Please Stop Rubbing Your Relationship in My Face(book): An Investigation of Online Romantic Social Comparison

• Published in: Canadian journal of behavioural science 2022-07, Vol.54 (3), p.182-193
• Main Authors: Leung, Pauline C., MacDonald, Tara K.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Anxiety; Connectivity; Female; Human; Interpersonal Relationships; Investigations; Negative Emotions; Online Social Networks; Personal relationships; Romance; Self esteem; Social Comparison; Social Media; Social networks; Surveillance; Young adults
• ISSN: 0008-400X; 1879-2669
• DOI: 10.1037/cbs0000307

Despite widespread use and inarguable utility, social networking sites such as Facebook have increasingly been associated with negative consequences such as low mood and low self-esteem among young adults. Given that social media facilitates the ease with which social comparisons can be drawn, research to date has implicated social comparison as one noteworthy process through which negative consequences are incurred. Despite this, there has thus far been scant research on online social comparison of a romantic nature. Specifically, there has been little investigation as to whether those who are romantically single are impacted by the online romantic content of others. We aimed to address this gap across two studies. First, we examined whether single college-aged women are negatively impacted (i.e., lower state self-esteem and higher negative affect) after viewing others' romantic, relative to neutral, content. We found that attachment anxiety predicted negative consequences after viewing romantic, but not neutral, online content. Second, viewers' psychological closeness with comparison figures was examined. We found that women high in attachment anxiety are negatively impacted after viewing the romantic content of acquaintances, but not friends or close friends. Overall, the results highlight that, for certain individuals (i.e., single young women high in attachment anxiety), viewing the romantic content of others-particularly the romantic content of acquaintances-on social media may be detrimental. Malgré leur usage répandu et leur utilité incontestable, les sites de réseaux sociaux, tels que Facebook, sont de plus en plus associés à des répercussions négatives chez les jeunes adultes, comme la mauvaise humeur et le manque d'estime de soi. Étant donné que les médias sociaux facilitent la comparaison sociale, les recherches menées à ce jour l'ont définie comme un processus important donnant lieu à des conséquences négatives. Malgré cela, à ce jour, peu de recherches ont été menées sur la comparaison sociale des relations romantiques présentées en ligne. Plus précisément, on compte peu de recherches visant à déterminer si les célibataires sont affectés par les messages concernant les relations romantiques d'autrui. Nous avons cherché à combler cette lacune au moyen de deux études. Dans un premier temps, nous avons cherché à savoir si les jeunes femmes célibataires inscrites à l'université subissaient un effet négatif (c.-à-d., une baisse de l'estime de soi