Why do I compare myself to others so much?

How the village works

Most people can’t say how good they are at something without a person to measure against. The psychologist Leon Festinger put this into a theory in 1954: when there’s no clear yardstick, we use the people near us.¹ Sixty years of studies later, a large review in 2018 found that people mostly look at someone a bit better than them when they get to choose, and that they usually come away feeling a little smaller, most of all about their abilities.²

That is why the village above changes so much. Your skill stays the same in every step. Only the size of the crowd you compare with grows. The sum is rough on purpose: real skill isn’t one straight line, since you might be a slow runner but a steady one, or a cook who’s great at three dishes. It also assumes people your age split the way your guess of 100 does, and your guess may be off either way.

A big fish in a small pond

Schools show the same thing in numbers. Herbert Marsh followed pupils of the same ability in different schools. Those in a school full of high achievers rated their own school work lower than pupils in an ordinary school did, though both groups were just as able.³ He and a colleague later found the pattern in all 26 countries they looked at.⁴

Why 150, and how sure is that number?

Robin Dunbar compared brain size and group size across monkeys and apes and estimated that people can keep up real relationships with about 150 others.⁵ It is a famous number, but a shaky one. When three Swedish researchers redid the sums with newer data and methods, their answers ranged from a handful of people to over 500, so no single number holds up.⁶ Take the village as a picture of a small world where you know everyone’s face.

What a feed adds

In a village, the people you compare with are mostly ordinary. Online, the comparison pool is close to everyone. In one experiment, students who looked at the profile of a very active, healthy peer felt worse about themselves straight afterwards than students shown a less impressive profile. People who used Facebook more often also saw more of these upward comparisons.⁷

When comparing works for you

Looking up has a better side too. A review of upward comparison found that it can make people feel closer to the better person and give them hope of getting there.⁸ In Penelope Lockwood and Ziva Kunda’s studies, students who read about a star in their own subject felt better about themselves when that success looked reachable, and worse when it seemed out of reach.⁹ So the most useful person to look at is usually someone you could catch up with.

Published 23 October 2026.