Festinger, Leon. (1954).
A Theory of Social Comparison Processes, Retrieved September 12, 2007, from hum.sagepub.com database
A Theory of Social Comparison Processes
Leon Festinger
∗
In this paper we shall present a further development of a previously published theory concerning
opinion influence processes in social groups (7). This further development has enabled us to extend the
theory to deal with other areas, in addition to opinion formation, in which social comparison is
important. Specifically, we shall develop below how the theory applies to the appraisal and evaluation of
abilities as well as opinions.
Such theories and hypotheses in the area of social psychology are frequently viewed in terms of
how “plausible” they seem. “Plausibility” usually means whether or not the theory or hypothesis fits
one’s intuition or one’s common sense. In this meaning much of the theory which is to be presented here
is not” plausible “. The theory does, however, explain a considerable amount of data and leads to
testable derivations. Three experiments, specifically designed to test predictions from this extension of
the theory, have now been completed (5, 12, 19). They all provide good corroboration. We will in the
following pages develop the theory and present the relevant data.
Hypothesis I:
There exists, in the human organism, a drive to evaluate his opinions and his abilitie
s.
While opinions and abilities may, at first glance, seem to be quite different things, there is a close
functional tie between them. They act together in the manner in which they affect behavior. A person’s
cognition (his opinions and beliefs) about the situation in which he exists and his appraisals of what he is
capable of doing (his evaluation of his abilities) will together have bearing on his behavior. The holding
of incorrect opinions and/or inaccurate appraisals of one’s abilities can be punishing or even fatal in
many situations.
It is necessary, before we proceed, to clarify the distinction between opinions and evaluations of
abilities since at first glance it may seem that one’s evaluation of one’s own ability is an opinion about
it. Abilities are of course manifested only through performance which is assumed to depend upon the
particular ability. The clarity of the manifestation or performance can vary from instances where there is
no clear ordering criterion of the ability to instances where the performance which reflects the ability
can be clearly ordered. In the former case, the evaluation of the ability does function like other opinions
which are not directly testable in “objective reality’. For example, a person’s evaluation of his ability to
write poetry will depend to a large extent on the opinions which others have of his ability to write
poetry. In cases where the criterion is unambiguous and can be clearly ordered, this furnishes an
objective reality for the evaluation of one’s ability so that it depends less on the opinions of other
persons and depends more on actual comparison of one’s performance with the performance of others.
Thus, if a person evaluates his running ability, he will do so by comparing his time to run some distance
with the times that other persons have taken.
In the following pages, when we talk about evaluating an ability, we shall mean specifically the
evaluation of that ability in situations where the performance is unambiguous and is known. Most
situations in real life will, of course, present situations which are a mixture of opinion and ability
evaluation.
In a previous article (7) the author posited the existence of a drive to determine whether or not
one’s opinions were “correct”. We are here stating that this same drive also
produces behavior in people
oriented toward obtaining an accurate appraisal of their abilities.
The behavioral implication of the existence of such a drive is that we would expect to observe
behaviour on the part of persons which enables them to ascertain whether or not their opinions are
correct and also behavior which enables them accurately to evaluate their abilities. It is consequently
∗
The development of this theory was aided by a grant from the Behavioral Sciences Division of the Ford Foundation. It is
part of the research program of the Laboratory for Research in Social Relations.
A Theory of Social Comparison Processes
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necessary to answer the question as to how persons go about evaluating their opinions and their abilities.
Hypothesis II: To the extent that objective, non-social means are not available, people evaluate their opinions and
abilities by comparison respectively with the opinions and abilities of others.
In many instances, perhaps most, whether or not an opinion is correct cannot be immediately
determined by reference to the physical world. Similarly it is frequently not possible to assess accurately
one’s ability by reference to the physical world, One could, of course, test the opinion that an object was
fragile by hitting it with a hammer, but how is one to test the opinion that a certain political candidate is
better than another, or that war is inevitable? Even when there is a possible immediate physical referent
for an opinion, it is frequently not likely to be employed. The belief, for example, that tomatoes are
poisonous to humans (which was widely held at one time) is unlikely to be tested. The situation is
similar with respect to the evaluation of one’s abilities. If the only use to which, say, jumping ability was
put was to jump across a particular brook, it would be simple to obtain an accurate evaluation of one’s
ability in this respect. However, the unavailability of the opportunity for such clear testing and the vague
and multipurpose use of various abilities generally make such a clear objective test not feasible or not
useful. For example, how does one decide how intelligent one is? Also, one might find out how many
seconds it takes a person to run a certain distance, but what does this mean with respect to his ability—is
it adequate or not? For both opinions and abilities, to the extent that objective physical bases for
evaluation are not available, subjective judgments of correct or incorrect opinion and subjectively
accurate assessments of one’s ability depend upon how one compares with other persons.
Corollary II A: In the absence of both a physical and a social comparison, subjective evaluations of opinions and
abilities are unstable.
There exists evidence from studies on “level of aspiration” which shows clearly the instability of
evaluations of abilities in the absence of comparison with other persons (13, 15, 20, 21, 23).
The typical
situation in an experiment designed to study “level of aspiration” is as follows: a person is given a task
to perform which is serial in nature. This may be a series of trials of throwing darts at a target or a series
of information tests or a series of puzzles or the like. After each trial the person is told what he scored
(how many points he made or how many correct answers or bow long it took) and is asked to state what
score he expects to get or will try for on the next trial. These experiments have previously been
interpreted in terms of goal directed behavior. If we examine the situation closely, however, it is
apparent that the individual’s stated “level of aspiration” is actually a statement of what he considers a
good performance to be. In other words, it is his evaluation, at that time, of what score he should get,
that is, his evaluation of his ability. The data show clearly that if the person scores as well as he said he
expected to do, he feels he has done well (experiences success) and if he scores less than his
“aspirations” he feels he has done poorly (experiences failure) (17).
Let us examine, then, the stability of these evaluations in a situation where the person performing
the task has no opportunity for comparison with others. The data from these studies show that the “level
of aspiration” fluctuates markedly as performance fluctuates. If the person makes a score better than his
previous one, then what was formerly considered a good performance is no longer good and his “level of
aspiration” goes up. If his performance drops, his “level of aspiration” drops. Even after a person has
had a good deal of experience at a task, the evaluation of what is good performance continues to
fluctuate.
Similar instability is found in the case of opinions. When, using the autokinetic effect, persons
are asked to make judgments of how far the point of light moves, these judgments continue to fluctuate
before there are any comparison persons.
1
To the extent, then, that there
are relevant data available, they tend to confirm
Corollary II A
concerning the instability of evaluations in the absence of comparisons.
Corollary II B: When an objective, non-social basis for the evaluation of one’s ability or opinion is readily available
persons will not evaluate their opinions or abilities by comparison with others.