Social Comparison

REVISITED
Personal IDENTITY Social
Discrimination
* loaded word today. But simply means being able to tell the
difference
* we discriminate when we organize or group things.
◦ cooking: salt vs sugar, cornstarch vs flour
◦ Medicine vs poison
◦ Facts vs fake news

The important thing is to know when discrimination is helpful or harmful. It’s

harmful when it is used to divide people and cause disunity. It is helpful when
the differences highlight our individuality and how it is important to us.
Discrimination
Is the basis for Social Comparison Theories. The theories
tell us that we find our sense of belonging either by finding
what’s the same or what’s different.

Birds of the same feather flock together.

Misery loves company
Tell me who your friends are and I’ll tell you who you are.
Mirroring – “Hey me too!”
Upward and Downward Comparison
Upward Comparison – (aspirational) the kind of
comparison that shows you are similar to a more desirable
group.

Downward Comparison – comparing yourself as better than

a group who you consider worse than yourself.
Upward Comparison
Religious: be like Jesus, Mother Teresa, Buddha…
Pop Culture:
The _______ of the Philippines
the Filipino _________
________ ang peg.
Fashion trends
Brand images: e.g. Apple = rich/industry pro, Android =
affordable, cheap, brand smart.
Upward Comparison
If the upward comparison is unattainable this can cause
resentment at the perceived privilege.
•Rich kid
•Elitista
•Disente
•Hambugero
Downward Comparison
•“At least I’m not like _______.”
•“I’m not that poor _______.”
•“I’m _______ but I don’t _______.”

This may breed complacency. Downward cultivates

“looking at the positive” but doesn’t move toward any
positive action.
Triadic Model
•People that have more similar attributes and opinions are
more influential to each other.
•It emphasizes on how we are similar to each other

???

You Me
Triadic Model
•Fandom
•Affiliation or membership
•Shared Experience
•Common friend
Proxy Model
Proxy means in the place of another.
•A person successful in a similar task would be successful at
a new task
Higher to lower office
Growing of your resume / CV in new work tasks.

If the seemingly similar tasks are actually different, then

the comparison can be wrong.