Unrealistic Social Comparison

The Social Comparison theory was originally developed by Leon Festinger in 1954 to explain how and why people evaluate themselves in comparison with others. Festinger hypothesized that people have a need to objectively compare themselves, but if objective standards are not available, people will engage in social comparison. Social comparisons are separated into two groups; people that compare themselves to others that perform better and people that compare themselves to others that perform worse. In an …

…pressure from the media to shape themselves to a specific body style to gain acceptance by better understanding themselves, and channeling all their energy to develop the profound character that lies within them. I use women in this example because I feel I might more effectively gather critical information to benefit this purpose, but in reality I believe all humans have the tendency to unrealistically evaluate themselves and therefore believe my findings will benefit all.