Social Comparison in AP Psychology measuring yourself against others.
Social comparison is how we evaluate ourselves — by comparing to others. Festinger’s 1954 theory underlies a lot of AP Psych social-psych content. Two flavors: upward and downward.
Festinger’s theory
Leon Festinger proposed in 1954 that humans have a drive to evaluate their abilities and opinions. When objective standards aren’t available (which is most of the time), we compare to other people.
The drive isn’t conscious. You’re doing social comparison every time you check Instagram, look at a leaderboard, or wonder how your AP scores rank against your classmates’.
Upward vs. downward
AP exam connections
Social comparison appears most often in the AP Psych social-psych unit, paired with concepts like relative deprivation and self-serving bias. FRQs sometimes ask you to apply it to a current example — social media is a safe choice.
Frequently asked questions
Quick answers — written by humans, not a chatbot.
Is upward comparison always bad?
No — it depends on whether the better-off person feels reachable or unreachable. Reachable role models motivate. Unreachable comparisons demoralize.
How does social media affect social comparison?
It increases the volume of upward comparisons (curated highlight reels) while reducing the downward ones, which is one mechanism researchers blame for the link between heavy social media use and depressive symptoms.