The Effectiveness of Upward and Downward Social Comparison of Physical Activity in an Online Intervention

It has been established that social processes play an important role in achieving and maintaining a healthy lifestyle, but there are still gaps in the knowledge on how to apply such processes in behavior change interventions. One of these mechanisms is social comparison, i.e. the tendency to self-evaluate by comparing oneself to others. Social comparison can be either downward or upward, depending on whether individuals compare themselves to a target that performs worse or better. Depending on personal preferences, the variants can have beneficial or adverse effects. In this paper, we present the results of an experiment where participants (who indicated to prefer either upward comparison or downward comparison) were sequentially shown both directions of social comparison, in order to influence their physical activity levels. The results show that presenting users with the type of social comparison they do not prefer may indeed be counter-effective. Therefore, it is important to take this risk into account when designing physical activity promotion programs with social comparison features.