Social comparison shapes how we see ourselves and measure our worth against others. Sometimes this can be useful; other times, it creates problems. The solution is to define what we value, live according to those values, and measure our growth rather than our standing in relation to others. Ask yourself: Am I measuring my worth by how I compare with others, or by how I am growing toward what I truly value? Your answer may reveal how social comparison is influencing your direction in life and contributing to struggles with depression, anxiety, social isolation, or even identity confusion.
October 9, 2026 · Dr. Jeremy Reichert
As you answer, pay attention to where your mind goes first. What immediately comes to mind when you consider these questions?
For many of us, the answer lies outside ourselves. We look at our relationships, accomplishments, failures, appearance, status, and competence. We compare, measure, and evaluate ourselves against what we see in others. When we believe we measure up, we feel good about ourselves. When we believe we fall short, our sense of worth can fall with it.
This is known as social comparison—the process of evaluating ourselves in relation to others. It generally takes three forms: upward, downward, and lateral comparison (Festinger, 1954; Wheeler, 1966; Wills, 1981).
We are social beings, so looking to others for cues about ourselves is natural. Other people help us understand our abilities, our place in the world, and how we relate to those around us. The problem begins when other people become the measure of our value. They become our reference point for determining whether we are enough, whether we are successful, or whether our lives are meaningful.
And our comparisons do not have to involve people we know. We can measure ourselves against strangers, public figures, people on social media, or even idealized versions of people who exist only in our imagination.
Perhaps you don't consciously think in these terms. Still, these judgments may operate beneath the surface, influencing how you see yourself and others.
We engage in upward comparison when we evaluate ourselves against someone we perceive as more successful, attractive, wealthy, capable, or socially connected. Sometimes this can inspire us. At other times, it can leave us feeling inadequate.
The difference often lies in what we make the comparison mean. We might see another person's success and think, "What can I learn from this?" Or we might think, "I'm falling behind. I'm not good enough."
The first response can encourage growth. The second can fuel shame, anxiety, envy, and discouragement, particularly when we interpret another person's strengths as evidence of our own deficiencies (Swallow & Kuiper, 1988).
Downward comparison occurs when we evaluate ourselves against someone we perceive as worse off. We might feel more successful because someone else has failed, more capable because someone else is struggling, or more satisfied with our circumstances because someone else's appear less favorable.
This can provide temporary reassurance, but it comes at a cost. Our sense of worth becomes conditional: I'm okay because I'm doing better than someone else.
The reassurance can disappear because it was never grounded in a stable understanding of our own worth. Research has also examined how downward comparison can support subjective well-being (Hoppen et al., 2026). These findings should be examined closely. Feeling good about oneself through any means may serve the individual momentarily. In these cases, subjective well-being is established through negative judgments, social distancing, or derogation of the people with whom we compare ourselves.
Lateral comparison involves evaluating ourselves against people we perceive as similar to us. These comparisons can help us understand what is typical, recognize shared experiences, and feel that we belong.
There is value in this. Knowing that others experience similar struggles can reduce isolation and normalize our experiences. At the same time, even comparisons among peers can become a means of evaluating whether we are keeping up or meeting expectations.
The question is not simply whom we compare ourselves with, but what we use the comparison to determine.
When we rely on external measures to determine our value, our sense of self becomes vulnerable to changing circumstances. Another person's success can make us feel inadequate, while our own setbacks can leave us questioning our worth. We become dependent on outcomes, recognition, and relative standing to feel good about ourselves.
We see someone's accomplishments, appearance, relationships, or financial success, but we rarely know the complete story. We may not see the struggles, resources, opportunities, sacrifices, or disadvantages that have shaped their circumstances.
Social media makes this especially pronounced because we often encounter carefully selected representations of other people's lives. AI-generated images and content can further blur the distinction between what is real and what is constructed. When we compare our everyday lives with someone else's curated or artificial presentation, we risk measuring ourselves against an incomplete or unrealistic standard (Arenz et al., 2023).
Instead of asking, "Am I living according to my values?" we begin asking, "Where do I rank?"
There will almost always be someone who appears to be doing better and someone who appears to be doing worse. If our sense of worth depends on where we stand relative to others, there is no lasting point of arrival. The goalpost keeps moving.
