Self-Esteem and Social Comparison Behaviour among University Students

Abstract

University students increasingly encounter comparison cues extending beyond conventional academic competition into digitally mediated domains of achievement, appearance, lifestyle, popularity, and career success. This study examines the relationship between self-esteem and social comparison behaviour while distinguishing comparison direction (upward versus downward) and domain (academic, social, appearance, and career-related comparison). A key research gap concerns the tendency of existing studies to treat social comparison as a single global construct or to examine it primarily as a consequence of general social-media exposure. The proposed research therefore adopts a multidimensional framework integrating psychometric assessment with digitally relevant behavioural indicators among university students. It hypothesizes that lower self-esteem will be associated particularly with recurrent upward comparison, whereas downward and opinion-oriented comparison will exhibit different psychological patterns.