Inferiority complex: why comparing yourself hurts and what helps

The Austrian psychiatrist Alfred Adler held that, because every life begins with the weakness and helplessness of a child, everyone carries some feeling of inferiority. He saw that feeling as the driving force and the starting point of a child’s striving. But he warned that when the feeling grows so strong that a child fears never being able to make up for a weakness, the striving may not stop at restoring the balance; it can turn into “over-compensation”, a push to rise above others (Adler, 1927). This is a theory Adler built from clinical experience, not a conclusion tested by experiments.

Adler himself spoke of a “feeling of inferiority”; the label “inferiority complex” took over later in everyday speech, often with a looser meaning than his (Britannica, 2026b). Britannica adds that this loose popular use has blurred much of what the term once meant (Britannica, 2026a). The APA Dictionary of Psychology describes an inferiority complex as a deep-seated sense of not being good enough, and of insecurity, rooted in a weakness of body or mind that may be real or only perceived; it can look like shy, frozen withdrawal in one person and like fierce rivalry or aggression in another (APA, n.d.). The same feeling, in other words, can make one person hide and push another person harder.

Neither inferiority feelings nor an inferiority complex is a diagnosis in the World Health Organization’s diagnostic guidance for mental disorders (ICD-11; WHO, 2024). So mind.io does not offer an inferiority test, and this guide prints no items or cut-off scores from research scales. In Japan and Korea, “The Courage to Be Disliked”, a self-help book written as a dialogue that borrows part of his psychology, became a bestseller (Kyunghyang Shinmun, 2015) and made Adler’s ideas widely known; this guide draws on Adler’s own writing and on research rather than on the book. The “inferior function” in MBTI is a different idea that comes from Jung’s type theory; it is covered in MBTI and stress. This guide sets out why comparing yourself with others can hurt so much, social media and relative deprivation, how inferiority differs from feelings that look similar, common myths, what the evidence says helps, and what to try when comparison kicks in.

Social psychology holds that we size up our own abilities and views by checking them against other people’s, and that this habit shapes how we see ourselves and how happy we feel. The idea was first set out by Leon Festinger in 1954 and is called social comparison theory (APA, n.d.). Comparing yourself with someone who seems better off is called upward comparison; comparing yourself with someone who seems worse off is called downward comparison (APA, n.d.; Wills, 1981). In a meta-analysis of more than 60 years of social comparison research, people who did not feel threatened clearly preferred to compare themselves with someone better, and after comparing, by far the most common reaction was contrast: people rated themselves further from the other person, lower after looking up and higher after looking down. The authors left one puzzle open: why people keep looking up when doing so usually leaves them thinking less of themselves (Gerber et al., 2018).

Mood is part of the picture. In a study in which 94 university students recorded their everyday comparisons for two weeks, students who were already in a bad mood before a comparison more often looked up than down, and looking up left them feeling worse while looking down left them feeling better (Wheeler & Miyake, 1992). In experiments, students who called themselves unhappy were shaken, in mood and in how they rated themselves, whether a peer beside them solved word puzzles faster or slower; those who called themselves happy reacted only when the peer was slower (Lyubomirsky & Ross, 1997). This loop may be part of why other people seem so much better on the days you already feel low.

Researchers also describe feelings close to inferiority in terms of “social rank” and “shame”. Social rank theory proposes that seeing yourself as beneath others can leave you feeling beaten and trapped, and that this is one road into depression. In a systematic review of 70 studies, the lower people felt their rank to be, the more depressive symptoms, suicidal thoughts and self-harm they tended to report, but 89% of the studies were cross-sectional, so which came first cannot be told (Wetherall et al., 2019). In a meta-analysis of 108 studies, shame was more strongly linked with depressive symptoms than guilt was (r = .43 vs .28), and especially external shame, the sense of being inadequate in other people’s eyes (r = .56). These are correlations too, so they do not show cause (Kim et al., 2011).

