Toward an Enlightenment in Social Comparison Theory

Abstract

Social comparison—how we use others to make sense of ourselves and the world—is a focal human concern. Indeed, scholars have long recognized the importance of social comparison for human adaptation and survival. As Suls and Wheeler (Chapter 1, this volume) note, theorizing and research on social comparison can be traced to some of the classical contributions to Western philosophy and to pivotal work in social psychology and sociology, including work on the self, adaptation level, reference groups, and social influence. Nevertheless, it was not until Festinger’s (1954) classic paper that the term social comparison was proposed. The present volume clearly testifies that in the 45 years of its existence, social comparison theory has undergone numerous transitions and reformulations, and in the process, has developed from being a focused theoretical statement on the use of others for self-evaluation into a very complex area of research encompassing many different paradigms, approaches, and applications (e.g., Suls & Wills, 1991; Buunk & Gibbons, 1997). In the present chapter, we will discuss some trends that we see in the evolution of the theory in the past decades as apparent from the chapters in the present volume. We also will discuss some developments that are currently occurring and suggest an “enlightenment” that might help illuminate some of the unresolved issues and inconsistent findings manifest in current theorizing and research in the area.