How an individual interprets a relationship social comparison have implications for the self and one’s relationship; we studied the effects on relationship satisfaction & commitment, satisfaction with life, & happiness for both dating & married individuals

Rolf Degen summarizing: People compare their romantic relationships to those of others in ways that make their own look better. https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1024514641668567040

Relationship social comparisons in dating and marital relationships: Adding relationship social comparison interpretations. Marian M. Morry & Tamara A. Sucharyna. The Journal of Social Psychology, https://doi.org/10.1080/00224545.2018.1498826

ABSTRACT: How an individual interprets a relationship social comparison may have important implications for the self and one’s relationship. We asked whether these interpretations significantly mediated the relation between the manipulated social comparison direction and relationship satisfaction, relationship commitment, satisfaction with life, and happiness for both dating (Studies 1 and 2) and married (Study 2) individuals. Participants were randomly assigned to make an upward or downward comparison to a friend’s romantic relationship and completed measures of their interpretations, relationship quality, satisfaction with life, and happiness. For both dating and married individuals, there were indirect effects of manipulated social comparison direction through the interpretations for all dependent variables. Although there were some differences in mediation for married and dating individuals, the effect sizes were not significantly different.

KEYWORDS: Cognitions, relationship quality, relationship type, social comparisons