Social comparison

Because of socialness one mixes with others, communicates with others, assimilates oneself with others and tries to establish a sharing relation with others. But this sharing relation has serious limitations. Generally there are certain things, ideas and plans one has, that one does not like to share with all others. One likes to reserve them for oneself or for a selected few. Just as one likes to assimilate oneself with others, one also likes to differentiate oneself from others. One likes to realize oneself as unique in some important respects. This uniqueness implies inequality with others and taken in comparative or competitive spirit can indicate one’s superiority or inferiority to others. Hence social-ness which is indicated by sharing relation, sense of equality and communication is necessarily surrounded by a sense of inequality and uniqueness which indicates isolated-ness and unsocialness. But this unsocialness has a natural tendency to be communicated and shared in a social framework and hence it leads to a social manifestation. Social-ness and unsocial-ness in
-- Journal of East West thought