Social comparison: The effect on self and others
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Exploring the role of social comparison in the process of making judgements about others, and making judgements about self.
IRAS ID
164321
Contact name
Ghada Al-Kharboush
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
King's College London
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 10 months, 6 days
Research summary
The study will comprise two main parts. The first part will consist of an observational study exploring the impact of looking at idealised facial images on personal facial satisfaction. Previous research (Newton & Minhas 2005) has shown that some individuals respond to idealised pictures of faces by demonstrating decreased satisfaction with their own appearance. The authors suggest that this occurs through a process of 'social comparison' whereby the person compares themselves with others and finds themselves wanting. It would appear that some people are more susceptible to this effect than others, - we call this group those who are high in social comparison. The second part of the study comprises an observational study where individuals make judgements of a face which has been digitally modified to show crowded teeth. Again previous research has shown that individuals make negative judgements about faces that have dental disease (Newton et al 2003; Somani et al 2010). We are exploring the hypothesis that this also occurs through 'social comparison' by examining whether those people who are most affected by viewing idealised images (that is who are high on social comparison) also make the most negative judgements when they view the face with a dental anomaly, specifically an orthodontic malocclusion.
REC name
London - Chelsea Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/LO/0358
Date of REC Opinion
23 Mar 2015
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion