Psychologists Reveal the Common Trait Among People Who Compare Themselves to Success
Have you ever felt a peculiar sense of relief when you hear about a successful friend, coworker, or a relative of a similar age failing to get a promotion or missing out on an award? This feeling, which you often struggle to admit to yourself and frequently label as 'jealousy' or 'guilt,' is actually underpinned by a quite different psychological mechanism.
Psychologist Leticia Martín Enjuto emphasizes that deriving comfort from someone else's failure is not directly related to wishing ill for that person, but fundamentally stems from the process of social comparison.
Here are the details...
The human mind naturally uses its immediate surroundings as a benchmark to evaluate its own performance and worth.
Feeling that someone of similar circumstances, age, or profession is ahead of you serves as a disconcerting mirror, prompting the question, 'If they could do it, why couldn't I?'
Those who achieve success seem to create a pressure to compare. However, when that person fails or falls behind, this intense point of comparison temporarily disappears. The relief felt is not from wishing ill on the other party, but from the removal of the pressure to remain 'inferior'.
Psychology distinctly separates the desire to overcome feelings of inferiority from jealousy:
Jealousy: It carries the focus of wanting the other party to directly lose what they have and suffer damage.
Social Comparison: It's about measuring one's own value based on someone else's success; it doesn't aim for the other party to be bad.
Research indicates that social comparison hardly ever occurs with well-known individuals or celebrities. The intensity of comparison increases as the similarity rate rises. A classmate studying the same major or a colleague at the next desk becomes a much more direct parameter to gauge their success.
The process is also significantly influenced by how an individual builds their self-esteem.
Individuals who tie their worth to external achievements and praises may perceive others' promotions or rewards as direct evidence of their own inadequacies. On the other hand, those who cultivate a more stable and intrinsic self-respect are capable of appreciating others' talents without viewing them as a threat.
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