A meta-analysis of studies of people with depression or anxiety disorders found that the more favourably people rated themselves against others, the less depression (r = −0.53) and anxiety (r = −0.39) they had. Put the other way round, seeing yourself as below others went with more depression and anxiety, though only 14 studies were in that analysis (McCarthy & Morina, 2020). A study of 207 university students separated insecure striving, driven by fear of being rejected or criticised for “not keeping up”, from a secure sense of being accepted and valued whether or not you succeed. Striving to avoid inferiority was linked with mental health problems, especially in people who saw themselves as low in social rank (Gilbert et al., 2007). Constantly having to prove yourself, without rest, is not necessarily healthy effort.

The World Health Organization’s diagnostic guidance notes that when self-esteem becomes very low, people may come to believe they are useless, and that this can be linked with suicidal thoughts or behaviour (WHO, 2024). If comparison leaves you feeling worthless and you have thoughts of harming yourself, please do not carry them alone. Reach out to a crisis line right away: call or text 988 in the US and Canada, call Samaritans on 116 123 in the UK and Ireland, or find a line at findahelpline.com elsewhere. If you are in immediate danger, contact your local emergency services.

Social media has made it possible to look into other people’s lives, and compare, at any moment. In a 2026 meta-analysis pooling 54 samples and 36,583 people, the extent of upward comparison online was linked with difficulties such as depression (r = 0.27), and no clear difference by age or cultural background was found. But most of the studies were cross-sectional, so it cannot be said that comparison causes depression (Lei et al., 2026). A meta-analysis of Facebook studies also found that comparing yourself with others on social media was more strongly linked with depression than time spent on it, though only a few samples looked at comparison (Yoon et al., 2019).

Some argue that the problem is passive scrolling. In a laboratory study and an experience-sampling study, using Facebook passively led to a worse mood over time, and rising envy appeared to be the pathway (Verduyn et al., 2015). But a review of 40 survey studies found that most did not support the idea that passive use is harmful and active use is beneficial (Valkenburg et al., 2022), and in a meta-analysis of 141 studies most of the associations were negligibly small (Godard & Holtzman, 2024). A review of the meta-analytic evidence concluded that the links between intensity of social media use and loneliness, self-esteem or depression are generally small, around r = .10 (Appel et al., 2020).

The arrow may also point the other way. It is often assumed that envy felt on social media brings on low mood, but it is just as plausible that being depressed makes people compare themselves unfavourably and feel more envy (Appel et al., 2016). A recent review notes that feeling inspired on social media is common too, that effects differ from person to person, and that offline comparison may be more frequent and matter more for well-being (Meier & Johnson, 2022). That is a reason to look at comparison at school, at work and in the family, and not to blame social media alone.

There are Korean data as well. In a 2019 newspaper poll of 1,003 adults, 37.4% said they had felt relatively deprived after seeing photos or posts that acquaintances shared on social media, rising to 52.6% among people in their twenties. It was a single media poll, so it cannot be stretched to describe the situation today (Seoul Shinmun, 2019). In a study of 184 Korean university students who used Facebook, upward comparison on social media was linked with depression through inferiority feelings, and the link was weaker in students with a clearer sense of who they are (Jeong & Hyun, 2015). In a study of 344 people aged 19 to 34, upward comparison on social media was linked with social isolation through relative deprivation (Cho & Lee, 2024). Both were one-time surveys, so neither establishes cause. If comparison is spilling into loneliness, the guide Loneliness: what helps may also help.

Relative deprivation is the sense that what you have, such as money or status, falls short of what you expected or of what the people you compare yourself with have (APA, n.d.). A meta-analysis of 210 studies and more than 180,000 respondents concluded that the links were often weak and inconsistent overall, but stronger when measures captured a sense of unfairness and not just the judgement of having less (Smith et al., 2012). A Korean study of more than 200,000 adults in the 2017 Community Health Survey, which compared each household’s income with that of its community, found that people in the low relative income group had 1.58 times the odds of depressive symptoms of those in the high group, and the gap was larger for people with low actual household income or unmet medical needs. It was a one-time survey, so it does not show cause (Song & Kim, 2020). Still, it suggests that the pain of comparison is tied up with real circumstances and not only with attitude. Some comparison is heard at home. In a study of 398 Korean middle and high school students, high school students who experienced more academic comparison from their parents tended to report more academic inferiority and depression (Kim, 2015).

Envy is the feeling closest to inferiority. A review of envy research describes it as a painful, unpleasant feeling that combines a sense of being inferior with ill will and resentment, set off when you notice that another person or group has something you want. The review stressed the importance of telling envy proper, which contains hostility, apart from benign envy, which does not (Smith & Kim, 2007). In studies in the Netherlands, the US and Spain, benign envy led to a wish to move yourself up, whereas malicious envy led to a wish to pull the better-off person down (van de Ven et al., 2009).

Envy and jealousy are often used interchangeably, but they are not the same feeling. Envy can arise between just two people, you and the person you envy, whereas jealousy always involves three (APA, n.d.). Jealousy in romantic relationships is covered separately in Jealousy in relationships.

In Adler’s theory, a “superiority complex” is an exaggerated opinion of your own abilities and achievements that comes from over-compensating for feelings of inferiority (APA, n.d.). When someone shows off, it is tempting to assume it must be “because of an inferiority complex”, but the research is more complicated. In three studies, it was vulnerable narcissism, the anxious and easily hurt form, that was strongly and consistently linked with envy and with pleasure at others’ misfortune; grandiose narcissism, the outwardly confident form, was if anything slightly negatively linked with envy (Krizan & Johar, 2012). Appearances are not enough to judge what is going on inside someone else. The two faces of narcissism are covered in Narcissism.

Inferiority feelings also overlap with low self-esteem. In describing personality traits, the WHO’s ICD-11 guidance lists envy of other people’s abilities and signs of success as one of the ways low self-esteem can show (WHO, 2024). Common patterns of low self-esteem are set out in Signs of low self-esteem. If, despite the evidence, you believe “I’m not really that good” and fear being found out, Imposter syndrome may fit better; if you set very high standards and turn on yourself when you fall short, Perfectionism may be the better guide.

Myth 1: “Inferiority feelings are purely bad and must be got rid of.” Adler saw them as the starting point of striving (Adler, 1927), and the APA Dictionary notes that many psychologists emphasise the positive side of compensation, building strength in one area to offset a weakness in another (APA, n.d.). In experiments, benign envy after an upward comparison led to better performance only when people thought they could improve; when improvement seemed hard, they felt more admiration and no extra motivation (van de Ven et al., 2011). In a study of marathon runners, a tendency to benign envy went with faster race times by way of higher goals, while a tendency to malicious envy went with giving up on race goals (Lange & Crusius, 2015). What you do next may matter more than feeling inferior in the first place.

Myth 2: “Benign envy is a healthy emotion.” Not necessarily. In three studies (3,123 people), benign envy was also linked with Machiavellian behaviour, using others to get what you want, while malicious envy was linked with both Machiavellian and psychopathic behaviour (Lange et al., 2018b). It is more accurate to see benign envy as a feeling you can turn towards moving yourself forward than as a “good emotion”.

Myth 3: “Raise your self-esteem and everything is solved.” Self-esteem researchers Crocker and Park argued that what matters is less whether self-esteem is high or low than how people go about chasing it. When your worth feels like something you must keep proving, setbacks in that area turn into threats, and the defensive ways people respond can get in the way of learning, closeness with others and self-control, and in the long run of health. The good feeling a boost brings tends to be brief, while the costs add up (Crocker & Park, 2004). The difference between self-esteem and self-compassion is covered in Self-compassion vs self-esteem.

Myth 4: “Quit social media and you will feel better straight away.” In a trial that randomly split 154 adults between a one-week break from social media and carrying on as usual, those who took the break reported better well-being and lower depression and anxiety scores (Lambert et al., 2022), and in a one-week Danish experiment with 1,095 participants the benefit was larger for heavy users, passive users and people who tended to envy others on Facebook (Tromholt, 2016). But in another experiment in which 130 adults kept daily records for four weeks, taking a break from social media had no clear effect (Hall et al., 2021). Most of these trials were short, so the effect of a longer break is still unknown.

