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Comparison or comparing is the act of evaluating two or more things by determining the relevant, comparable characteristics of each thing, and then determining which characteristics of each are similar to the other, which are different, and to what degree. Where characteristics are different, the differences may then be evaluated to determine which thing is best suited for a particular purpose. The description of similarities and differences found between the two things is also called a comparison. Comparison can take many distinct forms, varying by field: To compare things, they must have characteristics that are similar enough in relevant ways to merit comparison. If two things are too different to compare in a useful way, an attempt to compare them is colloquially referred to in English as "comparing
apples and oranges A comparison of apples and oranges occurs when two items or groups of items are compared that cannot be practically compared, typically because of inherent, fundamental and/or qualitative differences between the items. The idiom, ''comparing ...
." Comparison is widely used in society, in science and in the arts.


General usage

Comparison is a natural activity, which even animals engage in when deciding, for example, which potential food to eat. Humans similarly have always engaged in comparison when hunting or foraging for food. This behavior carries over into activities like shopping for food, clothes, and other items, choosing which job to apply for or which job to take from multiple offers, or choosing which applicants to hire for employment. In commerce, people often engage in
comparison shopping Shopping is an activity in which a customer browses the available goods or services presented by one or more retailers with the potential intent to purchase a suitable selection of them. A typology of shopper types has been developed by scho ...
: attempting to get the best deal for a product by comparing the qualities of different available versions of that product and attempting to determine which one maximizes the return on the money spent. In the twenty-first century, as shopping has increasingly been done on the internet,
comparison shopping website A comparison shopping website, sometimes called a price comparison website, price analysis tool, comparison shopping agent, shopbot, aggregator or comparison shopping engine, is a vertical search engine that shoppers use to filter and compare produ ...
s have developed to aid shoppers in making such determinations. When consumers and others invest excessive thought into making comparisons, this can result in the problem of
analysis paralysis Analysis paralysis (or paralysis by analysis) describes an individual or group process where overanalyzing or overthinking a situation can cause forward motion or decision-making to become "paralyzed", meaning that no solution or course of acti ...
. Humans also tend to compare themselves and their belongings with others, an activity also observed in some animals. Children begin developing the ability to compare themselves to others in elementary school. In adults, this can lead to unhappiness when a person compares things that they have to things they perceived as superior and unobtainable that others have. Some marketing relies on making such comparisons to entice people to purchase things so they compare more favorably with people who have these things. Social comparison theory, initially proposed by social psychologist
Leon Festinger Leon Festinger (8 May 1919 – 11 February 1989) was an American social psychologist who originated the theory of cognitive dissonance and social comparison theory. The rejection of the previously dominant behaviorist view of social psycholog ...
in 1954, centers on the belief that there is a drive within individuals to gain accurate self-evaluations. The theory explains how individuals evaluate their own opinions and abilities by comparing themselves to others to reduce uncertainty in these domains, and learn how to define the self. Following the initial theory, research began to focus on social comparison as a way of self-enhancement, introducing the concepts of downward and upward comparisons and expanding the motivations of social comparisons. Human language has evolved to suit this practice by facilitating grammatical comparison, with
comparative form general linguistics, the comparative is a syntactic construction that serves to express a comparison between two (or more) entities or groups of entities in quality or degree - see also comparison (grammar) for an overview of comparison, as well ...
s enabling a person to describe a thing as having more or less of a characteristic than another thing, or to describe a thing in a group as having the most or least of that characteristic relative to the group. The
grammatical category In linguistics, a grammatical category or grammatical feature is a property of items within the grammar of a language. Within each category there are two or more possible values (sometimes called grammemes), which are normally mutually exclusive ...
associated with comparison of adjectives and adverbs is degree of comparison.


Academics

Academically, comparison is used between things like economic and political systems. Political scientist and historian Benedict Anderson has cautioned against use of comparisons without considering the relevant framework of things being compared: Anderson notes as an example that " the jingoist years on the eve of the First World War, when Germans and Frenchmen were encouraged to hate each other, the great Austro-Marxist theoretician
Otto Bauer Otto Bauer (5 September 1881 – 4 July 1938) was one of the founders and leading thinkers of the left-socialist Austromarxists who sought a middle ground between social democracy and revolutionary socialism. He was a member of the Austrian Parl ...
enjoyed baiting both sides" by comparing their similarities, "saying that contemporary Parisians and Berliners had far more in common than either had with their respective medieval ancestors". Notably, the phrase "comparative studies" is generally used to refer to
cross-cultural studies Cross-cultural studies, sometimes called holocultural studies or comparative studies, is a specialization in anthropology and sister sciences such as sociology, psychology, economics, political science that uses field data from many societies th ...
, within the fields of sociology and
anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...
. Émile Durkheim, one of the founders of the field of sociology, said of this term that "comparative sociology is not a particular branch of sociology; it is sociology itself".


Literature

The primary use of comparison in literature is with the
simile A simile () is a figure of speech that directly ''compares'' two things. Similes differ from other metaphors by highlighting the similarities between two things using comparison words such as "like", "as", "so", or "than", while other metaphors c ...
, a
figure of speech A figure of speech or rhetorical figure is a word or phrase that intentionally deviates from ordinary language use in order to produce a rhetorical effect. Figures of speech are traditionally classified into '' schemes,'' which vary the ordinary ...
that directly compares two things. Similes are a form of
metaphor A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide (or obscure) clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are often compared wit ...
that explicitly use connecting words (such as ''like, as, so, than,'' or various verbs such as ''resemble'') though these specific words are not always necessary. While similes are mainly used in forms of poetry that compare the inanimate and the living, there are also terms in which similes are used for humorous purposes of comparison. A number of literary works have commented negatively on the practice of comparison. For example, 15th century English poet John Lydgate wrote " yous of olde been comparsionis", which was reflected by many later writers, such as William Shakespeare, who included the line in ''
Much Ado About Nothing ''Much Ado About Nothing'' is a comedy by William Shakespeare thought to have been written in 1598 and 1599.See textual notes to ''Much Ado About Nothing'' in ''The Norton Shakespeare'' ( W. W. Norton & Company, 1997 ) p. 1387 The play ...
'', "comparisons are odious". Miguel de Cervantes, in a passage in '' Don Quixote'', wrote, " it possible your pragmatical worship should not know that the comparisons made between wit and wit, courage and courage, beauty and beauty, birth and birth, are always odious and ill taken?" Miguel de Cervantes, '' Don Quixote'' (1605-15), Part II, Chapter I.


See also

*
Comparables Comparables (or comps) is a real estate appraisal term referring to properties with characteristics that are similar to a subject property whose value is being sought. This can be accomplished either by a real estate agent who attempts to establish ...
* Similarity (philosophy)


References

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