Notes
This book gives general information. It isn't medical or psychological advice, and it's no substitute for a doctor or therapist who knows your situation.
I've kept sources out of the chapters where I could so they read easily. Here they are by chapter, with the limits I'm aware of. Unless I say otherwise, I read the published summary of each paper and not the full text. I checked each paper for a retraction notice in September 2026 and found none. Where a chapter isn't listed, it rests on my own reasoning. That includes chapters 1, 9, 10 and 15, the advice in chapter 11, and the two measures and the list of wants in chapter 12. The NHS pages were read in September 2026. They're written for England, and services differ elsewhere.
Before you start. The symptoms of depression are from the NHS page "Symptoms, depression in adults".
Chapter 2. Festinger, "A theory of social comparison processes", Human Relations 7, 1954, pages 117 to 140. I read the opening of the paper, which sets out the drive to evaluate opinions and abilities. Gilbert, Giesler and Morris, "When comparisons arise", Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69, 1995, pages 227 to 236. Two laboratory studies. Wheeler and Miyake, "Social comparison in everyday life", Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 62, 1992, pages 760 to 773. The 94 participants were college students recording their own comparisons, so the record depends on what they noticed and chose to write down. Gerber, Wheeler and Suls, "A social comparison theory meta-analysis 60+ years on", Psychological Bulletin 144, 2018, pages 177 to 197. The authors note that few of the studies they pooled had a control group that made no comparison. The distinction between a comparison you run and one that runs you is mine.
Chapter 3. Jordan, Monin, Dweck, Lovett, John and Gross, "Misery has more company than people think: underestimating the prevalence of others' negative emotions", Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 37, 2011, pages 120 to 135. I read the full text. All four studies used students at one university in the United States, most of them in their first year. The figures of 29 and 15 per cent, and 40 and 13 per cent, are from the first study, in which 63 students described 187 negative and 187 positive experiences. The fourth study measured everything at a single point in time.
Chapter 4. Schkade and Kahneman, "Does living in California make people happy? A focusing illusion in judgments of life satisfaction", Psychological Science 9, 1998, pages 340 to 346. The study concerns judgements about regions. Applying it to a friend's kitchen is my step.
Chapter 5. Davidai and Deri, "The second pugilist's plight: why people believe they are above average but are not especially happy about it", Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 148, 2019, pages 570 to 587. Twelve studies, 2,474 participants, four of the studies preregistered. Deri, Davidai and Gilovich, "Home alone: why people believe others' social lives are richer than their own", Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 113, 2017, pages 858 to 877. Eleven studies, 3,293 participants, three preregistered. The committee of specialists and the two corrections are my way of putting it.
Chapter 6. Lockwood and Kunda, "Superstars and me: predicting the impact of role models on the self", Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 73, 1997, pages 91 to 103. Van de Ven, Zeelenberg and Pieters, "Leveling up and down: the experiences of benign and malicious envy", Emotion 9, 2009, pages 419 to 429. The explanation of why the dip deflates, and the two questions to ask of envy, are mine.
Chapter 7. Card, Mas, Moretti and Saez, "Inequality at work: the effect of peer salaries on job satisfaction", American Economic Review 102, 2012, pages 2981 to 3003. Boyce, Brown and Moore, "Money and happiness: rank of income, not income, affects life satisfaction", Psychological Science 21, 2010, pages 471 to 475. It's an analysis of survey data and can't show cause. Solnick and Hemenway, "Is more always better? A survey on positional concerns", Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 37, 1998, pages 373 to 383. The choices were hypothetical. Medvec, Madey and Gilovich, "When less is more: counterfactual thinking and satisfaction among Olympic medalists", Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69, 1995, pages 603 to 610. Other researchers have since proposed other explanations for the medallists' expressions, and I haven't read that work. That people compare with similar others is how Festinger's theory is usually summarised. I haven't read that part of the paper. The argument that a ranking can't be satisfied is mine.
Chapter 8. Chou and Edge, "'They are happier and having better lives than I am': the impact of using Facebook on perceptions of others' lives", Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking 15, 2012, pages 117 to 121. Kross and eight colleagues, "Facebook use predicts declines in subjective well-being in young adults", PLoS One 8, 2013, e69841. The 82 participants had an average age of about nineteen and a half. Verduyn and eight colleagues, "Passive Facebook usage undermines affective well-being: experimental and longitudinal evidence", Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 144, 2015, pages 480 to 488. Steers, Wickham and Acitelli, "Seeing everyone else's highlight reels: how Facebook usage is linked to depressive symptoms", Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 33, 2014, pages 701 to 731. Hunt, Marx, Lipson and Young, "No more FOMO: limiting social media decreases loneliness and depression", Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 37, 2018, pages 751 to 768. Meier and Johnson, "Social comparison and envy on social media: a critical review", Current Opinion in Psychology 45, 2022, 101302. Several of these studies were of students and most concern Facebook, which is no longer where many people do their scrolling. The four ways the phone changes the conditions are my own list, and so are the three adjustments.
Chapter 11. Jordan and colleagues 2011, as above. The advice to go first with one true thing and to congratulate early is mine and hasn't been tested that I know of.
Chapter 12. Lyubomirsky and Ross, "Hedonic consequences of social comparison: a contrast of happy and unhappy people", Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 73, 1997, pages 1141 to 1157. Two studies with students. The authors don't claim to know why the happy students were less affected, and my reading is a guess. Buunk, Collins, Taylor, VanYperen and Dakof, "The affective consequences of social comparison: either direction has its ups and downs", Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 59, 1990, pages 1238 to 1249.
Chapter 13. Plans in "when, then" form are from Gollwitzer and Sheeran, "Implementation intentions and goal achievement: a meta-analysis of effects and processes", Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 38, 2006, pages 69 to 119. Gilbert, Giesler and Morris 1995, as above. The inference that a tired mind is worse at setting a comparison aside is mine. The six parts haven't been tested together, and the account of how dips shorten with practice is my expectation and not a finding.
Chapter 14. McCarthy and Morina, "Exploring the association of social comparison with depression and anxiety: a systematic review and meta-analysis", Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy 27, 2020, pages 640 to 671. Of 54 studies reviewed, 14 could be pooled. In clinical groups, how favourably people rated themselves against others correlated at minus 0.53 with depression and minus 0.39 with anxiety. The symptoms and advice are from the NHS pages "Symptoms, depression in adults", "Body dysmorphic disorder", "Overview, eating disorders", "NHS talking therapies" and "Where to get urgent help for mental health".