a fragment of the data that we as a group
collects and we will go into further detail about these results in the discussion of results section below.
Discussion ofresults
Overall, 69% of respondents were ages 18-24, people that would most likely be in college.
Because we sent this survey out to mostly people from Sacred Heart University we can assume that those
who were in that age group do attend college. 29% said they were in a sorority and or a fraternity and
48% said that they were involved in 1-2 activities while 22% said they were not involved at all. Only 49%
said that having a lot of friends is moderately important. We can understand this because a lot of people
believe that it is more suitable to have a few great friends than many friends that you aren’t close with.
When we showed respondents pictures of the sororities and fraternities, only 8% said they wish they were
a part of one of the two and 17% said they don’t want to be a part. However,because 29% said they were
in a sorority or fraternity, 43% said they thought the people in the pictures looked like they were having
fun. When asking respondents whether or not they agree or disagree that being in a group made them feel
like they belong, 81% said they either somewhat agree,agree,or strongly agree that it does make them

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feel like they belong. This is important because it shows that being apart of a group versus not being in
one is important to people because they are comparing themselves to people in or not in a group. Being in
a group allows you to share and compare yourself to similar people. When asking about social media,
52% of respondents said they go on social media 7 or more times a day and 0% said they never go on
social media. This shows that everyone who took our survey goes on networking sites at least once a day.
28% said they view their friends profile when they’re curious or have spare time and 45% said they view
them when they see something that interests them. 44% said they look at pictures of their friends with
other friends, making a statement that they care about who their friends hang out with or care about how
many more friends they have than themselves. 23% of respondents said they compare themselves with
others on social media either definitely yes or probably yes, while only 11% said they definitely don’t
compare themselves with others on social media. Those who claimed to definitely not compare
themselves with others on social media might have relayed some inaccurate information, judging by the
fact that there wasn’t one person from the survey not using social media. In addition to this, there is a
phenomena in sociological and psychological studies that when people know they are being interviewed
or studied, they will be less accurate with the information they share about themselves.
The results of our survey give us insight into how people think about themselves in real life and
on social media. Based on our results, we can say that people do compare themselves to others on social
media and a large part of that is comparing how their profiles look, to how many friends they have and if
they feel worse about themselves or less satisfied with themselves after looking at someone elses profile.
23% said they definitely or probably feel less satisfied with themselves after looking at someone elses
profile. It is definite that some people compare their own life and look to others and as an outcome, feel
worse about themselves. As said in our literature report, Facebook users have demonstrated higher levels
of envy and lower life satisfaction (Krasnova et al., 2013). Social media network users will tend to have a
lower self esteem when they see posts from peers that appear to have a more desirable social standing.
Facebook users put their best face forward and it is obvious from our survey that being in a group and
doing activities makes people feellike they belong which in a way is them putting their best face forward.

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It is almost as if they are trying to impress those around them to make themselves seem like they are
desirable.
These results and the findings from our research are important to marketing because as marketers,
although it seems corrupt, we can use the consumers’ insecurities as an advantage by creating ads and
products that are going to satisfy their desire of becoming the person that they compare themselves to or
want to be.

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References
Works Cited
Csepeli, György, and Richárd Nagyfi. "Facebook Diagnostics: Detection of Mental Health
Problems Based on Online Traces." European Journal of Mental Health EJMH 9.2 (2014): 220-30.
Print.
"Health Education Research." Social Comparison and Body Image in Adolescence: A Grounded
Theory Approach. Web. 23 Apr. 2016.
"Why people post, like, and tweet." UWIRE Text 29 Apr. 2014: 1. Academic OneFile. Web. 23 Apr.
2016.
Vogel, Erin A., et al. "Social Comparison, Social Media,And Self-Esteem." Psychology Of Popular
Media Culture3.4 (2014): 206-222.PsycINFO. Web. 22 Apr. 2016
“Does Facebook Usage Lead To Conspicuous Consumption? The Role of Envy,
Narcissismand Self-Promotion” Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing: Taylor-Strutton
Csepeli, Gyorgy, and RichArd Nagyfi. "Facebook diagnostics: detection of mental health problems
based on online traces/Facebook-diagnostik: erschliebung von mentalhygienischen problemen mithilfe von
spuren im internet/Facebook-dijagnostika: otkrivanje mentalno-higijenskih problema putem online
tragova/Facebookova diagnostika: odhaleni problemu dusevniho zdravi na zaklade on-line stop." European
Journal of Mental Health Dec. 2014: 220+. Academic OneFile. Web. 23 Apr. 2016.
"Why people post, like, and tweet." UWIRE Text 29 Apr. 2014: 1. Academic OneFile. Web. 23 Apr.
2016.
"History Module: The Devastating Effects of Isolation on Social Behaviour." History Module:
The Devastating Effects of Isolation on Social Behaviour.N.p.,n.d. Web. 07 May 2016.

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Appendix:

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Results from 53 respondents:

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Results from 76 respondents:

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