When we view others primarily through the lens of comparison, relationships can become competitive. Other people's achievements may threaten our sense of adequacy, while their struggles may reassure us that we are doing well.
Rather than relating to people as they are, we begin relating to what their lives seem to say about ours. Genuine connection becomes more difficult when another person's success feels like our loss or their failure becomes our source of reassurance.
Comparison is not inherently harmful. Observing someone else's accomplishments, abilities, or decisions can provide valuable information. We can learn from others, identify goals, and recognize possibilities we had not previously considered.
The problem is not noticing differences. It is turning those differences into judgments about our worth.
Instead of asking,
A healthier alternative is self-referenced comparison: evaluating our progress in relation to where we have been, rather than determining our worth by where we stand in relation to others.
But this requires something important: knowing what we value.
For those with a faith background, particularly Christians, there is an important distinction. We believe in an immutable God who has revealed, through Scripture, standards for how we are to live. These standards provide an enduring reference point for what we understand to be the ideal life, not the shifting expectations of culture or the accomplishments of other people, but a life oriented toward God's character, truth, and revealed purposes. From this perspective, growth is not simply becoming a better version of ourselves by our own definition. It is the ongoing process of aligning our lives with the virtues and principles God has established, reflected perfectly through the life of Jesus Christ.
If we have not examined what matters most to us—our guiding principles, virtues, or ideals- we can easily adopt the standards of the people around us. We may pursue success without defining what success means to us, seek approval without knowing what we believe, or strive to become someone else's ideal of a worthwhile person.
Once we have greater clarity about our values, we can begin to evaluate ourselves differently. Rather than judging ourselves by whether we have arrived, we can consider whether we are growing.
Growth shifts the focus from ranking to direction. It allows us to acknowledge where we fall short without concluding that we are inadequate as people. We can recognize our limitations while taking responsibility for what we can change.
These questions do not require us to ignore other people or stop learning from them. They invite us to change the purpose of comparison. We can recognize another person's strengths without diminishing our own, acknowledge their struggles without using them to feel superior, and learn from their experiences without turning our lives into a competition.
If we want to connect genuinely with others, we must learn to celebrate their achievements and grieve their losses without making ourselves the reference point. Their lives do not have to become evidence for or against our own.
The issue is not that comparison is always harmful. It is that using other people as the measuring stick for our value, adequacy, or place in life can make self-worth unstable and distort how we see ourselves and others.
There is always another person to surpass, another standard to meet, and another ideal to pursue. If we depend on these comparisons to determine whether we are enough, we may spend our lives chasing a moving target.
A more grounded approach begins with understanding what we value, recognizing how we measure ourselves, and evaluating our lives according to the direction in which we are growing.
We can appreciate what others have accomplished without concluding that we have accomplished too little. We can recognize our own progress without needing someone else to fall behind. And we can pursue meaningful change without treating our current circumstances as a verdict on our worth.
Ultimately, the goal is not to become indifferent to others or to abandon the desire to improve. It is to stop confusing our relative standing with our value as a person.
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Arenz, A., Meier, A., & Reinecke, L. (2023). Social comparison on social media and mental health: A scoping review. Jahrestagung der Fachgruppe Rezeptions- und Wirkungsforschung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Publizistik- und Kommunikationswissenschaft, 7–40.
Arigo, D., Bercovitz, I., Lapitan, E., & Gular, S. (2024). Social comparison and mental health. Current Treatment Options in Psychiatry, 11(2), 17–33. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40501-024-00313-0
Festinger, L. (1954). A theory of social comparison processes. Human Relations, 7(2), 117–140. https://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~schaller/528Readings/Festinger1954.pdf
Hoppen, T. H., Höfer, L., Schlechter, P., Holling, H., Mutz, J., & Morina, N. (2026). Social comparisons on social media and mental health: A systematic review and meta-analysis [Preprint]. medRxiv. https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.09.15.26363124
Swallow, S. R., & Kuiper, N. A. (1988). Social comparison and negative self-evaluations: An application to depression. Clinical Psychology Review, 8, 55–76. https://doi.org/10.1016/0272-7358(88)90049-9
Wheeler, L. (1966). Motivation as a determinant of upward comparison. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 1, 27–31. https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-1031(66)90062-X
Wills, T. A. (1981). Downward comparison principles in social psychology. Psychological Bulletin, 90(2), 245–271. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.90.2.245
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