Do you find yourself comparing your progress, fitness, health, or other behaviors to someone else's photo or language?
We're showing you how we approach this from a behavior analytic lens and some awesome (and unplanned) examples of comparison!

Weekly Behave Yourself Check-in
Emily - Exercise/Movement goal
Jo - making lots of Christms treats without endless spoon licks

Behaviourally, comparison is… stimulus equivalence within multiple relational frames using multiple contextual cues.
Why touch on this? It gives us a behavior-analytic foundation for how we ‘compare’ things from arbitrary to non-arbitrary relations between things (e.g., bigger than, darker than), using contextual cues. The more contextual cues, the more relatable the stimuli are.
We discriminate using more simple, formal properties between stimuli first before refining more arbitrary, complex relations.
Real example: A glass of water at home is related to an espresso martini at my favourite bar - they’re both drinks.
There are many ‘frames’ within which we can compare these things. More/less alcohol, calories. Better/worse taste, for your health. Cost. Size. Colour. Distance. Covid-friendly / available.
We do the same with other people when comparing ourselves. But to START comparing tends to mean there’s more similarity. E.g. It’s ‘easier’ to compare one glass of water to another glass of water because there are more similarities than say to the espresso martini. In the same way, it’s easier for me to compare myself to Emily than it is to compare myself to Bill Gates. Race, gender, career, skill set, SES, background, education…
Why comparison shouldn’t be the thief of joy but should be your drive to work towards your goals or reframe your values / thinking patterns.
What ‘weight’ or level of importance do we give to each relation? E.g. Karen has more spoons in her kitchen drawer than I do vs Karen has has more likes on her Instagram posts. In reality, spoons are far more useful - eating peanut butter straight from the jar. But… we place far more weight on the Instagram likes.
Once I recognise a comparison is being made, I need to consider what weight I want to place on that comparison and WHY. Maybe I start to compare the number of followers I have on Instagram to Emily. Is this something that is a reflection of my worth? Is it something I want to work on? Is it something I’m willing to put time and energy into?
“We hurt where we care and we care where we hurt. Turn pain into purpose.” Steve Hayes

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If you have any questions, comments, concerns or topics that you would like us to cover, please reach out to us!
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Disclaimer: While we’re both behaviour analysts and qualified in our respective fields, this podcast is for education and information sharing only and should not be taken as personal, medical or behavioral advice or services.