How Do We Benefit From Online Social Comparison?

Young June Sah Wei Peng Jina Huh Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies and Media Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 48824 yjune.sah@gmail.com pengwei@msu.edu jinahuh@msu.edu
ABSTRACT

In this position paper, we describe our ongoing work on psychological and behavioral effects of social comparison in social networking sites and online communities. As a framework, we examined the social comparison theory [8]. Researchers identified two core comparison processes in social comparison in an offline contextassimilation and contrast. Assimilation refers to the process in which people focus on the similarity of the target and behave similar to the target. In this case, people prefer interacting with a better-off target. Contrast, on the other hand, describes a process where people attend to the discrepancy of the target and behave dissimilar from the target. In this case, people prefer to compare with a worse-off target. We expect that these processes also occur in online environments. To test our hypothesis, we designed an experiment in the context of an online weight loss community. We will manipulate member profiles (similar or dissimilar to each participant) and their status (better-off or worse-off). We will then test the effects of comparison on online-behavior, selfevaluation and physical activities. We expect that the results can provide implications for utilizing social comparison theory in online health communities, especially in providing personalized suggestions on who to interact with depending on the users profile and current health status.
Author Keywords

comparison process induces psychological and behavioral effects. We expect that such examination provides us with a new perspective in understanding the effects of social interaction in online environments.
WHO DO WE COMPARE WITH?

According to the social comparison theory, people need to verify and evaluate their abilities and opinions by comparing themselves with others [7,8]. This comparison process occurs on a daily basis [15,21]. People likely compare themselves with superior others (i.e., upward comparison) [8,22]. The upward comparison provides people with aspiration and self-improvement [4,10]. Upward comparison also has negative effects. Comparing with superior someone has the potential to threaten comparers self-evaluation [19]. In such case, people respond to the superior target in a defensive way that they discontinue considering the target as a comparable target [1,19]. Researchers also investigated whether people compare with an inferior target (i.e., downward comparison). The authors found that people under a threat prefer to compare themselves with someone in a worse situation [3,11,23]. To reconcile opposite tendencies in social comparison, scholars suggest two distinctive processes of social comparison: assimilative and contrast social process [12,13,18]. In assimilative comparison, people focus on information revealing similarity between the target and themselves, yet people attend to information showing difference between the target in contrast comparison [14]. Thus, people in assimilative process see the comparison target similar to themselves. In this case, we can assume that people will prefer to compare with better-off target because such comparison is likely to produce selfimprovement. We can similarly assume that people in contrast process consider the comparison target different from themselves. In this case, people can be more likely to select worse-off target and promote themselves by contrasting themselves from the target.
MODERATOR OF COMPARISON PROCESS

online community; social comparison; online behavior.

ACM Classification Keywords

J.4 Social and behavioral science.

INTRODUCTION: ONLINE SOCIAL COMPARISON

The content in online communities and social networking sites is created by the users through social interaction. In such environments, people consider each other as informational resources [17], benefit from emotional supports from those in similar situations [6], and accumulate social capital by extending human networks [5]. Also, people in online communities and social networking sites are frequently exposed to messages indicating how others are doing. As a result, social comparison can widely occur in online communities and social networking sites. In this paper, we discuss how the social comparison theory could be applied to understanding behaviors in online communities and social networking sites and how the

Several studies have investigated conditions under which people engage in assimilative and contrast comparison [10,11,24]. Among others, overall similarity of target and comparer is of our interest. According to the selective accessibility model [14], two steps of comparing information exist. In the first step, people examine two

hypotheses about the target: (1) the target is similar to me and (2) the target is different from me. This initial step is executed by briefly scanning salient features of the target. Once the initial assessment is done, they move to the second step, in which they look for evidence consistent with the hypothesis. That is, if people think the target is similar to them, they will further look for similar features from the target, whereas if people think the target is dissimilar, they will focus on the discrepancy of the target. The two hypotheses correspond to the two comparison processes such that when the similarity hypothesis is selected people engage in assimilative process, whereas when the dissimilarity hypothesis is selected people engage in contrast process [12].
HYPOTHESES

experiment with the first two factors as between-subjects and the third one as a within-subject factor.
Experiment Apparatus and Manipulation.

Based on previous study results, we examine the effects of social comparison in online environments. If people see someone who looks similar to them at first glance (e.g., by sex, race, age), they are likely to engage in the assimilative process. In the assimilative process, people will prefer comparing with a better-off target to comparing with a worse-off target (Hypothesis 1-a). People exposed to the better-off target will experience self-improvement due to inspiration from this better off similar target. However, people exposed to the worse-off target will undergo decrease of self-evaluation because they would expect themselves to become like the worse off target due to their similarity (Hypothesis 2-a). In contrast, if people see someone who looks different from them at first glance, they are likely to engage in the contrast process. In the contrast process, people will prefer comparing with a worse-off target than a better-off target (Hypothesis 1-b). People exposed to the better-off target, compared with those exposed to the worse-off target, will experience decrease of self-evaluation due to contrast to this better off similar target (Hypothesis 2-b). Also, we predict that the assimilative and contrast processes yield behavioral effects, such that people in the assimilative process will be motivated to follow the targets behavior whereas people in the contrast process will be encouraged to contrast with targets behavior (Hypothesis 3).
AN EXPERIMENT

In the online weight loss community, participants will see fake users profiles and their messages in a news feed page (a page where new messages are posted in a reverse chronological order). The profiles and messages will be dynamically manipulated according to the participant's demographic and personal information, measured in a prequestionnaire. The messages will be affiliated with profiles of the posters, which reveal posters personal information (i.e., gender, age, and BMI). The personal information will be manipulated for the similarity conditions, such that the similar condition group will see posters of same gender, similar age, and similar BMI, while the dissimilar condition group will see posters of the opposite gender, different age and BMI. The comparison direction conditions will be manipulated by messages, which mention posters diet practices and outcomes of dietphysical exercises, sedentary behaviors, healthy eating, and results of the practice. These messages will be moderately different (20% variation [40]) either upwards or downwards depending on the participants experimental condition.
Participants

