Social Comparison or Association? Effects of Facebook Friend Profile

Viewing on Self-Esteem

 

Holly Slang Dr. Dan Ariely and Dr. Lalin Anik

Center for Advanced Hindsight – Duke University

 

 

 

 

  2  

Abstract

In this project, through a series of experiments, we examined the consequences of online

social comparisons and associations on self-esteem, happiness, and other variables. In

Study 1, participants answered a series of questions that involved viewing friends'

profiles. Participants were asked to browse the profile of a more popular, equal, or less

popular Facebook friend and report on aspects of that person's profile. The participants

were then asked questions about their own self-esteem, happiness, popularity, and wealth.

We found gender differences in self-esteem: men reported higher self-esteem when

viewing more popular friends while women reported lower self-esteem when viewing

more popular friends. In Study 2, we further explored these gender differences in self-

esteem to see whether the differences were due to social association or social comparison.

In Study 2, participants were primed with either social comparison or association. The

rest of the study replicated the methods of Study 1. We found that despite the prime, men

and women still responded differently to questions regarding self-esteem, happiness,

popularity, and wealth. Our findings suggest the existence of a unique interaction

between men, women, and their social networks that can be expounded upon in future

studies.

  3  

Introduction

Imagine yourself logging into Facebook. The first thing you see on your newsfeed

is a picture of your friend. The picture is nothing special, just a smiling photo. You smile

briefly, too, and go to “like” the picture when you see that their picture has over two

hundred likes! There are two possible reactions in this situation. The first is that you,

happy for your friend’s appreciated beauty and popularity, add to this mass of “likes.”

The second is that you, in a huff, click away from their picture, view your own profile

picture, and feel a sense of dejection at your mere seven “likes.”

Such is the social networking experience for most of us. With over 1.1 billion

active users1, Facebook comprises an online population greater than nearly every country

in the world. Society is shifting to a world dominated by online social networking, where

a person’s presence on the Internet is becoming increasingly more influential than their

real life persona. Online behaviors affect our happiness2, interpersonal relationships3, and

perceived social capital4. Much research has shown that we construct profiles online to

reflect “our best selves,”5, 6 in order to make good impressions. However, when viewing

others’ profiles, we tend to forget that others, too, have a similar objective. We feel good

about posting about ourselves online,6,7 but it can lead to comparisons, where we perceive

that others are always happier8. Sifting through a sea of profile pages, we inevitably

compare ourselves to our friends. It is unknown what effect this comparison has on self-

esteem and other measures of personal wellbeing. How do we respond to those that are

more or less popular than us?

Effects of Friend’s Popularity on Personal Measures

This leads us to our first research question:

RQ1: What impact does viewing the profile of someone more popular have on

our personal values (self-esteem, happiness, popularity, etc.)? Someone less popular?

Equally as popular?

The theories of self-esteem suggest that the popularity of another person will

impact us personally whether we intend it to or not. A more popular person will cause a

  4  

discomfort with our own popularity, causing a state self-esteem decrease. The opposite is

true with a less popular person. This brings us to our first hypothesis:

H1: Participants will experience a decrease in self-esteem and other variables

when they view the profile of a more popular friend.

Similarly:

H2: Participants will experience an increase in self-esteem and other variables

when they view the profile of a less popular friend.

The directional effects when viewing an equally popular friend are less clear. In

some ways, seeing someone who is equally as popular can be reinforcing to one’s own

popularity and cause an increase in the dependent variables. On the other hand, laws of

competition suggest that one will desire an advantage among equal competitors, causing

a self-esteem decrease if viewing the activities of one’s closest opponents. We decided on

hypothesizing according to the former assumption:

H3: Participants will experience an increase in self-esteem and other variables

when they view the profile of an equally popular friend.

Effects of Friend’s Popularity on Perception of that Friend

Another interesting phenomenon involves our perception of others who have a

certain number of friends. Do we perceive those with many friends to be superficial or ill

intentioned? Similarly, do we think those with few friends are good people who deserve a

little sympathy for their lack of popularity?

RQ2: Does the number of friends a person has affect our perception of their

intentions and our willingness to contribute to their popularity (through likes, comments,

etc.)?

