Comparing Yourself With Others Happens Because the Ruler Is Outside and the Other Party Was Not Chosen

You learn what someone who started when you did is turning over, and the day’s work will not go in. You see a post from someone in the same territory and pull back what you had put out. You know comparison serves no purpose, and you go and look anyway.

Comparison is not a character trait. It is the default means of evaluating where you stand. Where your own position cannot be measured in absolute terms, the only thing available for reference is where other people stand. And many business judgements fall inside that territory. A reasonable price, a sufficient quality, an adequate pace — none of these can be settled from your own hand alone. So this is not a habit to be stopped; it is a problem of the supply of material being skewed. A habit thins out when you move your attention. A skewed supply does not move by attention, because what enters your field of view is settled before you choose it.

The explanation applied to this state usually sits on the side of temperament. Too sensitive, low self-regard, too many hours spent looking at other people. Each is an observable fact, and the prescriptions — cut screen time, compare with your past self, list your strengths — do work in places. It is only that where they work is how comparison is received once it has occurred, not who is in the candidate set. Repair the former and the latter remains; and after a few attempts with it remaining, the explanation moves to character. The sort of person who compares, in that form.

Two limits are worth fixing now. The state of the material for comparison running short is not covered. Where the material for forming your own estimate is itself lacking sits in starting while lacking confidence, while what is placed here is the side where material does arrive and arrives skewed. No list of who you ought to compare yourself with appears either. The appropriate candidates change with the stage and the territory, so a list goes out of date the moment it is handed over. What can be settled is the procedure for seeing, yourself, whether the distribution of candidates is skewed.

What gets handed over is not a method for not comparing. It is a procedure for returning the value comparison reports into a form usable for judgement. Comparison itself stays. What changes is only who is in the candidate set, and what you carry back from it.

First, the conditions under which comparison starts, and the stage the advertised responses touch. Then the structure by which you do not choose who you compare with, the fork at which upward comparison reverses in effect, and the different behaviour of comparison for abilities and for opinions. Finally, the derogation that accompanies ceasing to compare and how it shows up in the figures of a business — closing with where it can be confirmed that comparison has returned to being information.

What Is Actually Happening During a Comparison

Comparison starts because there is no other means of evaluation.

The theory of social comparison published by the psychologist Leon Festinger in 1954 places its first hypothesis thus (Festinger, 1954, “A Theory of Social Comparison Processes”, Human Relations, 7(2), 117–140). There exists in the human organism a drive to evaluate its opinions and its abilities. The disposition to want to evaluate is placed as the premise before anything else.

And the second hypothesis states the condition under which comparison starts. To the extent that objective, non-social means are not available, people evaluate their opinions and abilities by comparison with others.

This sequence matters. Comparison is not the end but a means that gets selected. The paper offers examples: whether a thing breaks easily can be settled by striking it, whereas whether a political judgement is correct has no physical means of trial. The same holds for ability — how many seconds it takes to run a distance is measurable, and whether that is sufficient ability does not come out of measurement.

That is, in territories where no absolute ruler exists outside, other people are the only ruler. Much of the business territory falls under this too. Is this figure appropriate. Is this quality sufficient. Is this pace slow. None of them has a physical means of verification.

One could judge by one’s own criterion without comparing. There are territories where that is possible. Cases of a criterion of one’s own having arisen without passing through comparison, however, are not numerous. The standard by which something counts as sufficient is generally built out of someone’s standard seen somewhere. Holding a criterion and not having passed through comparison are separate things.

In territories where evaluation is not required, comparison does not occur. People who do not compare their skill at an instrument played as a hobby are not rare. Comparison occurs only when where you stand in that territory is used for some judgement. And working independently, many activities get connected to a judgement. Comparison beginning the moment a former hobby becomes work happens because this connection is created.

Treat comparison as a weakness and the comparing itself gets hidden.

Hidden comparison enters judgement without being recognised as comparison. It shows up in the form of I somehow priced it low, I somehow did not put it out. An unrecognised input is not verified either. Treating comparison as a bad habit amounts to moving comparison to a place where it cannot be seen.

The Responses in Circulation Set Out to Stop Comparison Itself

Six responses can be counted, and five of them are applied after comparison has already occurred.

Cut the time spent looking at social media. Stop comparing with others and compare with your past self. Write out your strengths. Raise your self-esteem. Do not blame yourself for comparing. Concentrate on what you should be doing.

All six land on some stage or other. The first in particular — cutting the time spent looking — is the one prescription touching the sole variable directly.

