WHAT IS SOCIAL-COMPARISON AND HOW SHOULD WE STUDY IT

Despite renewed vigor in the social comparison literature, little atte ntion has been paid to methods of studying social comparison. This art icle examines frequently used measures and procedures in social compar ison research. The question of whether a method truly captures social comparison requires a clear understanding of what social comparison is ; hence a definition of social comparison is proposed, multiple ancill ary processes in social comparison are identified, and definitional co ntroversies are addressed. Then, methods are examined for how strongly they imply social comparison and for whether they capture social comp arisons as they would occur naturally. It is argued that some methods may not truly capture social comparison, that some methods may be too vulnerable to alternative interpretations to be useful, and that some methods may paint an inaccurate picture of social comparison.