Austin Fontaine 
Megan Novelli One theory that has really caught my eye lately is Festinger’s social comparison theory. In his theory he states that “people compare themselves to others because for many domains and attributes there is no objective yardstick to evaluate ourselves against, and other people are therefore highly informative”
Yardstick, clearly made me think of Boomstick, which made me want to talk about the Rangers. And with everything going on right now, how could I not?
I have a been a Texas Rangers fan for as long as I remember. I love learning about the players, researching stats, and going to games. One interesting thing is the idea of sports and how it reminded me of the social comparison theory. Every time you read stats, anytime you talk about players, they are always being compared to others. Sports is all about performance. If you follow sports you constantly hear something like the following: Lets look at Josh Hamilton’s batting average compared to Derek Jeters. (Lets be for real, Hamilton is infinitely better, but that is besides the point)
I wonder if this idea of performance that we see on the TV leaks into our everyday life, starting as kids. I remember as a kid hearing my dad yelling at the TV if a player failed, or saying that one player was much better than the other. What if this encourages us to look at those around us and compare? Maybe we are influenced by others more than we think.
Megan Novelli
3:16 pm, 10.25.10
Ms. Myer,
I was not surprised at all when I saw the Rangers’ picture. I was curious as to how you would try and relate them to this topic but you did so wonderfully. I (and I’m sure others as well) often find that I compare myself to others. This is seen academically or even in a nonthreatening environment, such as that with close friends. Like today for example when a peer had their paper returned (which I had proofed and therefore feel I deserve .2% of the credit) and saw their excellent grade and then saw mine. Mine was not bad but still we want to be as good if not better to those around us. If we stop striving to be better then we have less motivation. Yet, in comparing ourselves to others we sometimes just seem to feel inadequate.