Social comparisons and social anxiety in daily life: An experience-sampling approach.

Abstract

Judgments about the self compared to internalized standards are central to theoretical frameworks of social anxiety. Yet, empirical research on social comparisons-how people view themselves relative to others-and social anxiety is sparse. This research program examines the nature of everyday social comparisons in the context of social anxiety across 2 experience-sampling studies containing 8,396 unique entries from 273 adults. Hypotheses and analyses were preregistered with the Open Science Foundation (OSF) prior to data analysis. Study 1 was a 3-week daily diary study with undergraduates, and Study 2 was a 2-week ecological momentary assessment (EMA) study with a clinical sample of adults diagnosed with social anxiety disorder (SAD) and a psychologically healthy comparison group. In both studies, social anxiety was associated with less favorable, more unstable social comparisons. In both studies, favorable social comparisons were associated with higher positive affect and lower negative affect and social anxiety. In both studies, social comparisons and momentary affect/social anxiety were more strongly linked in people with elevated trait social anxiety/SAD compared to less socially anxious participants. Participants in Study 2-even those with SAD-made more favorable social comparisons when they were with other people than when alone. Taken together, results suggest that social anxiety is associated with unfavorable, unstable self-views that are linked to compromised well-being. General Scientific SummarySocial anxiety is characterized by persistent and excessive concerns about making an undesirable social impression. This study supports the notion that for people with social anxiety disorder, these concerns may be due to self-views of being inferior or deficient compared to others. These self-views, however, are relatively unstable, suggesting that they may be amenable to change with targeted interventions.

Social anxiety and interpersonal risk for suicidal ideation: A longitudinal daily diary analysis

“…More unfavorable social comparisons over the daily diary period fully accounted for the longitudinal effect of social anxiety symptoms on SI severity. This finding is consistent with recent work showing a positive association between social anxiety and unfavorable social comparison (Goodman et al, 2021) and is consistent with suicide theories that situate aversive self‐views as a contributor to suicidality (Baumeister, 1990). While unfavorable social comparisons may not always give rise to negative outcomes (e.g., motivation for self‐enhancement; Collins, 1996), they may be particularly pernicious in the context of social anxiety (e.g., increased negative affect; Goodman et al, 2021).…”

“…Each item was rated using 10‐point bipolar scales, where 0 indicated unfavorable social comparisons and 10 indicated favorable social comparisons. Consistent with prior work (Goodman et al, 2021), these four items were summed to create a global social comparison scale. Items were reversed before combining items so that higher scores reflected more unfavorable social comparisons.…”

“…Moreover, people with elevated social anxiety are likely to be hypervigilant to threats to their relational value (Leary & Jongman‐Sereno, 2014) and overestimate how negatively they are perceived by others (Christensen et al, 2003), which can increase risk for SI (Brown et al, 2019). Across two ecological momentary assessment designs using clinical and nonclinical samples, higher social anxiety (at the trait, daily, and momentary levels) was related to more unfavorable social comparisons (Goodman et al, 2021). People with higher levels of social anxiety also tend to view their flaws as stable characteristics (Turner et al, 2003).…”

“…People with higher levels of social anxiety also tend to view their flaws as stable characteristics (Turner et al, 2003). Therefore, when people high in social anxiety view themselves as inferior to others, it may reinforce core beliefs that they are inherently flawed and set in motion psychological processes that motivate SI (e.g., shame; Arditte et al, 2016; negative affect; Goodman et al, 2021).…”

The Relationship Between Social Comparison with Social Anxiety in Youth Users Instagram in Jakarta

“…Based on these results, it can be said that the null hypothesis in this study is accepted so that social comparison has a positive and significant relationship with social anxiety in adolescent Instagram users (Goodman, Kelso, Wiernik, & Kashdan, 2021).…”