I stumbled upon this the other day…

Stanford researcher Leon Festinger developed a line of research in social comparison theory. He noted that in different situations we will tend to compare ourselves with people either above or below us, depending on which ladder we’re talking about.

For instance, on morality, we tend to compare ourselves with people we think are below us: mass murderers, drug dealers. On the topic of money, we compare ourselves to people above us, those who have more than we do.

Research shows that a tendency for upward financial comparisons generates increasing amounts of greed and decreasing amounts of compassion.

That reminds me of Richard Cory…