With that said, look at what five of the six assume. The assumption that comparison can be stopped from the person’s own side. The premise is laid that changing where attention is directed will make comparison cease.

Comparison starts as a means of evaluation. As long as evaluation is required, the means is required. And if no substitute means — an absolute ruler outside — has been prepared, an attempt to stop merely resumes with a different party.

A substitute has been prepared, namely comparing with your past self. This is an effective prescription. There is a condition for it holding, however. It applies only where the past self holds the information the present judgement requires. It can answer am I writing better than last year; it cannot answer is this figure appropriate. The past self does not know the going rate.

Comparison with the past self therefore functions correctly for the purpose of seeing growth in skill. It errs where it is applied to a judgement requiring knowledge of the standard outside. Separate the purposes and both are usable.

There is one further property common to the five prescriptions. Every one of them is a prescription applied after comparison has occurred. They have the shape of changing how it is taken after it has been seen. Only one — cutting the time spent looking — touches the stage before it occurs, namely what enters the field of view. The difference in how they work comes from the different stage they are applied to, not from a difference in the quality of the prescriptions.

Succeed in stopping comparison and the information obtained from comparison is lost at the same time.

This loss does not appear the moment you stop. Going rates and standards hold for a while on what you already have. They stop being enough after the market side has moved. And that it has moved cannot be observed from a state in which comparison has been stopped.

Going rates, standards, a sense of the usual pace. Many of these are obtainable only from comparison with others. Set a price in a state where comparison is cut off and the only ground is the sensation inside you. And the sensation inside tends to tip towards the low side. That consequence is handled in Starting while lacking confidence.

The Party You Compare With Is, in Most Cases, Not Chosen by You

This is the sole variable that can be moved. Which parties are in the candidate set.

Festinger’s third hypothesis states this. The tendency to compare oneself with some other person decreases as the difference between one’s own opinion or ability and theirs increases. And as a corollary it states that where several candidates for comparison exist, someone close to oneself is selected.

In an experiment the paper cites, participants worked around a table in a situation where each could see the others’ progress. In reports afterwards, participants stated that they had spontaneously selected and competed with a party whose score was close to their own.

That is, where the candidates are assembled, comparison automatically selects a useful party. This is a mechanism working properly.

The problem is on the side of the candidates. The principle that a close party is selected presupposes that a close party is included among the candidates. And where no close party is included in the range that enters the field of view, the principle does not operate.

Does comparison not fail to occur if no close party exists? It occurs. In a further corollary, the paper states that where only extremely divergent others are available, the person cannot form a precise evaluation of themselves. It is that a precise evaluation cannot be formed, not that comparison stops. What stops is not the comparison but the conclusion it should return. It starts, and no position comes out.

Candidates can be gathered deliberately. Place yourself where parties at a close standard are visible and comparison returns useful information again. What is changed is not the volume of comparison but the distribution of candidates.

The range entering the field of view is, in many cases, settled ahead of your choosing. This skew does not move directly when you try to correct it. What moves is where you place yourself. Within the same territory, changing where you look swaps the distribution of the candidate set.

Gather information in the same territory and what enters the field of view most is the output of those at the top. Those at the top output more and reach further. And reaching further means being included in that many more people’s candidate sets. The distribution of candidates is already skewed, before you select, by differences in the power to reach.

The skew has a second direction. Parties at a close standard do not publish about the periods when things were not working. What gets published is only the achieving side, so even for the same party, what is visible is only the upper end of the distribution. Having supposedly placed a close party among the candidates, what is in fact being compared with is that close party’s best day.

Upward Comparison Reverses in Effect Depending on Whether the Route Is Visible

Looking upward is neither bad nor good. There is one fork.

Festinger’s fourth hypothesis states a property specific to abilities. There is a unidirectional upward drive in the case of abilities which is largely absent in the case of opinions. The paper places the reason thus: for abilities a value is attached to performing better, whereas for opinions, absent comparison, one opinion is not intrinsically more valuable than another.

That is, in the territory of abilities, looking upward is built in as a structure. Looking upward is not a bias but a property of the object called ability.

With that said, the result of looking upward divides into two. Where the route to that position is visible, the performance of a party above becomes predictive material for your own performance, because the order in which things were stacked is legible. Where it is not visible, it does not become material and only confirmation of the gap remains.

What settles whether the route is visible is the distance from the other party. And distance is settled by how many years they have been at it and from what conditions they began. The information lined up in a place of publication generally shows only where they stand now, and does not show the route.

