As noted previously, the seminal paper "A Theory of Social Comparison Processes" of Festinger (1954a) outlined in particular the information-seeking aims of social comparison. Festinger (1954b) assumed that individuals strive "to hold correct opinions, beliefs and ideas about the world in which [they live]" and are motivated "to know precisely what [their] abilities enable [them] to do in this world" (italics in the original, p. 194).

When the accuracy of individuals' opinions and the level of their capabilities could not be appropriately tested against physical or objective standards, it was proposed that comparison with other similar individuals would provide people with useful information to obtain a subjective feeling of accuracy in their self-evaluations. Whereas Festinger emphasized that social comparisons are aimed at making accurate self-evaluations, in the decades following Festinger's pioneering work a growing body of literature revealed other motives for social comparison.

Hakmiller (1966) and Thornton and Arrowood (1966) were the first to suggest that social comparison may also serve the purpose of self-enhancement, the need of "sustaining or reasserting the favorability of the individuals self-regard" (Hakmiller, 1966, p. 37). Subsequently, research on social comparison has acknowledged self-enhancement as a second major reason to engage in social comparison (see Wayment & Taylor, 1995; Wood, 1989, for reviews). This motive has gained increasing attention since Wills' (1981) influential paper on downward comparison theory in which he proposed that specifically when people experience a threat to their psychological well-being, the need for self-enhancement will prevail over that of self-evaluation.

In his model of downward social comparison, Wills (1981) reasoned that people can enhance their subjective well-being through downward comparisons, that is, by comparing themselves to others who are doing worse on the same dimension under evaluation. According to this model, contrasting oneself with others worse off will reveal one's own superiority over others, thus enabling individuals to feel better about their own situation.

In addition, Wills (1987) discussed several specific cognitive responses that serve the purpose of making people feel comparatively fortunate. Although such downward comparisons may be achieved in various ways, such as taking advantage of encounters with inferior comparison targets, according to Wills (1987), downward comparisons often consist of a process in which individuals cognitively construct downward comparison targets, or derogate others' abilities and personal attributes.

Similar cognitive strategies were previously put forward in a selective evaluation model as proposed by Taylor, Wood, and Lichtman (1983). Based on the research on cognitive adaptation of breast cancer patients, Taylor et al. proposed various cognitive strategies which people could use in an attempt to minimize their negative self-images and to reduce the consequent threat to their well-being. Although this model does not provide an exhaustive list of possible responses to stress (cf. Wood & Taylor, 1991), it does provide a worthwhile model to show a general tendency for distressed individuals to evaluate their own situations in such a way that it becomes cognitively more bearable.

Indeed, correlational studies have shown that the perception of doing better than others is a better predictor of overall life satisfaction and positive affect than objective measures (e.g., number of friends, grade point average; Emmons and Diener, 1985). In addition, a number of studies have provided evidence for the relation between cognitive downward comparison and improvements in subjective well-being (see Taylor & Brown, 1988, for a review), or what according to Gibbons and Gerrard (1991) might simply be called general satisfaction (cf. Emmons & Diener, 1985). That is, the realization of one's own superiority over others may lead to improvements in mood states, life satisfaction, self-esteem, and optimism (see Gibbons & Gerrard, 1991; Wills, 1981, 1991a, for reviews).

Research has shown that presentation of information about worse-off individuals improves the mood of depressed individuals and those with low self-esteem (Gibbons, 1986; Gibbons & Gerrard, 1989). For instance, in a study by Reis, Gerrard, and Gibbons (1993) among undergraduate women who listened to taped statements of a college woman who related using contraceptive methods, comparison with a downward, more ineffective target resulted in greater self-esteem improvement than comparison with an upward, more effective target, particularly among women with low self-esteem.