Social Comparison

About 2 or 3 weeks back, Singapore Airlines announced that they would no longer be providing premium economy class seats on its non-stop flights to the United States, which means that from now on, people who want to fly non-stop to the United States, would have to pay more for Business class seats instead.

In The Straits Times- Lifestyle (29/3/08), Mr Jack Sim, after reading an article from The Straits Times (23/3/08) – Business Class Envy, commented that as he has to work with villagers or slum communities to understand their sanitation or lack of it, it has made him realise that the enjoyment of comfort is often an illusion. In addition, he said “if I think economy seats are comfortable enough, I’ll enjoy the whole journey. If I sit there envying the people in the front section, I’ll look down on my own seat and what I have in life as a whole and be miserable the whole journey.”

Personally, I think that his comment has some element of social comparison in it. Social comparison is the process of comparing ourselves to others to judge the self and it can either be an upward or downward social comparison. Upward social comparison involves comparing ourselves with people who are better off or more skilled than us, while downward social comparison involves comparing with people who are worse off or less skilled than us.

To make himself feel good about flying by economy class, Mr Toh chose to make a downward social comparison by comparing himself to villagers or slum communities. This is so, as perhaps to the villagers, it might be beyond their means to afford an air ticket. Therefore, since Mr Toh is able to afford an air ticket, he should be feeling good about himself. However, should Mr Toh had chosen to make an upward social comparison, he would want to compare himself to people who are able to afford to fly business class or even first class, and this would make him feel bad or even feel inferior about himself for not being able to afford the price of such air tickets.