Emotions in Intra-Group Social Comparison:An Exploratory Study

Social comparison is an integral part of our social life. It provides us a better understanding of who we are, how we are doing, how we can improve and many other things. These comparisons can be on various levels such as inter-personal, intra-group and inter-group social comparisons. Nature and outcomes of different type of comparisons vary because each one has different dynamics. The focus of the present study is to explore the nature of emotions that people feel while making intra-group social comparison. The study being exploratory in nature, interview method was chosen for data collection. Individual interviews were taken from boys and girls in the age group 18 to 25 years. A semi structured interview schedule was prepared for the interviews. Each interview was audio taped and then transcribed for further analysis. Response themes indicate a wide variety of emotions felt by participants. These ranged from feeling of positive emotions such as, happiness, satisfaction, and pride to feeling of negative emotions such as, anger, jealousy, dissatisfaction, grief, etc. Implications of these emotions have been discussed in context of our social interactions and intra-group social comparison.