SOCIAL-COMPARISON AND THE SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING OF CANCER-PATIENTS

Although cancer patients may suffer from more physical and psychologic al distress than healthy persons, they seem not to differ in subjectiv e well-being In this article the influence of social comparison on the relation between physical distress and subjective well-being was exam ined among cancer patients. LISREL analyses provided support for the f ollowing model: First, the psychological distress that resulted from p hysical distress induced a need for comparison. This need, in turn, af fected the frequency of downward comparison. Whereas psychological dis tress negatively affected perceptions of how well one was doing in com parison with others, selectively comparing downward had the reverse im pact, contributing to a feeling of relative well-being Unexpectedly, t hese relative evaluations also seemed to be affected directly by the a mount of physical distress patients experienced. Finally, although bot h the amount of physical and psychological distress had strong direct effects on subjective well-being, the perception of how well one was d oing compared to most others explained an additional significant amoun t of variance. Interestingly, this model was also supported in a healt hy control group, suggesting that we are dealing here with a general b ehavioral model that suggests that social comparison processes may con tribute to well-being when well-being is threatened by stress.