Parents’ Feelings, Distress, and Self-Efficacy in Response to Social Comparisons on Social Media

Parents’ social comparisons on social networking sites (SNS) is a research area of growing interest. In this study, we examined parents’ positive and negative feelings when comparing with other parents and associations with self-reported distress (i.e., stress and depression) and self-efficacy. We used a sample of 422 Swedish parents of children below the age of five (Mage = 1.29 years). In a first step, we examined construct validity of two new measures on parents’ positive and negative feelings when doing comparisons on SNS. In a second step, we examined associations with self-reported parenting. Results showed that parents reported more positive feelings than negative feelings in relation to other parents on SNS. Further, negative feelings when doing social comparisons were linked to more distress and lower level of self-efficacy, whereas positive feelings when doing social comparisons predicted higher level of self-efficacy, but not distress. These results suggest that negative feelings are related to lower actual levels of distress and self-efficacy, but positive feelings can have an instant positive effect on parents’ perceived competence, but not on their well-being. Practitioners can encourage parents to reflect on who they compare with on SNS and why, as it might enable evaluations that could lead to self-improvement rather than weakening of oneself as a parent.