Myth 5: “Looking at people worse off than you is a comfort.” There is a theory of downward comparison holding that comparing yourself with someone less fortunate can lift your mood (Wills, 1981), and in the everyday diary study downward comparison did raise momentary well-being (Wheeler & Miyake, 1992). But it has not been tested as a way to reduce inferiority feelings, so this guide does not recommend it.

Few large studies have treated inferiority feelings on their own. The closest evidence comes from cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) aimed directly at low self-esteem. In a review of eight studies based on Fennell’s model, seven of them meta-analysed, weekly sessions improved self-report scores by a large amount right after treatment (effect size 1.12) and one-day workshops by a small amount (0.34). But there were few studies, and it was unclear how different these treatments are from those aimed at reducing depression (Kolubinski et al., 2018). The NHS likewise suggests identifying the negative beliefs you hold about yourself and writing down evidence that challenges them, and notes that talking therapies such as counselling or CBT can help (NHS, 2023).

Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), which helps people step back from thoughts rather than fight them and act on what they value, outperformed control conditions for a range of mental and physical health problems in a meta-analysis of 39 randomised controlled trials (g = 0.57), with no clear difference from CBT (A-Tjak et al., 2015). Those trials were not about inferiority feelings specifically.

Practising treating yourself as you would a close friend, instead of turning on yourself after a comparison, is covered, with its evidence and limits, in How to build self-compassion. Gratitude practices such as a gratitude journal raised well-being by a small amount in a meta-analysis of studies from 28 countries (g = 0.19); the effect was significant in countries such as South Korea and the US but not in Japan, France or the UK (Choi et al., 2025). There was no evidence that gratitude practices beat other worthwhile activities (Davis et al., 2016). They are better seen as a small practice worth trying than as a treatment for inferiority.

In Korea, several studies have tested group counselling programmes to reduce inferiority feelings, and a 2006 meta-analysis of 24 studies from 1975 to 2005 reported large effects (Lee & Park, 2006). In a study that split 22 university students into an experimental and a control group, an Adlerian group counselling programme also reduced negative responses to inferiority feelings and increased positive ones (Lee & Kim, 2018). Most of these studies are small and old, though, so the size of the effects should be read with caution.

If comparison keeps knocking you down and is shaking your daily life, you do not have to cope with it alone. A doctor or a mental health professional is a good place to start. In Korea, calling the mental health crisis line 1577-0199 (24 hours) connects you to a nearby community mental health welfare centre (Ministry of Health and Welfare, 2025).

1. Give the sting time to pass. When envy was broken down across several studies, at its core was “pain”: being preoccupied with the comparison and feeling inferior. In an experience-sampling study this pain faded relatively quickly; what lasted was whether it went towards lifting yourself up or pulling the other person down (Lange et al., 2018a). Notice “I’m comparing right now”, and give it a moment rather than turning it straight into words or actions that put the other person down. This is a suggestion drawn from these findings, not a tested method.

2. Change the question. In experiments, the more undeserved another person’s success seemed, the stronger the urge to pull them down; envy that pushes you to improve was strongest when the success seemed deserved and something you could do something about (van de Ven et al., 2012). When envy comes up, asking “What did that person do, and which part of it could I try?” fits these findings. No experiment has yet shown that asking this reduces inferiority feelings, though.

3. Compare yourself with your past self, using records. People tend to rate their distant past selves lower than their present selves, even when there has been no real improvement (Wilson & Ross, 2001). So when you compare yourself with “last month’s me”, concrete notes of what you did and learned are a more accurate basis than memory. Small everyday habits are covered in How to build self-esteem.

4. Find the accounts and times of day that drag you down. In a survey of 208 US university students, interacting with others on Instagram went with lower loneliness, but only for people who tended to compare themselves with others less (Yang, 2016). How you look may matter as much as what you do. Social media users also shape their own experience, for example by seeking out inspiring content or unfollowing accounts (Meier & Johnson, 2022). Note which accounts and times of day leave you feeling low, and experiment with cutting back on or pausing those first. Ways to cut down on screen time are in Smartphone addiction (problematic use).

