A Cross-Cultural Study on the Effects of Envy-Evoking Ads

Ads often feature celebrities or others similar to the target viewer and thereby evoke envy. Envy occurs when people make an upward social comparison, and evoked envy can be either benign or malicious. The authors propose that people with different self-construals feel different degrees of benign and malicious envy depending on who is being envied: a celebrity or a similar other. Three studies were conducted comparing Americans to Koreans (Study 1), Americans to the Chinese (Study 2), and Koreans with different self-construals (Study 3). The results showed that people with high independence showed less benign envy toward the celebrity ad than toward the similar others ad, while people with low independence showed the opposite pattern. People with high interdependence showed less malicious envy toward the celebrity ad than toward the similar others ad, while people with low interdependence showed the opposite pattern.

Social comparison and envy on social media: A critical review

Popular concern and much research assumes that (passive) social media use decreases well-being by providing a fertile ground for harmful (upward) social comparison and envy. The present review critically summarizes empirical evidence on this assumption. We first comprehensively synthesize existing studies, with a focus on the most recent publications (2019 to 2021). Results show that earlier research finds social comparison and envy to be common on social media and linked to lower well-being. Yet, increasingly, newer studies contradict this conclusion, finding positive links to well-being as well as heterogeneous, person-specific, conditional, and reverse or reciprocal effects. The review further identifies four critical conceptual and methodological limitations of existing studies, which offer new impulses for future research.

The contributions of social comparison to social network site addiction

Excessive use of social network sites (SNSs) can often lead to negative consequences of frequent upward social comparisons despite having the social network platform to present users in a favorable light. However, the existing literature gives little evidence to social comparison related antecedents and consequents of uncontrollable use of SNSs. The present study aimed to investigate the contributions of social comparison to SNS addiction. In Study 1, using a convenient sample in Austria (n = 103), we showed that the tendency to engage in social comparisons of ability (but not of opinion) predicted self-reported SNS addiction over and above the feelings of relative deprivation on social support and status. SNS addiction mediated the relations between social comparison of ability and stress, but not self-esteem. In Study 2, using a broad sample of participants in Austria (n = 500), we replicated the findings observed in Study 1 and showed that contrastive upward social comparison emotions (i.e., envy, depression) mediated the relation between SNS addiction and lower self-esteem whereas the contrastive downward social comparison emotion (i.e., contentment) mediated the relation between SNS addiction and higher self-esteem. Our findings suggest that SNS addiction closely relates to psychological constructs relevant to social comparison, mediates the link between social comparison of ability and detrimental consequences (i.e., stress, well-being) and demonstrate how social comparison emotions relate to both positive and negative associations between SNS addiction and self-esteem.

Social Comparison on Social Media Increases Career Frustration: A Focus on the Mitigating Effect of Companionship

Social media has become a platform for the daily exchange of information. Although some studies have explored the role and influence of social media on career development, few have examined how daily social media use impacts individuals’ perceptions and emotions regarding their careers. The present study examined this issue using two surveys. We predicted that social comparison would mediate the link between social media usage and its psychological impact. Moreover, we hypothesized that the impact would be mitigated by social interactions (companionship). Study 1 (a self-reported survey that included 309 Japanese employees) demonstrated that viewing other users’ positive posts about their careers could lead to career frustration through social comparison. Concurrently, this study revealed that daily casual interaction with others reduced career frustration. Study 2 was based on an analysis of 1,254 responses obtained from a 7-day experience sampling method survey. It revealed that viewing other people’s career-related posts was associated with upward, downward, and non-directional social comparison. In turn, upward social comparison evoked career frustration at both between- and within-person levels, while downward comparison decreased career frustration at a between-person level. Similar to Study 1, the results of Study 2 indicated that career frustration was mitigated by casual communication with others. Both studies provide evidence that (1) daily social media use affects one’s perception and feelings about their career through social comparison, and (2) career frustration evoked through virtual interactions with others is mitigated by casual interactions in a face-to-face setting.

Effect of Upward Social Comparison in SNS on Depression among Middle School Students: The Mediating Effect of Self-Deprecation and the Moderated Mediating Effect of Cognitive Flexibility

The purpose of this study was to examine the mediating effect of middle school students’self-deprecation in the relationship between upward social comparison in social network service (SNS) and depression and the moderated mediating effect of cognitive flexibility. The participants were 288 middle school students, in the first to third grades from four middle schools located in Seoul, Gyeong-gi, and Jeonnam. The date were analyzed with descriptive statistics, Pearson’s correlation coefficients and the Process Macro Model 4, 1, and 14.The results of this study are as follows. First, an upward comparison in SNS has a significant positive influence on students’depression, and students' self-deprecation of students mediated the relation between two. Second, the level of control, which is a sub-factor of cognitive flexibility, moderated the mediating effect of self-deprecation. That is, if students are more likely to perceive difficult situations as controllable, upward social comparison in SNS mediated by self-deprecation has smaller effect on depression.Based on these results, we suggest practical interventions to reduce depression among middle school students by decreasing upward social comparison in SNS and self-deprecation. In addition, helping students perceive difficult situations as controllable could be another effective way of reducing depression among those students who have a high level of self-deprecation in upward social comparison in SNS.

Parental Social Comparison Related to Tutoring Anxiety, and Guided Approaches to Assisting Their Children's Home Online Learning During the COVID-19 Lockdown

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused great disruption in education systems around the world. Schools have in some cases ended or limited on-site teaching, and have shifted toward home online teaching. This situation is likely to cause increased uncertainty and anxiety for parents who on one hand may question the quality of home online learning yet, on the other, may not feel sufficiently confident or competent to guide their children's home online learning. Resulting anxiety is expected to be most evident in competitive educational contexts, such as those found throughout much of East Asia. Therefore, using China as the setting, and social comparison theory as the framework, this study examined how variation in parent social comparison relates to parent tutoring anxiety and, in turn, to the types of guided strategies parents use to promote their children's home online learning. The results indicated a positive relationship between parental upward social comparison and parental tutoring anxiety, but a negative relationship between parent downward social comparison and parental anxiety. Parental tutoring anxiety is positively related to the confirmation and structure types, but negatively related to the discovery type of guided approaches. The implication of this study is that parents who resist tendencies of competitive upward social comparison are likely to adopt more effective approaches to guiding their children's home online learning.

Influence of Group Identification on Malicious and Benign Envy: A Cross-Sectional Developmental Study

Envy is the result of a social comparison that shows us a negative image of ourselves. The present study addresses the effect of the context of group comparison and group identification on children's expression of this emotion. Through different stories, participants aged between 6 and 11 years were exposed to four contexts of upward social comparison in which they had to adopt the role of the disadvantaged character. From their emotional responses and their decisions in a resource allocation task, three response profiles were created: malicious envy, benign envy, and non-envy. Although we found important differences between verbal and behavioral responses, the results showed greater envy, both malicious and benign, when the envied was an out-group. On the other hand, when the envied belonged to the in-group and competed with a member of the out-group, malicious but not benign envy practically disappeared. With age, envious responses decreased, and non-envious responses increased. The role of social identity in the promotion and inhibition of envy is discussed, as well as the acquisition of emotional display rules in the benign envy and non-envy profiles.