Most of the time, the self esteem of girls is impacted by their tendency to compare themselves with others. For example, if you are a girl and if you go to a gym to keep yourself in shape, you may tend to compare yourself with others and this may impact your self esteem.
What may be the other areas of comparisons?
In fact, such comparisons take place in other aspects like their performance in studies, appearance, lifestyle, wealth or social status. Girls tend to compare themselves not only with known people but even with strangers. A research was conducted to study these tendencies and for doing this research, experts enlisted cellphones so that they could find out the immediate reactions of the girls when they compared themselves with others. Those girls who were studied were asked to record their comparisons.
Findings of the study
The findings of the study are quite interesting. Those young girls with the most diverse types of friends are not as much envious as those who have less diverse types of friends. This means that when girls have diverse types of friends, they are able to develop a higher degree of tolerance than others. These girls readily empathize with others also. Their civic engagement capabilities are also higher.
Another surprising element found by the researchers is all the topics of comparison do not elicit the same amount of reaction or response in these girls. For example, when these girls compared themselves with another who had out-performed them in their studies, the feelings were less intense than those feelings of envy they had when comparisons of their looks were made. From this, these researchers on self esteem have tentatively concluded that comparisons of looks or appearance elicit responses that are different from those of other comparisons.
One of the findings of the study was that nearly 90 percent of the girls compared themselves with those who were seated by their side and not with celebrities. These researchers want to continue this study by broadening their sample. They want to include men along with straight women since, according to them, gay men may also tend to compare due to their body-image issues.
Purpose of these studies
The intention of the study is to find the negative impact of such comparisons. One of the negative impacts may be lowered self-esteem.
What do these experts advise young girls?
These experts advise young girls to focus on the benefits they can get by comparing themselves with others. For example, if they compare themselves with an athlete, they should focus more on the benefits of having a fit physique than on the looks. By doing so, they will also be motivated to do their exercises, eat properly and have a healthy and fit body. This means that they will not have envious feelings but will get inspiration. These experts also advise these young girls to have friends with diverse backgrounds like different ethnicities, ages, genders, religions and so on.