5. Notice conditional self-worth. In a study of 351 young Korean adults, the stronger their contingent self-esteem, valuing themselves only when certain conditions are met, the more they compared themselves upward on social media, and this was linked with inferiority feelings. It was a one-time survey, so it does not establish cause (Choi et al., 2023). Look at what has to be in place, grades, looks or approval, for you to feel all right, and when that condition wobbles, practise treating yourself kindly rather than turning on yourself. The self-compassion test can show how you are treating yourself right now.

6. Check in if the low mood lasts. If low mood after comparing goes on for more than two weeks, with loss of interest in things you used to enjoy, changes in sleep or appetite, and persistent thoughts that you are worthless, it may be a sign of depression. Look at Depression symptoms and use the depression check-in (PHQ-9) to see where you are now. If you have thoughts of harming yourself, do not wait: call or text 988 in the US and Canada, call Samaritans on 116 123 in the UK and Ireland, or find a line at findahelpline.com.

Q. Is there an inferiority complex test? A. mind.io does not offer an inferiority test. Inferiority is not a diagnosis (WHO, 2024). Research uses questionnaires such as a Korean scale of positive and negative responses to inferiority feelings (Jeong & No, 2010) or a scale of striving to avoid inferiority (Gilbert et al., 2007), but this guide prints no items or cut-off scores, and these scales are not diagnostic tools for picking out an “inferiority complex”. The self-esteem test can show how much you value yourself overall right now, but it is not an inferiority test.

Q. What are the signs of a strong inferiority complex? A. There is no single picture. The APA Dictionary notes that an inferiority complex can show up as timid withdrawal or as excessive competitiveness and aggression (APA, n.d.). So rather than guessing at other people’s inferiority from how they come across, it is more useful to notice whether you tend to hide or to push harder after a comparison.

Q. Is having “a chip on your shoulder” the same as an inferiority complex? A. It is an everyday expression, and we found no research definition of it. People usually use it for a lingering sense of grievance or of being looked down on that makes someone touchy about what others say or do, which overlaps a lot with the inferiority feelings in this guide. When that feeling comes up, you can try “Change the question” and “Notice conditional self-worth” above.

Q. I feel sick with envy when a friend does well. Is something wrong with me? A. Having that feeling does not make you a strange person. Research calls this feeling, which arises from noticing something you want that someone else has, envy (Smith & Kim, 2007), and the pain of it faded relatively quickly (Lange et al., 2018a). What matters is what comes next. Rather than turning it into words or actions that put your friend down, look at what your friend did and whether any of it is something you could try (van de Ven et al., 2012).

Q. Should I delete my social media? A. Not necessarily. One experiment found better well-being after a one-week break (Lambert et al., 2022), while another found no clear effect (Hall et al., 2021). Rather than deleting everything, start by experimenting with cutting back on the accounts and times of day that leave you feeling low. If controlling your screen time is hard, Smartphone addiction (problematic use) can help.

Q. How did Adler see inferiority feelings? A. Adler held that everyone feels inferior because every life begins with the weakness and helplessness of a child, and he saw that feeling as the driving force of striving. He also held that people have a “social feeling” (later usually called social interest), a wish to connect with others, which starts in the family and can broaden over a lifetime to take in the whole of humanity (Adler, 1927). According to the APA Dictionary, Adler meant “striving for superiority” as a drive to grow and become complete, not a wish for status or power over others, and he thought social interest is only partly inborn and has to be nurtured (APA, n.d.). Adler’s ideas are a theory drawn from clinical experience and are best kept separate from conclusions tested by experiments. Adler also thought that birth order influences personality; how large studies have examined that idea is covered in the guide Birth order and personality.

Q. Comparison makes me feel worthless and I want to disappear. A. Please do not carry that alone. Reach out to a crisis line right away: call or text 988 in the US and Canada, call Samaritans on 116 123 in the UK and Ireland, or find a line at findahelpline.com elsewhere. If you are in immediate danger, contact your local emergency services. However strong a thought that began with comparison feels, it does not sum up who you are.

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