Social comparison theory made simple

Ha Nguyen
1 min readMay 4, 2020

“My friend is much more lucky & talented than I am” 👉 Upward social comparison

“At least I did not get big debt like that guy” 👉 Downward social comparison

Both types can have negative or positive effects.

But we do it for the same purpose: To find out how good or bad we are doing in certain aspects

Especially when there is no objective measure for self-evaluation.

Ha Nguyen

A child advocate & entrepreneur in Helsinki who cares about education, fairness, the environment & sustainability. Stay in touch on IG: @a.second.of.happiness