Young ballerinas at the Lincoln Center, comparing height. Seeing how you
measure up to others in material goods and achievements can be
disheartening, but it can also be a good way to challenge yourself and learn.
By ALINA TUGEND
Published: July 1, 2011
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“TO compare is to despair,” the saying goes, and I’ve generally found it to be
true. If I try hard enough (and sometimes even if I don’t) I can usually find
someone who performs better or has more. And I can feel bad about it.
I objectively know that my own life is pretty good, but this upward
comparison, as economists and psychologists call it, can somehow dim my
own accomplishments. “Comparison is rife with danger, but it’s
understandable why we do it,” said Heidi Grant Halvorson, a social
psychologist. “We’re human beings and we naturally seek information.”
One way to get information, Ms. Halvorson said, is to turn to experts. Another
way is to look at those around us.
And often what we see in our neighborhood or community is more important,
in our minds, than anything else. Economic studies have shown, for example,
that once they make a certain amount of money to cover basics, most people
care more about relative, rather than absolute, income.
That is, most of us feel better if we make, say, $100,000 if the majority of our
neighbors make $75,000 than if we earn $150,000 when most of our friends
bring in $200,000.
One such study, “Neighbors as Negatives: Relative Earnings and Well-
Being,” published in 2005 in The Quarterly Journal of Economics, found that
“higher earnings of neighbors were associated with lower levels of self-
reported happiness.”
The paper cites the oft-quoted saying by the economist and philosopher John
Stuart Mill: “Men do not desire to be rich, but to be richer than other men.”
Erzo F. P. Luttmer, the author of the study and an associate professor of
economics at Dartmouth College, said in a telephone interview that neighbors
“influence what you think is a normal lifestyle, and you struggle to keep up.”
We’re often told to avoid comparing, but this is both difficult and not
necessarily wise advice in all situations.
Ms. Halvorson, who is also author of the book “Succeed: How We Can Reach
Our Goals” (Hudson Street Press, 2010), said we needed to think about why
we were seeking the information. “Upward comparison can be punishing and
make you feel terrible,” she said. “But you can also look upward to learn.”
If we feel bad, for example, about how well we just played in a game of
tennis, we can check out those who play worse to make ourselves feel better,
and avoid watching the semi-pros on the other court.
Or, if we believe that we can improve and learn by looking at others — and
not just feel inferior about playing worse — then we can watch the better
players.
There are also pros and cons to comparing ourselves with people worse off
than ourselves. It’s not good if we’re just trying to gain a sense of superiority
or avoiding challenging ourselves to do better.
But such downward comparisons can remind us of our own fortune. They can
also help us when we think about the things we regret but we cannot change.
As part of a study co-written by Isabelle Bauer, a clinical psychologist in
Toronto, 104 people of various ages were asked to complete a survey about
their greatest misgivings — choosing the wrong career path, or failing to
make amends to someone who passed away or marrying the wrong person.
The study found that those who felt that other people had regrets that were
“more” or “much more” severe reported an increase in positive emotions
when reassessed four months later compared with those who said that other
people’s regrets were “less” or “much less” severe.
“If you can’t change what you did, then downward social comparison helps
us gain perspective,” Ms. Bauer said. “And those people are able to move on
and re-engage in other goals. If you compare upward about things you can’t
change, then you seem to just feel stuck.”
But those who compared themselves downward and had the opportunity to do
something about their regrets didn’t feel any more positive over time, she
said.
Comparisons can also serve as a reality check, particularly when speaking
about money.
My colleague Ron Lieber, for example, wrote about NetworthIQ, a site that
allows people to anonymously post their own net worth. Would we be happier
and healthier, he asked readers, if we knew the net worth of our friends,
colleagues and neighbors?
The overwhelming response was no. As one commenter put it: “I am
sickened by the idea of calculating one’s ‘net worth’ in terms of money. It’s
good to have savings and it’s good to have a nest in which one can nestle
when one exceeds productive years. However, to express your worth in
terms of the ‘how much?’ question is one more step toward dehumanization.
I’d rather figure out my net worth in terms of how much I am worth to the
world in which I live.”
Not everyone feels that way, of course, and plenty of people have posted
their profiles on NetworthIQ.com.
ING Retirement, a United States-based division of the Dutch financial
services group, a few years ago introduced INGCompareME.com , which
allows you to anonymously type in your profile — your age, income, gender
and marital status.
Then you answer some personal finance questions, like the amount of money
you’ve put aside for retirement , your mortgage payments, what you think
you’ll need to save to retire comfortably and so on. You are then instantly
compared with your peers.
I answered some of the questions and seemed pretty average. I guess I was
pleased our retirement savings were slightly higher than those of the other
1,071 people who answered the question with a similar profile, but I also
wasn’t sure if I should be.
Might it just mean that all of us are saving too little? Was I getting a false
sense of security?
Not at all, said Denis-Martin Monty, vice president of emerging product
development at ING Retirement. Rather, it is a useful tool to get us to think
about things we often don’t want to — like how much (or little) we’ve put
away for retirement.
The site was initially tested among 28,000 employees of ING’s larger clients.
When asked at the end of the survey, 64 percent of those who measured
themselves chose to take some sort of positive action, like enroll in a
retirement plan or increase their savings rate.
Mr. Monty also pointed out that studies show that most of us think we’re
above average, what he called the Lake Wobegon effect.
“We tend to overestimate where we stand in comparison to other people,” he
said. So people aren’t necessarily looking at how much more they’re
actually saving than other people, he said, but how much more they thought
they were saving.
The site recently hit the million-user mark, Mr. Monty said.
David Laibson, a professor of economics at Harvard University, who has
looked at the impact of providing peer information on retirement savings
decisions (it can be helpful, but not always) agreed that such comparisons
can serve a purpose
“Comparisons to large groups of peers are often useful,” he said. “It’s never
the final word on what I should do, but it does give me food for thought.”
I doubt most of us are ever going to stop comparing ourselves with others.
The most important point to keep in mind, however, is as Ms. Halvorson said:
“There’s a lot of imperfect comparison going on. We never see the whole
picture.”