We believe that the potential users of the online diet community are those with obesity. Thus, we will recruit a total of 48 adults (age > 18) with BMI over 30 having interests in participating in an online diet community. The number of participants is calculated based on the assumption of power (1 - !) at 0.80, being significant at the 5% level, correlation of the repeated measures at 0.70, and medium effect size of the within-between factors interaction effect (f = 0.2).
Procedure

We will use an online weight loss community as a venue to test the hypotheses. Online weight loss communities allow people to share their eating and exercise practices and to report progresses of their diet. Thus we expect that online weight loss communities can yield plenty of opportunities for people to compare with others. We will make a mockup online community for the study and introduce the community to the participants as a recently developed private online weight loss community. Using the mock-up site, we will conduct a 2 (similarity of target: similar vs. dissimilar) X 2 (comparison direction: downward vs. upward) X 2 (time: pre-test vs. post-test) mixed-design

This experiment will be conducted over the Internet for a week. We will send three emails to the participants, which guide them to the community, and the pre- and postquestionnaires. The first email will be sent with URLs of the pre-questionnaire and the community. Participants will be instructed to visit the community after they finish the pre-questionnaire, sign-up if it is the first time visit, and navigate the community at their own pace. After three days, the second email will be delivered to ask the participants to visit the community again. The last email will be sent four days later with the URLs of the community and the postquestionnaire. Participants will complete the experiment by vising the community and then taking the postquestionnaire.
Measures

We will collect system log files and self-reported data. From the log files, we will monitor how long participants stay in the community and to what extent they participate in the community (i.e., writing comments, and recommending

messages). For self-reported data, we will measure psychological and behavioral outcomes in the pre- and postquestionnaires. Psychological outcomes include items assessing the extent to which people feel competent to obtain healthy practice and they are satisfied with their life (i.e., physical activity efficacy [16], healthy eating efficacy [9], and quality of life [20]). Behavioral outcomes include self-reported physical activities (i.e., hours of physical activity, sedentary time, and days of eating healthy in the past week). The pre-questionnaire will have items for demographic information (i.e., sex, age, BMI) and initial levels of the behavioral and psychological outcomes. In the post-questionnaire, we will ask the same items again except the demographic information.
Data Analysis

communities can be designed accordingly to accommodate the situation. When we design online health communities in accordance with social comparison, it should be acknowledged that the same information of either better- or worse-off targets can induce opposite effects, depending on the comparison process a user engage in. Thus it is of critical importance to understand how to induce users to employ the intended comparison process (i.e., assimilative process with a betteroff target and contrast process with a worse-off target). One factor, as we argued in this proposal, is the demographic features (i.e., age, sex, BMI) as they are information readily processed when a user see the message in first glance. Yet, it can differ across online communities and social networking sites what types of information are available, and what factor makes a target perceived similar/dissimilar for a user to engage in the assimilative/contrast process. Thus, further considerations should be given to ways of inducing an assimilative/contrast comparison in implementing the idea of social comparison in online environments. In sum, our finding will provide important empirical evidence as to how to feature other members in online health communities based on individuals social comparison process, and what consequences the comparison produces.
REFERENCES

We hypothesize that there is an interaction effect such that downward comparison will have positive effects on psychological and behavioral measures when the target is dissimilar while upward comparison will have positive effects when the target is similar. The outcomes are measured both at pre- and post-questionnaires. A repeated measure analysis of variance will be conducted to test the hypotheses. Planned contrasts will also be conducted to explore which of the two result in better psychological and behavioral outcomes: similar and better off peers, or dissimilar and worse off peers.
DISCUSSION

In this paper, we introduced a perspective of using the social comparison theory to examine psychological and behavioral effects of online weight loss communities. Considering that one of the core functions of online communities is to meet other people, it is important to understand how people feel and behave when they meet other people. The social comparison theory provides testable hypotheses on this regard. We expect that the findings of the study will render several implications on designing of online social interaction.
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The findings of the study can suggest useful tips as to how online health communities or social networking sites can structure their members social interaction. Especially, the study provides implications to how social information should be personalized. For example, on the main page of an online health community, the site can selectively present information from others based on a users profile and current situation. If we find that participants like to engage in an assimilative process and desire to improve certain ability or status, online communities can be designed accordingly to accentuate other users who have similar demographics but slightly better ability or status of matter. Also, if we find that participants like to engage in a contrast process and desire to protect themselves by comparing with inferior peers, especially when they are under threat, online

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BIO

Young June Sah is a doctoral student in the Media & Information Studies program, studying effects of interactive media on human psychology and their underlying mechanisms. His research interests include how people experience perceptually rich and interactively natural interactive media environment. He hopes to see a wide range of perspectives on the issue of behavior change technologies from the workshop. Wei Peng is an Associate Professor in the Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies, and Media, Michigan State University. She received her Ph.D. in Communication from the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern California in 2006. She is affiliated with the Games for Entertainment and Learning (GEL) lab and the Health and Risk Communication Center. Her primary research interest is to understand how to better use interactive technologies, in particular, digital games, to influence human behaviors. Jina Huh is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies, and Media and an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the College of Nursing at Michigan State University. She studies how social interaction augmented through online media can support patient self-management. She received NLM postdoctoral fellowship in health informatics from the University of Washington Medicine and PhD in Information from the University of Michigan. Her work has been published in JBI, IJMI, AMIA, CHI, CSCW, DIS, and GROUP, and has served on program committees for CHI and CSCW.