We hypothesize that it does. A study9 done by Kim and Lee called “The Facebook

Paths to Happiness: Effects of the Number of Facebook Friends and Self-Presentation on

Subjective Well-Being” showed that there is a peak of perceived social support from

others according to the number of friends that person has. This can be extrapolated to say

that we do pay attention to how many friends others have and assume things about them

according to their friend total. This suggests that:

  5  

H4: Participants will perceive a very popular person to have vain tendencies and

will therefore be less willing to “like” a post by that person.

Similarly, again:

H5: Participants will perceive an unpopular person to have decent tendencies and

will therefore be more willing to “like” a post by that person.

Study One

Methods

Participants

The data (N=242, Mage=27.3, SD=8.1, 65% male) were collected through a 20-

item survey via Amazon Mechanical Turk Services. Participants were compensated $0.25

for their responses. Each participant was assigned to one of four conditions randomly.

There were approximately 60 participants in each of the four conditions.

Procedure

Participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions and were asked to

view a Facebook profile. Condition one was the control in which the participant viewed

his/her own profile; condition two, someone with half as many or fewer friends as the

participant; condition three, someone with about the same number of friends; condition

four, someone with twice as many or more friends.

Measures

Self-­‐Esteem.  Assessed by the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale10, a 10-item 4-point

Likert scale where 1=“strongly disagree” and 4=“strongly agree,” with a Cronbach's α

range from .77 to .88. It has five positive statements like “I feel that I have a number of

good qualities” and five negative statements, like “At times, I think I am no good at all,”

which are coded negatively for average self-esteem reporting. Popularity.  Assessed on a 7-point Likert scale where 1=‘‘not at all” and 7=‘‘very

much so.”

  6  

Intention  of  Post.  Assessed by reactions to a screen capture of a status with the

text, “Found out I’m going on vacation! – Feeling excited.” Participants responded with

their opinion of the objective of the post on a 100-point slider where 0 = showing off and

100 = sharing with friends.

Likelihood  to  “Like”  Post.  With that same screen capture, participants indicated

how likely they were to “like” the post on a 6-point Likert scale where 1=“very unlikely”

and 6=“very likely.”

Results

Self-esteem was higher in the self, fewer, and equal conditions, (M=3.08, M=3.03,

and M=3.07 respectively) and lowest in the more friends condition (M=2.9). This means

that an aspect of each person’s profile affected the person’s self-esteem. Viewing

someone with a lot of friends made us feel the lowest self-esteem, which is not surprising

if we are making comparisons of ourselves against that person. We feel best when we

look at ourselves as a result of self Facebook profile viewing being a self-affirmation

activity.7,11

2.8

2.9

3

3.1

Self Fewer Equal More

Self-­‐‑Esteem

F(3,237)=1.19,  p=  .32

F i g u r e   1

Mean response values of participants across four conditions on self-esteem, as recorded by the Rosenberg Self-Esteem scale.

  7  

Popularity was highest in the equal friends condition (M=3.93). The next highest

popularity rating was in the more friends condition (M=3.78) followed by the self

condition (M=3.67). The lowest popularity was in the fewer friends condition (M=3.52).

This means that viewing a profile of someone who has very few friends makes the

participant feel less popular as well. We felt more popular when we viewed the profile of

someone who was similar to us, which supports in-group theories of popularity.

The measure testing the perceived intention of the poster of a status that could be

perceived as either “showing off” (low score) or “sharing” (high score) had statistically

significant results. People with fewer friends had the best intentions (M=68.05), those

with equal were in the middle (M=59.87), and those with more friends had the worst

(M=54.11). This means that number of friends does significantly effect our perception of

the things that person posts.

3.3

3.4

3.5

3.6

3.7

3.8

3.9

4

Self Fewer Equal More

Popularity

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80

Fewer Equal More

Intention

F i g u r e   3

F(3,236)=1.03,  p=  .38

F(2,164)=4.34,  p=  .02

F i g u r e   2

Mean response values of participants across four conditions on perceived popularity of self.

Mean response values of participants across three conditions on intention of a specific Facebook post. Highest value: sharing, lowest value: showing off.

  8  

Using the same post, the likelihood for the participant to like the status of the

person was calculated. The highest likelihood occurred if the participant was just as

popular as the poster. (M=4.22). Next most likely was if the poster had fewer friends

(M=3.66). Finally, the least likely was if the poster had more friends (M=3.27). This

means that we are less likely to outwardly support the updates of a popular person if we

learn that person has many Facebook friends. We are more likely to stick with people

most like us.

Discussion

Across Four Conditions

 

Self  Esteem. The results for self-esteem differences across conditions are not

statistically significant (p=.32), but there is an intuitive directional effect which supports

the hypotheses proposed. Participants who viewed profiles of more popular friends

reported the lowest self-esteem ratings whereas participants who viewed their own profile

had the highest self-esteem ratings. This first effect is likely due to some sort of social

comparison. We don’t feel as good about ourselves when we see someone who is more

0

1.5

3

4.5

Fewer Equal More

Likelihood  to  Like  Status

F i g u r e   4

F(2,165)=4.34,  p=  .02

Mean response values of participants across three conditions on their likelihood to like a specific Facebook status.

  9  

popular than us. The second effect is due to the fact that viewing one’s own Facebook

profile can be an act of self-affirmation. Analyzing our profile makes us feel good about

ourselves much in the same way that looking at ourselves in the mirror can make us feel

good.7,11

Popularity. There is an interesting effect in play in the popularity results. The

intuitive guess would be that viewing the profile of a less popular friend would make us

feel most popular by giving us a boost about our relative popularity. However, this is not

the case. In fact, the less popular friends made the participant feel less popular

themselves. Oddly enough, looking at the profile of a more popular person made the

participant feel more popular. This suggests that perhaps the effects we are seeing are not

caused by social comparison, but by association.

Intention  of  Post. The interpretations of the intention of the post grew

increasingly more inclined to the “showing off” end of the spectrum as the number of

relative friends increased. This difference was significant (p=.02). This suggests that we

do make assumptions about the intentions of a person dependent upon how many friends

we are. There may be an element of superficiality associated with those who have more

friends.

Likelihood  to  “Like”  Post. We are most likely to like the status of someone who is

around as popular as we are. This difference was also significant (p=.02).This could be

due to an in-group preference or a tendency to relate well and respond to those who are

most similar to us.

We also found, when splitting up the data by sex, that men had higher self-esteem

and perceived popularity when viewing more popular people and women had lower self-

esteem and popularity when viewing more popular people. This suggests that there may

be a gender effect that is disrupting trends in the data.

With these conclusions in mind, we set out to design another experiment to test

the unusual effect that was noticed in the popularity measure and sex differences, an

inclination that social comparison may not be the only aspect affecting profile viewing.

Social Comparison or Association?

  1 0  

The results from the previous study created some interesting questions about the

way we perceive others:

RQ3: Do we view others online based on association or social comparison? How

much do we like the person in each? How close do we feel to that person?

In order to find these answers, we conducted two different primes in order to

access the particular sentiments we believed were impacting social interactions on

Facebook. One prime would be a prime of association, encouraging participants to think

about friendship. The other would be a prime of comparison, encouraging participants to

think about competition. We expected these to encourage the participant to think in the

corresponding mindset and make decisions about the other person in the context of that

mindset.

H6: When viewing a profile in a social comparison condition, we will feel less

close to the person and like the person less than in the association condition.

Are there other influences a prime may have not just in how well we relate to the

person, but also in how well we wish them? Will it affect how we want others to perceive

us in relation to the other person?

RQ4: Does association vs. comparison cause a change in how successful we want

the other person to be? How proud we are to be friends with that person?

Theories of competition will suggest that those in the comparison condition will

wish less success upon others when primed to think about a competitive environment.

Those in the association condition should feel proud to be friends with a more popular

person.

H7: We will generally want people to be successful in the association condition

and less so in the comparison condition. We will be equally proud to be friends with

anyone in the comparison condition, but being friends with someone popular in the

association condition gives us a little bit of a boost.

  1 1  

Study Two

Methods

Participants

The data (N=285, Mage= 28.88, SD = 9.56 62% male) were collected through a 31-

item survey via Amazon Mechanical Turk Services. Participants were compensated $0.30

for their responses. Each participant was assigned to one of two conditions and then

further assigned to one of four conditions, both randomly. There were approximately 36

participants in each of the eight conditions.

Procedure

The first random assignment was into a priming condition: social association vs.

comparison. Participants were primed at the very beginning with a short statement. In the

association condition, participants read, “It is important in life to develop relationships

with people” in order to encourage thoughts about friendships and unity. In the

comparison condition, participants read, “It is important in life to develop a competitive

edge” in order to encourage thoughts about competition and individuation. Then, they

were asked to reflect on a situation in which the participant’s assigned strength

(relationships vs. competitive edge) aided them with a short response. The next

assignment split them into the four conditions described in the previous study.

Measures

Self-­‐Esteem.  Assessed again by the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale10, a 10-item 4-

point Likert scale where 1=“strongly disagree” and 4=“strongly agree,” with a

Cronbach's α range from .77 to .88. Happiness.  Assessed by three measures, all 7-point Likert scales. The first was

“How happy do you feel right now?” where 1=‘‘not at all” and 7=‘‘very much so.” The

second was “In general, I consider myself…” where 1=“not a very happy person” and

7=“a very happy person.” The last was “Compared to most of my peers, I consider

myself 1=“less happy” and 7=“more happy.”

  1 2  

Strength  of  Friendship.  Assessed by three measures, all 7-point Likert scales

where 1=‘‘not at all” and 7=‘‘very much so.” They were “How much do you agree with

the following statement: ‘I wish this person to be successful in life,’” “How much do you

like this person?” and “Think about your friendship with this person? How proud are you

to be called friends with this person?”

Closeness.  Assessed by two measures. The first was a 6-point Likert scale asking

about the participant’s relationship with the person, where 1=“stranger” and 6=“family.”

The second was a Venn diagram test with increasing overlaps between “self” and “other”

circles, where 1 is a set of completely distinct circles and 7 is a set of nearly completely

overlapped circles.

Results

Association vs. Comparison

There was a difference between responses in those in association and comparison

conditions on how successful they wished the other person to be (p=.128). Those in the

association prime wished more success on the other person (M=6.16) than those in the

comparison prime (M=5.87). They also liked the person more (M=5.86, M=5.48, p=.122)

and felt closer to them (M=3.50, M=3.15, p=.172).  

Across Four Conditions

There seemed to be a large effect in the differences of mean happiness among the

equal popularity condition and the other conditions. General happiness in the equal

popular condition was low (M=4.62) in comparison to the self (M=4.99), less popular

(M=5.15), and more popular (M=4.94) conditions. Comparative happiness also was

significantly lower (M=4.08 vs. M=4.42, M=4.64, M=4.52). This could be due to the fact

that we may pay the most attention to those that are close in popularity to us and feel less

happy because we perceive them to be happier than us8.

  1 3  

Gender Differences

When separating the data apart by gender, we begin to see that many effects in the

general sample are masked by the confounding variable of gender. The trends across the

two separate conditions of association and comparison have opposite slopes in many

variables between the two genders.

For women, self-esteem increases when they compare themselves to friends just

as popular as them, but for men, self-esteem decreases.

2.4  

2.6  

2.8  

3  

3.2  

3.4  

Association   Comparison  

Average  Self-­‐Esteem  in  Women  

Fewer  Friends   Equal  Friends   More  Friends  

2.4  

2.6  

2.8  

3  

3.2  

3.4  

Association   Comparison  

Average  Self-­‐Esteem  in  Men  

Fewer  Friends   Equal  Friends   More  Friends  

F i g u r e   5

F i g u r e   6

Mean response values of male participants across six conditions on self-esteem, as recorded by the Rosenberg Self-Esteem scale.

Mean response values of female participants across six conditions on self-esteem, as recorded by the Rosenberg Self-Esteem scale.

  1 4  

Another significant difference is in women’s response to those with fewer friends

in the comparison condition when asked how successful they wished the other person to

be. In the association condition, men wished those with fewer friends more success than

any other category (M=6.38). The same was true of women (M=6.31). However, in the

comparison prime, men were less “sympathetic” (M=6.00), yet women were more

inclined to wish success (M=6.58). This underlies a core difference between men and

women, which is responsible for a whole host of interactions: men are competitive and

women are caring. The lower value in men suggests a rigid alignment with merit-based

accomplishments whereas women tend to be more altruistic. Interestingly enough, men

generally reported they were less close, less supportive, and less happy in the comparison

condition, while women felt the opposite. These effects may be seen in the comparison

condition due to the wording of the priming: “It is important in life to develop a

competitive edge.” This priming may have triggered something different in women than

it did for men. For men, a competitive edge may make a man think of sports, the

classroom, or the workplace. For women, they may think of the competitive edge that

men try to gain over others and are therefore more generous and happy when viewing the

profiles of others to try and balance the unpleasantness of competition.

Conclusion

Social networking impacts us in more ways than we are consciously aware. In

Study 1, we found that self-esteem is lower when viewing the profile of a more popular

person, but popularity is higher. We perceive a more popular person to have intentions of

showing off more than an equally popular person and significantly more than a less

popular person. We are more likely to contribute “likes” to posts by equally popular

people. There are significant gender differences in how men and women respond to each

other online. In Study 2, we found men are most affected by social comparisons of those

who are around as popular as them, while women worry more about the extremes, those

much more popular than them. Men felt self-esteem increases when viewing a less

popular person and decreases when viewing a more popular person, while women felt the

  1 5  

opposite in the comparison condition. The genders reacted differently to the prime. This

result could be due to a failure in the wording. However, there are significant differences

in how men and women behave online. Future studies should look to investigate more

perceptions or behaviors associated with Facebook usage. We should investigate the

differences between changes in self-esteem and perceived popularity in that the former

seemed to be connected to comparison and the latter appeared to be association. We

should also conduct another experiment with the focus of uncovering the many gender

differences in online social networking. Gaining some insight into why these behaviors

exist can help us understand our interactions, both online and offline.

References

1. 25 Facebook Statistics. (2013). [Infographic August 2013]. Wishpond. Retrieved from

http://allfacebook.com/wishpond-infographic-25-facebook-statistics_b124260

2. Kross, E., Verduyn, P., Demiralp, E., Park, J., Lee, D.S., Lin, N., Shablack, H.,

Jonides, J., Ybarra, O. (2013). Facebook Use Predicts Declines in Subjective Well-Being

in Young Adults. PLoS ONE, 8(8), e69841.

3. Tong, S. T., Van Der Heide, B., Langwell, L., Walther, J. (2008). Too Much of a

Good Thing? The Relationship Between Number of Friends and Interpersonal

Impressions on Facebook. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13, 531-549.

4. Ellison, N., Steinfield, C., Lampe, C. (2007). The Benefits of Facebook “Friends:”

Social Capital and College Students’ Use of Online Social Network Sites. Journal of

Computer-Mediated Communication, 12, 1143-1168.

5. Ellison N, Heino R, Gibbs J. (2006). Managing impressions online: Self-presentation

processes in the online dating environment. Journal of Computer-Mediated

Communication, 11. 11(2) 415–441.

6. Mehdizadeh, S. (2010). Self-Presentation 2.0: Narcissism and Self-Esteem on

Facebook. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 13(4), 357-364.

7. Toma, C. (2013). Feeling Better But Doing Worse: Effects of Facebook Self-

Presentation on Implicit Self-Esteem and Cognitive Performance. Media Psychology,

16(2), 199-220.

  1 6  

8. Chou, H. G., Edge, N. (2012). They Are Happier and Having Better Lives than I Am:

The Impact of Using Facebook on Perceptions of Others' Lives. Cyberpsychology,

Behavior, and Social Networking, 15(2), 117-121.

9. Kim, J., Lee, J. (2011). The Facebook Paths to Happiness: Effects of the Number of

Facebook Friends and Self-Presentation on Subjective Well-Being. Cyberpsychology,

Behavior, and Social Networking, 14(6), 359-364.

10. Rosenberg, M. (1965). Society and the adolescent self-image. Princeton, NJ:

Princeton University Press.

11. Gonzales, A., Hancock, T. (2011). Mirror, Mirror on my Facebook Wall: Effects of

Exposure to Facebook on Self-Esteem. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social

Networking, 14(1-2), 79-83.