Social comparison involves comparing oneself to others on dimensions like grades, appearance, or possessions. There are two types: upward social comparison, where one compares to those better off, and downward social comparison, where one compares to those worse off in order to boost their self-esteem. The document describes two instances where the author engaged in downward social comparison. First, after receiving a poor grade in math, the author felt better comparing their grade to friends' lower grades. Second, after a car crash where a friend's car was totaled, the author felt better about their own damaged car compared to the friend's worse outcome. Downward social comparison was used in both cases to make the author feel better about their situation.

1. Social comparison, which meanscompared to others such as
grades, clothes, branded item and son on. There’s also downward
social comparison which meansactually compareto the other person
which is have a lower gradethan you and actually feel good about
your grade. This mean you comparingwhat you have now and
compareit to other person which have lesser than you, thus this can
enhance your self-esteem by feeling that better than other people.
While I am in secondary school and I am just in early year of
form 4, that time I just receive the grades for my additional
mathematics and I am so shock that I actually got only 60 marksout
of 100 marks. This is the lowest mark I have got in my life for
mathematics. I felt so unhappy of it because mathematics can be said
that it is one of my confirmed score-A subject but then I only got
60markswhich is far away from A.
Thus, I actually compare to my other friend that only got 40
marksout of 100 or maybelower than 10. Duringthat time this
actually mademyself felt better and doesn’t felt so sad about my
grades. I even compareto other studentthat are at lower ranked
class’s studentand I actually feel good about it. Thus downward
social comparison actually did happen here.

2. For the other cases, I was drivingwith my friendstogether we
drove3 cars to beach to have a rest after a long exam month.
Unfortunately meand my other friendsgot into a car crash and the
third car actually avoided that crash luckily. That time my car’s
bumper justgot knocked down and even crack and it can’t be
repaired any moreand need to be replaced with a new one I actually
felt so bad that time. But my the other friend half of his car gone in
that crash and insurancecompany announcethat his car wasin a
total lost condition and at that time I felt a little bit better by
comparingmy car to my friend’scar and this is provethat I
compared my own car with a total damage car and actually felt good
thus I can concludethat downward socialcomparison actually takes
place.
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CHAPTER 2
DOWNWARDSOCIALCOMPARISON
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY