Since the beginning of social-comparison theory in the early 1950s, psychologists and sociologists have piled up evidence that human beings form opinions of themselves — their looks, gifts, intelligence, and achievement — based in large part on the qualities they see in the people with whom they identify and associate. When those comparisons lead to inaccurate self-representations or evaluations, this distortion is sometimes referred to as the "frog-pond effect."

The phrase stems from a 1966 paper that found college students at elite universities who had low GPAs tended to view their own academic abilities less favorably than students at lower-tier colleges who had good GPAs. “It is better to be a big frog in a small pond than a small frog in a big pond," the author of that paper wrote.

The "frog-pond effect" continues to show up in research today.

“We use the term 'frog-pond effect' as shorthand for this tendency of people with a high rank in a low-rank group to evaluate themselves more favorably than people with a low rank in a high-rank group,” says Ethan Zell, PhD, author of the PLOS One study and an associate professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro.

“These effects are magnified when we're comparing ourselves to people we view as peers.”

In other words, we look at other people as a frame of reference when we are evaluating ourselves. While "upward" social comparisons can make us feel less attractive, less capable, or otherwise inferior, "downward" social comparisons tend to have just the opposite effect. "These effects are magnified when we're comparing ourselves to people we view as peers, or those in a similar situation to ourselves," Zell explains.

Research has found that all of us engage in social comparisons — consciously or unconsciously — dozens and perhaps hundreds of times each day. To one extent or another, these comparisons influence every aspect of our well-being and behavior, from our confidence and self-regard, to our willingness to take risks, to the likelihood that we'll develop anxiety or depression.

Upward social comparison is not inherently harmful."It can inspire us to take better care of ourselves, or to be ambitious in positive ways," Zell says. But like anything else, too much of it can cause problems.

"Social media and technology have really expanded the reach of comparisons," Zell says. Many of us can't help but feel inferior when we're exposed to image after image or post after post of people who seem cooler, more interesting, funnier, prettier, or more stylish than we are.

Before social media, most of our comparisons were based on face-to-face interactions with friends, schoolmates, co-workers, and those who occupied our real-world social spheres. We saw the good and the bad — the features and the flaws — in something closer to equal measure. And this helped properly calibrate our self-assessments.

All of this suggests that limiting your exposure to online sources of upward social comparison may pay all sorts of dividends. In the infinitely large pond that is the internet, almost all of us are going to end up feeling like small frogs.

Social Media

Social media can be defined as web-based mobile media that are used for people to interact, connect and communicate with each other. It often involves the creation and sharing of content( writing, pictures and videos) that people make themselves, mostly through the Internet.

【小题1】The first type involves people getting together to work on a project, for example, Wikipedia. Blogs and microblogs (such as Twitter) are another type of social media. There are other websites like YouTube that allow people to share content such as pictures, articles or videos. 【小题2】These sites allow people to stay in touch with friends, make new ones and join communities. Facebook is an example of this type. Many people like to play games on the Internet and, yes, there are social media games as well. These games allow gamers to interact with each other and play with or against other gamers. The popular game World of Warcraft is a good example. The final type of social media is websites like Second Life, where people can picture they are in the real world. 【小题3】

Social media are different from traditional media. With social media, many individual people in different places create content. Another difference is that people who produce content in social media don't need very special skills.【小题4】 It takes only a few minutes to write a twitter post, for example.

【小题5】But whatever you might think, social media is here to stay.

In one of the more unusual experiments we’ve seen recently, researchers attached a large pair of cartoonish huge eyes to the front of a small, self-driving vehicle—and it turns out that this kind of adaptation could actually improve pedestrian (行人) safety.

A pair of eyes on the front of driverless vehicles could, according to the researchers, give people standing by the road a better idea of whether they’ve been seen. That’s one useful bit of information to have when it comes to determining the perfect moment to cross in front of oncoming traffic. “If the car is not looking at the pedestrian, this implies that the car does not recognize the pedestrian,” said one of the researchers. “Thus, pedestrians can judge that they should not cross the street, thereby avoiding potential traffic accidents.”

For the purposes of this study, the researchers used a car which seemed as if no one was inside. A pair of large, swiveling (旋转的) eyes on the front were controlled by researchers, but in the future could be controlled by the car’s AI on an actual self-driving vehicle.

To keep the 18 participants safe, experiments were conducted in virtual reality. The volunteers—nine men and nine women—were asked to decide whether or not to cross the road as the car approached. Four scenarios(方案) were tested in total; two when the car was fitted with eyes, and two when it wasn’t. The researchers measured how often people hesitated to cross when it was in fact safe to do so, and how often they chose to cross when it was dangerous. Overall, the presence of the eyes led to safer and smoother crossing experiences for the participants.

However, there was a gender split in the results. For men, the eyes only really helped in dangerous situations, warning them to pause when they might otherwise proceed. For women, the eyes boosted confidence by signaling it was safe to cross.