The envious brain: The neural basis of social comparison

Abstract

Humans have a drive to evaluate themselves by examining their abilities and outcomes in comparison to others. The present study examined the emotional and neural correlates of upward social comparison (comparison with those who have more) and downward social comparison (comparison with those who have less). Two experiments were conducted with volunteers in an interactive game of chance, in which a putative player won or lost more money than the participant. The results showed that even when participants lost money, they expressed joy and schadenfreude (gloating) if the other player had lost more money. On the other hand when they actually won money, but the other player had won more they expressed envy. This pattern was also demonstrated in a differential BOLD response in the ventral striatum. Comparing the activations between an actual gain and a relative gain indicated that even when a person loses money, merely adding information about another person's greater loss may increase ventral striatum activations to a point where these activations are similar to those of an actual gain. We suggest that the ventral striatum plays a role in mediating the emotional consequences of social comparison.

Social comparison in the brain: A coordinate‐based meta‐analysis of functional brain imaging studies on the downward and upward comparisons

“…Our meta-analysis first identified a consistent involvement of the VS and vmPFC in downward comparison. Based on the role of these regions in reward processing [Carlson et al, 2011;Cromwell et al, 2005;McClure et al, 2004;Rushworth et al, 2011;Sescousse et al, 2015], our findings dovetail with the notion that downward comparison is experienced as rewarding [Bault et al, 2011;Dvash et al, 2010;Fliessbach et al, 2007]. Prior studies have shown the involvement of the VS in the processing of other types of social rewards, including good reputation [Izuma et al, 2008;Meshi et al, 2013] and social approval [Izuma et al, 2010].…”

“…Eight out of 28 contrasts contributed to the cluster in vmPFC (MDE 5 21.26%; 2MDE 5 35.87%) (Table III). Self-gain/other-lost > Self-lost/other-gain 12 Beyer et al [2014a] 40 Self-won/other-lost > Self-lost/other-won 12 Beyer et al [2014b] 41 Self-won/other-lost > Self-lost/other-won 3 Brunnlieb et al [2013] 15 Self-won/other-lost > Self-lost/other-won 25 Cikara et al [2011] 18 Favored team's success/rival team's failure > control 9 Delgado et al [2008] 17 Self-gain/other-lost > Self-lost/other-gain 5 Du et al [2013] 19 Self-won/others-lost > self-lost/others-won 12 Dvash et al [2010] 16 Relative gain > relative loss 6 Emmerling et al [2016] 15 Self-won/other-lost > Self-lost/other-won 9 Fareri and Delgado [2014] 18 Self-won/others-lost > self-lost/others-won: social > non-social 8 Fliessbach et al [2007] 33 Self-won/other-lost > self-lost/other-won 1 self-lost/other-lost 8 Fliessbach et al [2012] 64 Self-won/other-lost > self-lost/other-won 1 self-lost/other-lost 2 Haruno & Frith [2010] 52 Parametric analysis, positive correlation with absoluate differences between two peoeple (self > other) Baumgartner et al [2011] 32 disadvantageous outcomes > equal outcomes 17 Beyer et al [2014a] 40 Self-lost/other-won > Self-won/other-lost 7 Beyer et al [2014b] 41 Self-lost/other-won > Self-won/other-lost 5 Cikara et al [2011] 18 Favored team's failure/rival team's success > control 3 Civai et al [2012] 19 disadvantageous outcomes > equal outcomes 12 Corradi-Dell'Acqua et al [2016] 19 disadvantageous outcomes > equal outcomes 21 Emmerling et al [2016] 15 Self-lost/other-won > Self-won/other-lost 4 Fatfouta et al [2016] 23 disadvantageous outcomes > equal outcomes 18 Farmer et al [2016] 18 disadvantageous outcomes > equal outcomes 6 Feng et al [2016] 40 disadvantageous outcomes > equal outcomes 10 Fliessbach et al [2012] 64 disadvantageous outcomes > equal outcomes 1 Gospic et al [1983] 17 disadvantageous outcomes > equal outcomes 4 Gradin et al [2015] 25 disadvantageous outcomes > equal outcomes 10 Guo et al [2013a] 18 disadvantageous outcomes > equal outcomes 10 Guo et al [2...…”

“…Downward comparisonbeing better than others-often reduces anxiety, induces joyful feelings (e.g., schadenfreude) and satisfies the need for self-enhancement [Amoroso and Walters, 1969;Dohmen et al, 2011]. In contrast, upward comparison-being worse than others-often induces unpleasant feelings (e.g., envy), triggers threat to the self [Aoki et al, 2014;Bault et al, 2008;Dvash et al, 2010;Fiske, 2010;Takahashi et al, 2009], but also provides information for self-improvement [Tesser et al, 1988;Wood, 1989]. With a coordinate-based approach, this meta-analysis quantitatively examined brain areas consistently recruited by downward and upward comparisons based on previous functional brain imaging studies.…”

“…The fundamental mechanisms underlying social comparison have always drawn psychologists' interest [Anderson et al, 2006;Dvash et al, 2010;Lindner et al, 2014;Moore et al, 2014;Mussweiler et al, 2004;Swencionis and Fiske, 2014;Taylor and Lobel, 1989]. The social comparison theory posits that people are driven to compare themselves to others for accurate self-evaluations [Festinger, 1954].…”

“…This type of social comparison invokes threat to the self [Brickman and Bulman, 1977] and provokes negative emotions such as envy [Chester et al, 2013;Jankowski and Takahashi, 2014;Tesser et al, 1988]. In short, downward comparison-being better than others-is often associated with positive feelings, whereas upward comparison-being worse than others-usually triggers negative feelings [Dvash et al, 2010;Swencionis and Fiske, 2014].…”