VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL GRADUATION PROJECT PROJECT NAME CONSEQUNCES OF SOCIAL COMPARISON IN VIETNAM Student’s name: Vu Thi Lan Anh Hanoi, June 6th, 2020 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL GRADUATION PROJECT PROJECT NAME CONSEQUNCES OF SOCIAL COMPARISON IN VIETNAM SUPERVISOR: DR. NGUYEN THI KIM OANH STUDENT: VU THI LAN ANH STUDENT ID: 17071243 CLASS: AC2017B MAJOR: ACCOUNTING, AUDITING AND ANALYZING Hanoi, June 7th, 2021 LETTER OF DECLARATION I hereby declare that the Graduation Project entiled “Consequences of Social comparison: Evidence from Vietnam” is the results of my own research and has never been published in any work of others. During the implementation process of this project, I have seriously taken research ethics; all findings of this projects are results of my own research and surveys; all references in this project are clearly cited according to regulations. I take full responsivity for the fidelity of the number and data and other contents of my graduation project.
Hanoi, June 7th, 2021 Student Signature and Full name ACKNOWLEDGEMENT First of all, I would like to express our deep thankfulness to Dr. Nguyen Thi Kim Oanh for her great instructions. Without her enthusiasm, great passion and useful comments, I might not complete this project within a limited time frame. I hope that I may have a chance to work with her in the near future.
Also, I would like to express my great appreciation to all respondents who accepted and completed my survey. I could not complete this study without their huge supports for data collection. Finally, I would like to thank you my family for their unconditional love, encouragement and emotional support. Their encouragement is one of the motivate powers which help me to pursuit and finish this study.
Student Vu Thi Lan Anh TABLE OF CONTENT LETTER OF DECLARATION. vi CHAPTER 1: AN INTRODUCTION .1 Background of the study .2 Research objectives, research questions and research scope .4 Structure of the study. 3 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW .1 Social comparison on social networking sites .1 Factors influence on social comparison on social networking sites.2 Consequences of social comparison on social networking sites.2 Social comparison theory.3 Hypotheses formulation and conceptual framework .4 Final research model. 10 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHOD .2 Reliability and validity.1 Social comparison on social networking sites .5 Questionnaire design and data collection.
16 CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND RESEARCH FINDINGS .1 Data analysis with PLS-SEM using Smart-PLS .2 An evaluation of the measurement model .1 Assessing composite reliability of the constructs .2 Assessing average variance extracted of the constructs .3 Structural model assessment for hypotheses testing .2 Factors and consequences of social comparison on social networking sites. 30 CHAPTER 5: DICUSSIONS, CONCLUSIONS AND LIMITATIONS. Discussions and conclusion. Contribution and implication of the study.
Limitation of the study .I Lists of figures List of table Page Table 2.1: Final research model 10 Table 4.2: Demographic descriptive (n=148) 11 Table 4.3: Descriptive statistic of social comparison 22 Table 4.4: Descriptive statistic of social identity 23 Table 4.5: Descriptive statistic of self-esteem 24 Table 4.6: Descriptive statistic of common bond 25 Table 4.7: Descriptive statistic of altruism 25 Table 4.8: Item loading and composite reliability (CR) of the 27 constructs Table 4.9: Convergent validity among constructs 28 Table 4.10: Discriminant validity among constructs 29 Table 4.11: Collinearity statistics (VIF) of exogenous variables 30 Table 4.12: Factors and consequences of social comparison on social 31 networking sites List of figures Lists of figure Page Figure 2.1: Final research model 11 Figure 4.2: Daily hours spend on social networking sites 22 Figure 4.3: The measurement model 26 Figure 4.4: Structural model 29 ABSTRACT This research focused on consequences of social comparisons and also examines the factors influencing social comparison on social networking sites (Facebook, Instagram…). Based on data collected from 148 Facebook users in Vietnam and Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modelling version 03 (SmartPLS) is used for data analysis, we found social identity and self-esteem have a positive factor that impact on Facebook user’s social comparison. People with high self-esteem are likely to reduce social comparisons more than those with low self-esteem. In addition, we found that common bond and altruism are positive consequences of social comparison on social networking sites.
People can base on these findings to enhance themselves via social comparison on social networking sites. Key words: Social comparison, social identity, self-esteem, common bond, altruism. CHAPTER 1: AN INTRODUCTION This study reports findings that consequences of social comparison on social networking sites of Vietnamese people. This chapter includes four sections.
First of all, the chapter reviews background for the study (section 1.1) before the research objectives and research questions are presented (section 1. Subsequently, a brief description of the research methods is provided in section 1. The chapter closes with a presentation of the thesis structure (section 1.1 Background of the study Social networking sites are gradually being approached and used more and more. According to statistics, Facebook is the largest social networking site with over 2.5 billion active users in a month (Kross, 2020).
Besides, other social networking sites such as Instagram and Twitter are also popular in the world with 1 billion users and 330 million active users respectively (Clement, 2019, Kross, 2020). Recent statistics also reported that, people around the world spend on average more than 2 hours on social networking sites (Verduyn et al. Social networking sites allow users to create personal profiles, create friends lists, and view & interact with regularly updated streams of information (e. friends' statuses, news feed, etc.) (Verduyn et al.
People have a need to use social networking sites more and more especially, in social context, individuals tend to compare themselves with others to know their relative standing. Social networking sites are an opportunity to make the process of social comparison easy and common, increasing the desire to compare yourself with others through information available in the form of posts on social networking sites (Facebook, Instagram…) (Latif et al. Previous studies have been examined the effects of social comparisons on behavior and also the outcomes of social comparisons. Cramer et al.
(2016) reported that people with low self-esteem are more likely to compare themselves to others on Facebook than those with high self-esteem, for self-evaluation, self-enhancement, self-improvement, and self-destruction motives. A self-improvement motive and self- 1 enhancement motives are prominent effects of social media comparison on both people with low self-esteem and people with high self-esteem (Cramer et al. In the field of shopping, comparing with people who are better than themselves or with better things (upward social comparison) has the negative influence young adults' shopping behavior, making them shop more impulsive (Liu et al. Schmuck et al.
(2019) also reported that upward social comparison on social networking sites damages individuals' self-esteem and happiness over time, and also the use of social networking sites (Facebook, Instagram, etc.) negatively affects their health over time. However, in a study on the influence of social comparisons on social networking sites by Meier and Schäfer (2018), found that direct comparisons on social networks have negative effects and malicious envy on Instagram or Facebooks, but also create benign envy. Thereby, comparisons can be motivating and creating positive outcomes (Meier and Schäfer, 2018). Most of the previous studies only focused on studying the negative effects of social comparison on social networking sites on a defined age.
Furthermore, studies on the specific consequences of social comparison are still fragmentary. As such, this study aims to investigate consequences of social comparison on social networking sites in different age.2 Research objectives, research questions and research scope The purpose of this study is to better understand about consequences of social comparison on social networking sites in Vietnam. Therefore, we focus on Vietnamese people who often use social networking sites. By illuminating these consequences of social comparison, we build a new framework that includes: social identity and self-esteem are the factors that influences social comparison; common bond and altruism are consequences which we predict in context Vietnam.
In order to achieve that objective, this thesis will answer the following question: “What are the consequences of social comparison on social networking sites in context Vietnam- an emerging country ?” 2 The results of this study are expected to have both theoretical and practical contributions. Theoretically, the study reports specific factors that influence social comparison on social networking sites and consequences of it, complementing to the knowledge area of social comparison. In practical terms, research provides a basis for analyzing who is likely to compare and how the types of person will have a positive effect on social comparison, also propose advice for each subject in social comparison. It helps users networking site improve themselves and support other in social networking sites via social comparison.3 Research methods A questionnaire survey was designed to investigate consequences of social comparison on social networking sites in Vietnam.
Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) with support of Smart-PLS 3.8 was adopted to analyze the quantitative data abstained from 148 respondents who use social networking sites in Vietnam. Smart-PLS enables the data to be sequentially analyzed via the measurement model and structural model. The former enables reliability and validity of constructs’ measures are assessed while the latter is used for testing hypotheses of the study.4 Structure of the study The research project is divided into 5 chapters. First of all, chapter 1 is an introduction and it provides the necessity, objectives of the research, research question & scope and structure of the study.
Secondly, chapter 2 reviews literature the definition of social comparison and other keywords in this research as well as the findings of the previous studies about consequences of social comparison on social networking sites. After that, we present theoretical framework and explain hypotheses. Next, chapter 3 presents the methodology, questionnaire design and the sample of data. Chapter 4 analyses data and describes research findings from empirical analysis.
The study closes with chapter 5 where discuses theoretical contributions, practical implications. 3 Also, limitations of the study are addressed and suggestions for the future research are provided. CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter aims to understand social comparison on social networking sites and social identity theory (sections 2.2) before providing hypotheses between previewed factors that influence social comparison and consequences of it (section 2. The chapter closes with a conceptual the framework of the study (section 2.1 Social comparison on social networking sites Social comparison refers to the tendency to use other people's sources of information to determine how they are doing compared to others (ability comparison), or to compare how they behave, think, and feel with others (opinion comparison) (Verduyn et al.
In other words, social comparison is the process of thinking about information about one or more people in relation to oneself (Meier and Schäfer, 2018). This comparison process that takes place when users use social networking sites is called social comparison on social networking sites. Comparison allows one to rate oneself in relation to the target on a personally matched criterion. Social comparison occurs when people automatically compare themselves with others for a certain ability or trait that they consider important (Meier and Schäfer, 2018).
Social comparison is an important feature of social life. Sometimes people need to compare themselves with others to better understand themselves and know exactly about their abilities and capabilities (Liu et al. There are two types of social comparison: upward comparison and downward comparison (Cramer et al., 2016, Latif et al., 2021, Liu et al., 2019, Meier and Schäfer, 2018). Upward comparison takes place when he or she compares himself or herself to a dominant individual on social networking sites.
In contrast, downward comparison occurs when he or she compares himself or herself to an inferior individual (Latif et al., 2021, Verduyn et al.