Logan Sellers's Archive

Festinger's social comparison theory popped into my head the other day while watching college football. I was watching my favorite team the Texas Longhorns get beat by the Baylor Bears, who have been a perennial doormat in the big 12 when I started to apply Festinger's theory to the Longhorns current predicament. As a recognized football powerhouse the Longhorns expect to be one of the best teams in the nation year in and year out. Through the past decade they have finished in the top 25 every year, and more often than not also in the top 10. The Longhorns have learned to compare themselves to their peers as a measuring stick. Instead of using local peers such as Baylor who is a fellow Texas team, the Longhorns compare themselves to fellow powerhouses such as Ohio State, Oklahoma, Alabama, and so on. We get so used to this standard of excellence that we have forgotten the taste of defeat. If rather we compared ourselves to our in state brethren Baylor, we would be more apt to accept our fate this year. But perhaps this measuring yourself to your peers is how it truly works. Maybe adding socioeconomic classes to the social comparison theory would make this theory more realistic. Maybe adding race, religion, and education to the mix would give this theory a sharper edge. Or maybe all of these factors are inherently implied when Festinger said “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." Whatever the case is I believe the social comparison theory rings true for all parts of life.

I was really intrigued by our discussion in class the other day about
the reasons for why we laugh. Dr. McAnulty’s personal example was his
experience at Harding when he slipped on ice and the group of guys
started laughing. They laughed because they had the expectation that
he would fall, but would not be seriously injured. They had all
experienced this same fall, so they knew what to expect when someone
came around the corner. If he would have stayed down on the ground and
held his head, or any given body part they probably would have stopped
laughing within a couple of seconds. I fully believe these
interactions are guided by each persons reaction to the situation. If
the person falls but gets up with only having a bruised ego, the
onlookers will probably laugh because there is no harm because they
see that there is no serious harm done. Another element of this
interaction we did not fully discuss in class is the person’s initial
reaction to the stimulus, then comparing this to their secondary
reaction which is to their audience’s reaction. Considering the
severity of the pain of the fall, the person’s pain tolerance, and
their personal pride each person can react to their audience’s
reaction in a wide variety of ways. For instance, when Dr. McAnulty
fell on the ice if he would have sprained his ankle while falling,
assuming the sprain doesn’t hobble him to the point where he can no
longer walk, he might get up and become angry with the group of guys.
In this same situation he might also try to save some face and join in
the laughing, even though he is in pain from spraining his ankle.
Since this group of guys knows what is coming, their initial reaction
is to laugh, then if the situation calls for it see if the person is
ok. In a typical social setting the expectations would be the opposite
of this because we are not expecting to see someone fall. I think the
decision to laugh in these types of situation is based on expectations
and individual as well as group reactions. A situation that mimics
this is how fans at a football game react when a player from the
opposing team goes down with an injury. If the player isn’t moving the
stadium falls into a relative silence. If the player is moving fans
will talk amongst themselves and try to figure out what happened and
if its a serious injury or if it is something minor such as cramping.
Once a player gets up to walk off the field whether on his own or with
help fans will cheer for him, and then possibly start making
derogatory comments at the opposing team for their players not being
tough or in good physical condition. If a player is carted off the
field, these same comments are not likely to be made. The fans are
reacting to what they can observe from how the player himself is
reacting to the injury, how the rest of the opposing team and fans are
reacting to the injury, and how the on the field medical staff is
responding to the injury. These initial reactions dictate how the
people observing the injury or accident in turn react. I think we
first survey the severity of what happened to the person, then we
check to see how the person responds to what happened, then we react
in what we deem the most appropriate way in accordance with how our
peers react to the situation.

I was reading in the book about Friedrich Nietzsche, and I started
thinking about his ideas on determinism vs free will. His view that we
are only “potentially free” got me thinking about the movie Donnie
Darko. In this movie the protagonist, Donnie Darko, is at a party with
his peers when he begins to see a bubble like tube come out of his
chest and go set a path for him to follow. Donnie acknowledges this
tube and follows it along throughout the house. This tube represents
the path Donnie will take. Donnie chooses to follow the tube possibly
out of curiosity to see where it will lead him. Donnie is different
from the rest of the people at the party because he can see where he
is destined to go, but he accepts it and follows the path laid before
him. The movie doesn’t show him breaking away from the path, which
would lead us to presume possibly that although we can be aware of
where we are destined to go, we cannot influence this in the end. In
Nietzsche’s view I believe Donnie would be considered an enlightened
slave. He follows a path which he did not choose, but was shown to
him. For this reason he is a slave. If Donnie were to break from the
path laid before him he would not only be enlightened, but also free.
I think the free will vs determinism debate depends on perspective. I
think from our perspective free will would be the most obvious choice,
since we are not inherently controlled. On the other hand from God’s
perspective I believe determinism would be the clear choice. From
God’s perspective all events which occur in our life could be viewed
as being on a map, and can be traced and found where our behaviors and
everything about us is rooted from. To sum this up I believe we do
have free will to an extent, but in the end I think we will do
whatever we do in this life and so I believe we are thus incapable of
escaping the grasp which destiny holds on our lives.