If you are like most people, when you try to decide how
well you are functioning in virtually any area of life you compare yourself
with some reference group of people. And, generally, the people you
choose for comparison are those with whom you identity—relatives, friends, and
neighbors—or those of high status, such as celebrities. Leon Festinger
(1954) pioneered this “social comparison theory” long ago, and decades of
research certify its continuing and contemporary relevance. Social comparison
exerts particular influence due to "social desirability," a natural
tendency to report our behavior in ways that enhance our social standing
(Milham, 1972). When we and our reference group members portray ourselves
as favorably as possible, we are inclined to set unrealistically high
comparison standards. What might be the implications for our health-relevant lifestyles?
Let's think about eating habits. Aaron
M. Scherer and his co-investigators (2016) were interested in exploring
motivation for dietary change. They specifically looked at the extent,
sources, and methods of measurement by which people decide the foods to change,
and how to change them. In four experiments, the participants either
directly or indirectly compared their own consumption with that of their
peers. The information relevant for our discussion was as follows.
First, when subjects compared their consumption of healthy, common foods (e.g., apples), healthy,
uncommon foods (e.g., cauliflower), unhealthy, common foods (e.g., French
fries), and unhealthy, uncommon foods (e.g., onion rings) with that
of peers, they claimed to consume less food overall and considerably less
unhealthful food than their peers. Second, the motivation of
subjects was important. In some circumstances motivated bias (due to
a person’s strong desire to achieve a certain goal, such as weight reduction)
was a primary factor and in others, non-motivated bias due to an egocentric
excessive preoccupation with oneself when others should have been considered.
Non-motivated bias, for instance, described a general tendency in which
subjects erroneously thought that their behaviors were superior to those of
others. Thus, some persons confidently believed that that they ate fewer
donuts than their peers when they clearly had not. Third, motivated bias was most apparent both for foods widely perceived as healthful and for those widely perceived as unhealthful, overestimating consumption of the former and underestimating that of the latter.
There are several major takeaways from the Scherer
study. One concerns how to create an interpersonal environment that
facilitates your healthful lifestyle goals: Knowing that you probably tend to
establish objectives in sync with your reference group, you do well to identify
with and to fraternize with persons who share your healthful objectives.
Another is taking care to develop as objective a progress-tracking system as
possible. Keep in mind the always-present temptation toward motivated and
non-motivated biases that delude you into believing that you are progressing
more than you truly are. Beware of the related distortion that you are
more likely to over-count your successes and to under-count your
failures. Finally, realize that the more you value your goal and/or the more
competitive you are with members of your reference group, the greater the
conscious or unconscious predilection to ignore uncomfortable shortcomings and to exaggerate minor achievements.
By
following the aforementioned guidelines, you will know how much you are eating
and what, if anything, to do about it.
And since social comparison and social desirability
are likely to operate whenever you assess your health-related behaviors, you should
take measures to resist its distortions.
References:
Festinger L (1954). "A theory of social comparison processes". Human relations 7 (2): 117–140. doi:10.1177/001872675400700202.
Millham, J. The need for social approval: An evaluation. Coral Gables, Florida: Cognitive and Language Laboratory, 1972.
Scherer, A. M., et al. (2016). Sources of bias in peoples’ social-comparative estimates of food consumption. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, Vol 22(2), Jun 2016, 173-183. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xap0000081.
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