Cannot the route be found by asking? It can be found in some cases. A route recounted afterwards, however, has been organised as the sequence that succeeded. The detours actually taken and the conditions that happened to fit have dropped out. An organised route, applied directly to yourself, works only as an explanation of why it is out of reach.

There are situations in which a party above returns useful information even where the route is invisible: when learning the standard. How far is being asked for is observable without knowing the route. It holds if the use as material for judgement is confined to confirming the standard. Confining the use means deciding in advance what will be brought back after looking. If that has not been decided, what is brought back is only a sensation of the gap.

Keep a party whose route is invisible among the candidates and comparison starts operating not as evaluation but as verdict.

Evaluation returns a position; a verdict returns a yes or no. The conclusion arrives not as still around here but as not there yet. And the conclusion of not being there reduces the next action. With action reduced the material does not increase either, so the next comparison issues the same conclusion.

Comparison Behaves Differently for Abilities and for Opinions

Comparison about ability and comparison about opinion leave different things behind. There is practical meaning here.

The fifth hypothesis takes up restraints that come from outside the social world. There are non-social restraints which make it difficult or even impossible to change one’s ability. Restraints of that kind hardly bear on opinions.

The paper’s explanation runs thus. Changing an opinion, once the resistance is overcome, faces no further obstacle, because revising a view requires no physical process. Changing an ability, by contrast, has great difficulty lying across it however much the person wishes it.

This asymmetry divides what happens after comparison. A gap in opinion can be narrowed by discussion or persuasion. A gap in ability cannot be narrowed on the spot.

So comparison about ability is carried over with the gap intact. This is why comparison of ability leaves a long tail. A disagreement in opinion either settles on the spot or ends at the point it becomes clear it will not settle. Neither happens with a gap in ability.

Ability too narrows given time. The speed at which it narrows, however, is slower than the frequency at which comparison occurs. Comparison occurs each time information enters the field of view, and ability does not move each time. The difference in frequency is exactly the quantity carried over.

Even in territories where the gap in ability does not narrow, the object of comparison can be changed. As long as it is the same party on the same axis the gap remains, and the axis is not one. This point becomes a matter of who settles the unit of comparison, and is handled squarely in Choosing to stop analysing competitors.

The difference in narrowing speed has one further consequence. Comparison about ability keeps returning the same conclusion for as long as the gap takes to narrow. When the same conclusion comes back repeatedly, it settles as an assessment rather than an observation, because the number of repetitions gets read as certainty.

This asymmetry also has a use. A gap in opinion moves when talked about, so comparing about opinions produces no carry-over. That is, learning how another person thinks is a route for gathering material more safely than learning their ability. Looking at the same party, looking at why they decided as they did rather than at what they put out yields information with less carry-over.

Once it becomes clear that a gap in ability will not narrow, the response divides into two.

One is the direction of raising ability. It takes time, and it is the straightforward way. The other is the direction of removing the party from the candidates. And since this is faster, it is what gets selected in most cases. Removing them is in itself a correct operation, and something accompanies the manner of removal.

The Process of Ceasing to Compare Can Be Accompanied by Derogation

Festinger’s sixth hypothesis handles the process of ending comparison.

The cessation of comparison with others is accompanied by hostility or derogation to the extent that continuing comparison implies unpleasant consequences.

And as a corollary it states that this hostility or derogation arises in the case of opinions and generally does not in the case of abilities. The paper places a proviso for abilities too, however: that in removing from comparison someone above oneself, derogation can arise because of the unidirectional upward drive.

This turns into an explanation of a shape often seen in daily life. A manner of speaking arises that makes light of how someone ahead in the same territory does things. The speech has the shape of expressing an opinion, and its function is the cessation of comparison. Continuing to compare is unpleasant, so work is being done to make the party incomparable.

What makes this important in practice is that the operation discards material for judgement at the same time. From a party derogated and removed, no standard, no going rate and no route enter thereafter. The unpleasantness goes, and so does the information.

Is avoiding a party who does not suit you not a healthy choice? Derogation and judgement look alike from outside. The criterion for separating them is whether the reason for removal was an order or an unpleasantness. Where removed by an order, a judgement that the party’s way does not fit your own higher criterion comes first. Where removed by unpleasantness, the judgement is constructed afterwards.

The sequence of judgement is not distinguishable from outside. Only the person knows, and there are cases where even the person does not. What can be verified is whether, after removing them, information from that territory continues to be taken through another route. If it is being taken, an order; if it is not, removal by unpleasantness is more likely.

There is one further point: this operation can also be directed at oneself, where what is removed is not the other party but you. Stepping yourself off the object of comparison in the form of I am on a different field. Stepping off is in itself a legitimate choice, and if after stepping off you are selling in the same market to the same parties, what was stepped off is only the observation, and the competitive relationship remains.

A cessation by derogation, once successful, gets reused.

The unpleasantness went with that operation, so the same operation is selected the next time a gap is felt. Repeat it and the upper end drops out of the candidate set in order. What remains is only parties at or below your own standard. At this point comparison becomes comfortable and, at the same time, returns nothing as information.

Where Comparison Shows Up on the Business Side

The mechanism shows up as figures. There are three places where it does.

First, the reference point for price setting. The figures others in the same territory put out are a strong reference point when settling your own. And the reference point follows the distribution of the candidates. Where many in the field of view are pricing low, your figure drifts there. The drifted result is recognised not as the market’s going rate but as your own appropriate level.

Second, the averaging of what is offered. Watch a party above and imitate, and what is imitated is the optimum for that party, not the optimum under your conditions. And imitation works against differentiation, because it means taking a position on the same axis. This structure is handled in Getting off the price competition.

Third, the speed of putting things out. The higher the frequency of comparison, the more times you look before putting something out. And each time you look, the standard of what you were about to put out is raised. Raising it looks like an improvement in quality, and what has not gone out holds no standard. The result is that the frequency of comparison shows up directly as delay in publication.

If the standard rises, is being late not acceptable? It depends on the situation. What updates the estimate of yourself, however, is performance accomplishment. During a period of not putting anything out, material does not increase. A state persists in which the standard rises and the material does not.

Reducing comparison does not necessarily raise the speed. Comparison is not the only reason for not putting things out; there are cases of the verdict having been left with the other party. That form is handled in Being preoccupied with other people’s eyes comes from leaving the verdict with them.

All three look, from outside, like caution.

Matching the going rate looks appropriate, referring to those above looks like learning, checking before putting something out looks careful. They have shapes capable of being commended, so no pressure to correct is applied from outside. And uncorrected, they settle the ceiling on both the figure and the speed in advance.

The three reinforce one another besides. Bring the figure to the going rate and, the unit price being low, volume is required. With volume required the time available per job falls, and referring to a party above and copying the form alone becomes rational as a saving of time. What is copied holds no difference, so the figure drifts to the going rate again. The three form a ring, and the way out becomes hard to see.

Whether Comparison Returns Information Is Read Outside the Count

The count of comparisons is not what is tallied here. What is looked at is who was in the candidate set, and what remained once the comparison was over.

First, count the distribution of the candidates.

List the parties you recently compared yourself with, as many as can be recalled. Of those, how many stand at a standard close to yours. If all are plainly above or all plainly below, the candidate set is skewed. A skew is not corrected by will, and it is corrected by changing where you look.

Second, look at what remained after comparing.

After comparing, is information in your hands. The going rate for figures, the standard being asked for, the route being travelled. If nothing remains, it is operating as verdict rather than evaluation. If something remains, comparison is moving in its proper use.

Third, for a party removed, look at whether information from that territory is being taken through another route.

Where there is a party you stopped looking at, has a substitute been secured for the information they held. If it has, the removal was a judgement by order. If the information has simply been cut off without a substitute, the removal was an operation by unpleasantness.

All three of them leave the count of comparisons uncounted. The count is not an object to be reduced. Manage in the direction of reducing it and comparison moves somewhere it cannot be seen, and goes on entering judgement unrecognised.

On the day the work would not go in after learning what a contemporary was turning over, what arrived was a figure and nothing else. The conditions the figure came out of were never attached to it. The work stopping was not weakness; it is what happens when a position is demanded of material that cannot yield one.

Temperament and candidate set are two accounts of the same events. Going to look, and pulling back what was half out, are both things that occur. What divides the two is where the object of repair can be placed. Explained as temperament, that object can only sit inside you. Explained as a candidate set, it sits outside. Only what sits outside moves when you change where you look.

After the candidate set has been changed, the count of comparisons will probably be the same. The same count is no obstacle. Whether that same count is returning a position is the whole of the difference here.

The state in which material for comparison goes on operating as verdict is a matter of where the ruler resides; the mechanism by which other people’s assessments preoccupy you handles that structure, and the reason a state of unstoppable comparison need not be treated as a matter of will is in reading unable to change through cognitive science. The situation of material for comparison running short is handled in starting while lacking confidence, and the work of placing the axis of comparison back on your own side in your own axis is not found but placed again.