Recently, someone had reminded the author about a unique feature in a data analysis software which provides users with some motivational quotes from famous public figures. One of the quotes was from Winston Churchill that said, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts.” This quote could be associated with an individual’s motivation, that is, the driving factor of someone’s willingness, actions and objectives. There are several theories about motivation state which provide a good understanding of people’s motivations and senses of fulfillment with their life. However, as social media advancement has provided broader access to other people’s lives, social comparison could hardly be avoided, and further impacting personal motivation. While the social comparison through social media might affect personal motivation negatively, the positive impacts of doing so could outweigh the negative ones only if an individual could manage his response and how he processes information in such a way that the social comparison leads to an increase in his personal motivation.
It is relatively easy to feel discouraged or unmotivated when people are in struggle and facing challenges to overcome – sometimes, it wears them out. Despair moment attempts individuals to think about quitting from the event or hiding somewhere because it seems hard to deal with the circumstance. Nevertheless, doing such things could not be considered as appropriate solutions during hard times. It should be noted as well, that a bad moment is not fatal, and it is not the end of everything. Life goes on, however, no matter how people feel, individuals need to adapt and catch up with the circumstances. The tough moment shall eventually pass, and therefore, the moment of crisis is actually an opportunity to grow up better, faster, and stronger than ever. It is all about individuals’ responses and ways of processing information to their unique situations that determine the next steps of their paths. In other words, mind our own businesses could be a sensible way to keep moving forward with our lives and to maintain personal motivation properly.
Take it from the other side, some people might even react to the tough situation with the nostalgia of their heyday in the past. It is imperative to note that success is not final, and it is not the end of everything as well. Nonetheless, some people could be trapped in the feeling of comfort by recalling and telling people about their glory or achievement in the past, which of course might not relevant to the current situation anymore. While in fact, the real circumstances require them to be adaptive, to learn all the time, and to develop as well as equip themselves with the necessary skills, knowledge, and wisdom. This response could appear as another kind of discouragement and reduction in personal motivation to cope with the situation they are facing which further hinder an individual in accomplishing personal objectives. This means that it is not wise and appropriate to quit or to decide to end something based on this kind of biased emotion and feeling. In other words, the courage to continue is pivotal to promote someone to a higher level and enables him to deal with any kind of situation prudently.
Particularly, there might be several factors determining personal motivation and well-being. Among other determinants, one of the most important things in modern life which might affect people’s state of motivation might be social media. Public figures and renowned people could surely inspire society in a good way by their words and actions that are being exposed heavily by the presence of social media, and this is supposed to encourage personal motivation. On the other hand, the same social media attempts its users to be more curious about their relatives’ condition as well as to be more encouraged to share (or expose) their own business (or privacy) to their followers. This might be due to the fact that in general, people compare themselves to those who are similar (Festinger, 1954) in terms of personal characteristics or performance.
It is worth noting that not all social media users are wise enough to have their responses in a proper way. In the time of crisis, some individuals are vulnerable to compare themselves with their relatives, namely social comparison, and as a result, their focus is scattered and their motivation plunge dramatically. An individual could compare himself to another person through upward comparison, which is a comparison with someone who is better than him, or through downward comparison, in which he compares to another person who is worse than him. However, there are positive and negative inhabit in any kind of social comparison.
An individual who conducts upward comparisons on relevant dimensions with his life could threaten his self-evaluation and harm his self-esteem (Tesser & Collins, 1988), which ultimately leads to the feeling of envy with others’ lives and dissatisfaction with his own life. On the other hand, when others’ accomplishments are coming from dimensions that are not relevant to the self and one’s self-evaluation is not under threat, an individual might feel joyful, which in turn enlightens him with hope and inspiration. Meanwhile, an individual could also hold downward comparisons with others’ lives that might enhance his self-evaluation on relevant dimensions, which further lead to a self-enhancement effect (Wills, 1981). For example, when an individual suffering from a struggle he is facing and makes downward comparisons with those suffering even more than him, this might turn his feeling to be more grateful. Nevertheless, recent findings have also found the downside of this comparison such that downward comparisons might lead to feelings of scorn (Fiske, 2011), and the drastic boost of self-evaluation leads to an excessive sense of pride, which eventually would negatively impact an individual.
Moreover, in Social Comparison Theory, individuals tend to make comparisons as a way to fulfill the desire of evaluating themselves (Festinger, 1954). This implies both negative and positive impacts on human beings subject to the way the individuals manage this concept and process the information in their lives. Some pieces of literature suggest the negative impact of being exposed to social comparison with others’ lives, yet it would bring benefit only if individuals could handle their social comparison. For instance, Lee (2020) finds that Facebook users are envious of other people when they conduct upward comparison due to the reduction in self-esteem that further leads to lower life satisfaction. Conversely, users could be savored when they have social support since it would boost their self-esteem, which in turn leads to higher life satisfaction.
In a more applicable example, Centola (2018) reveals that social media could indeed promote people to carry on more exercise, yet only if it is used in the appropriate way. While if it is implemented mistakenly, social media could be a boomerang and brings backfire that leads to less amount of exercise. Furthermore, it should be highlighted that the comparison is conducted with individuals’ peer groups or close friends. According to Centola, this circumstance could cause a natural “social ratchet effect” in which each individual’s activity gives an impact in generating more activities among the others.
Practical ways as personal responses to social comparison should be considered wisely to reap the benefit of it, and hence an individual could manage to increase personal motivation. Those ways including finding role models in each phase of life to learn from their experiences, maintaining support circles that are coming from individual’s family, relatives, peer groups, and close friends, counting individual’s blessings to feel more grateful and joyful, cultivating kindness since research findings have shown the happiness is experienced by individuals who give and help others, and limiting interaction with people who continuously bring negative impact by judging and comparing oneself to the others (Scott, 2020).
In conclusion, social comparison is hard to avoid since it inherently becomes one of the ways humans evaluating themselves. Therefore, it is important to highlight the motivational quote from Churchill in order to keep personal motivation, be persistent and hold their endurance during a tough time, while in a good time, individuals need to keep down to earth, be humble, and be prepared for the next round and journey by maintaining our focus with our own objectives rather than being preoccupied other’s lives. Social media might be an opened-access medium for someone who intends to conduct social comparisons, yet it would be wise for individuals to manage social comparisons in order to increase personal motivation that leads to better well-being.
References
Centola, D. 2018. How Behavior Spreads: The Science of Complex Contagions. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Centola, D. (28 November 2018). Which Is Better, Support or Competition?. Retrieved fromPsychology Today
Festinger L. (1954). Theory of Social Comparison Processes. Human Relations, 7(2):117-140
Fiske, S. (2011). Envy up, scorn down: how comparison divides us. The American Psychologist, 65(8), 698-706.
Garcia, S. & Halldorsson, A. (2021). Social comparison. In R. Biswas-Diener & E. Diener (Eds), Noba textbook series: Psychology. Champaign, IL: DEF publishers. Retrieved from Noba
Lee, S. (2020). A Study on the Effect of Comparison with Others and Social Support on Life Satisfaction of Facebook. Advances in Journalism and Communication, 8, 1-15.
Psychology Today. Social Comparison Theory. Retrieved from Psychology Today
Scott, E. (26 November 2020). The Stress of Social Comparison. Retrieved from Verywell Mind
Tesser, A. & Collins, J. (1988). Emotion in social reflection and comparison situations: Intuitive, systematic, and exploratory approaches. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 55(5), 695-709.
Wills, T. (1981). Downward Comparison Principle in Social Psychology. Psychological Bulletin 90: 245-71.
hope. 