Since I was very young, my mother always said to me I should compare my grades got in school to my classmates’ to achieve having academic progress. Then when I grow older, I asked my parents to buy me something my friend already had. They said, “Don’t keeping up with the Joneses.” As we all know that human are social animals who has to get involved to this world.
According to Adam Galinsky and Maurice Schweitzer, both are social psychologists and co-authors of a book called Friend and Foe: When to Cooperate, When to Compete, and How to Succeed at Both, “There is a truth about social comparison: It’s pretty much inevitable, so you may as well learn to use it to your advantage.” In their book, Galinsky and Scheweitzer state that compare yourself to peers is an innate human tendency, whether you think it is good or bad, but it surely play a large role to determine your level of happiness in daily life.
Even monkeys has inevitable tendency to have comparison with others. According to a well-known experiment conducted by Emory University. There were two monkeys stayed in different cages where close to each other. At first researchers gave both of them cucumbers, and these two monkeys were perfectly satisfied. However, later when researchers gave one monkey juicy grape while still gave the other cucumber. The monkey who received tasteless cucumber got so angry that it shouted and shook the cage. Inequality can be perceived easily among many species. The authors write “What this experiment demonstrates, is that our evolutionary ancestors did not evaluate their outcomes in isolation; rather, they evaluated outcomes in a comparative process.” (To see the monkey experiment video can click here)
In my opinion, since comparison is inevitable, we had better to learn how to live with it. Rivalries, can absolutely be motivating. According to a study raised by psychologist Gavin Kiduff from New Yorker University, people tend to have a better performance when their rivals are known, compare to their performance against totally random strangers. It is pretty obvious in daily life. When I run with my friend on campus, I always run greatly faster than when I run alone. Besides, I do believe that competitive and cooperation feelings can co-exist perfectly. Human is a complex combination and absolutely handle emotions that appear to be contrary. My father told me once, if I want to get happiness, I shall seek favorable comparisons. But if I want to get improvement, I absolutely have to find harsh ones.
I found this blog interesting because I don’t necessarily agree with your conclusion. Personally, I do not find it beneficial to compare yourself to others. At least not all of the time. This article gives three main reasons as to why comparing yourself to others is not beneficial. “First, it’s damaging to your sense of self. Second, what you are comparing against is inaccurate information. Third, it doesn’t actually help you accomplish your goals.” I strongly agree with all of these statements. Everyone is different. An example of a third variable our best can not be accurately measured, or compared to, someone else’s best. They could never be identical. No matter how hard you tried. There are countless third variables due to the fact that we are humans and we all have numerous psychological differences.
I found this post to be very accurate. Everyone compares themselves to everyone they see on a daily basis. I know I do it all the time. For me, I try to think of it in a positive way. I feel like I should be the best at everything I do and no one should work harder than me in anything I do. Therefore, when I see someone who I would classify as “better” than me it motivates me to better myself. This is a common problem in our society, especially with teenagers. They see other people and get down on themselves because they see the other people as being “better”. Everyone is unique and no one is perfect, so it is always important to remember everyone has flaws.
I have always found this topic to be interesting. Especially while growing up, it became a trend to tell my parents when other kids got grades lower than what I received and say nothing when my grade was the worst. They would try and make an example of a friend who scored better than myself but when it was the other way around they would say “I don’t care what anyone else got.” Comparison in society does seem inevitable. I agree that instead of trying to beat the urge of comparison, we should embrace the positives and neglect the negatives. Comparison can be used as a tool to drive yourself to be better. However, it is important to compare yourself to the right standards. I have found that comparing my study habits with certain friends will result in a better performance on exams than some of my other friends. I feel as though as long as the standard you are comparing yourself to is positive and healthy, we should embrace it.