Why Are You Comparing Yourself To Another? / Underlying Hidden Causes?

 Could comparing ourselves to someone else be a serious problem?  From the first years of life, one of the ways we use to improve many of our behaviors, from learning to speak to how to act in any environment, is to observe people.  To look at others in order to make our own self-assessment of our personality, talents and success, we can choose to compare ourselves with them.  For example, we can learn how collaborative we are in a work environment by comparing ourselves with other colleagues, or we can understand how delicious a meal we make is by tasting the dishes made by others.

I Compare Myself To Everyone

In two situations in particular, we may feel the need to compare ourselves to others.  One of these happens when we are unsure of our own assessment.  For example, in order to understand which of our behaviors will be accepted as warm and positive in a culture that we are unfamiliar with, we can compare our own behavior with the behavior of people from that culture, or we may want to get the opinions of other colleagues if we are not sure how accurate our professional ethical values ​​are.  As a result, we can continue to learn new things in this way and improve ourselves on a subject.

Another reason we use benchmarking has to do with our abilities and performance.  When we compare ourselves with others, we can both measure our success and motivate ourselves to improve.  For example, if a child who thinks that his ear is not good for music realizes that he can catch some notes better than his other friends in the school choir;  this may encourage her to continue the choir she loves so much and to work more willingly to sing better.

Who Do We Compare Ourselves To?

First of all, the people we prefer to compare ourselves to are people who are interested in areas that we find important.  For example, if having courage is more important to us than being physically attractive, we compare ourselves to people who are known for their courageous behavior, although both traits are generally favorably accepted.  Or, for example, if we are not at all interested in sports, we do not need to compare ourselves with a person who is successful in this regard.

Another thing we pay attention to when choosing the people we compare ourselves to is the similarity of those people with us.  This similarity can be found in personal characteristics such as age group, gender, ethnicity, as well as in the level of performance in a job.  For example;  we may enjoy surpassing our peers in swimming races at sea;  but we may not prefer to do the same race with younger and more dynamic people, or we may not even think of comparing ourselves to a successful swimmer.

The Effects of Comparing Ourselves to Others

  One of the important factors that should be mentioned is related to the direction of the comparison.  The comparison we make can be up or down.  We can compare ourselves to people who perform better than us in a certain area, or we can prefer those who perform poorly.  The effects of these two conditions on us may vary according to our individual differences.  For example, when we choose to compare ourselves to people with better performance, if we have a goal and belief to improve our skills in that area, these people can be a source of inspiration and motivation for us.  If we think it's too late for change, for example, if we have the notion that we are too old to get a driver's license, that comparison can make us feel unsuccessful or worthless.  Similarly, when we observe people with weaker performance, we can be satisfied with our position.  We may also show condescending behavior to those people.  As can be seen, both choices can have positive and negative consequences.

  The number of people we compare ourselves to can also be a determinant of the effects of the comparison.  For example, as the number of applications increases in a job with a limited quota, people may feel less need to benchmark.  When the number of applicants decreases, even though the number of employees to be recruited is the same, interpersonal comparison may gain importance and therefore, individuals may make more efforts to make their interview go well.

  Another factor that determines the effect of benchmarking is the proximity to the standard in the field in which the comparison is made.  The closer you get to a standard, the greater the anxiety of benchmarking.  For example, in a sporting event where the winner will be awarded, the tension between the 2nd and 3rd place people may be higher than the people at the bottom of the standings.  As people move away from the standard point, their motivation for success may weaken.

  The effect of benchmarking may also vary depending on the context.  For example, an average-achieving student may feel less academically incompetent when he or she attends a school with relatively more successful students.  On the other hand, in a school consisting of students with below average achievement, the academic satisfaction of the same student may increase.

  When we evaluate all these, we cannot say that making comparisons is only positive or negative behavior.  That's why it's important to evaluate how this will affect you when making comparisons. If You Find This Article Useful, You Can Share It With Your Favorite Friends