Self-Beliefs and Social Comparison in College Students: Impact on Mental Health

Prior work shows that negative self-beliefs are robustly linked to psychological ill-being, including symptoms of depression and anxiety and low positive affect. We test whether the frequency of negative self-beliefs relates to mental health, and whether perceived social comparison—how individuals see their self-beliefs relative to those of others—is also a key predictor of mental health. We examine the possibility that the impact of self-beliefs on mental health outcomes is not uniformly harmful but depends on how individuals see their beliefs in relation to perceived social norms.