Frequent Social Comparison And Destructive Emotions And Behavior

Words: 662
Pages: 3

A habit I would like to further consider is the habit of comparing myself to others. Although this habit may seem beneficial in the short run, depending on the situation, it seems that this may ultimately be a bad habit. This is a negative habit because essentially individuals are constantly comparing themselves with the inaccurate images of others through the media. Due to the increase in media usage, it is near impossible to not compare ourselves to others when individuals are posting about their promotion, receiving high academic honors, or even posting images revealing only the best parts of their lives. Therefore, due to both my obsessive urge to constantly check all of my social media accounts and to the posts that merely represent the pleasant moments in life, I have given into the habit of hoping for a life like someone else’s. …show more content…
It is considered a primary source article because the authors of the article performed the research on the habit. Also, the article contains an abstract, the methods used, results, and discussions on the two separate studies performed. The authors/researchers studied social comparisons and destructive emotions/behaviors hoping to find an association between them. Through the first study, the researchers concluded that the social comparisons are in fact, positively associated to and precede destructive emotions, including envy, guilt, defensiveness, regret, and lying. As for the second study, the researchers found from the police officers and security guards that the destructive emotions actually precede the social comparisons. Ultimately, within this second study, the researchers found that police officers that frequently compare themselves to others are more likely to experience ingroup