Comparison

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An anxious man comparing his own head to a skull, using the technique of phrenology. An anxious man comparing his own head to a skull, using the Wellcome V0009466.jpg
An anxious man comparing his own head to a skull, using the technique of phrenology.
A pair of objects, such as this pair of apples, is subject to comparison once points of similarity and difference can be identified. Two apples.jpg
A pair of objects, such as this pair of apples, is subject to comparison once points of similarity and difference can be identified.
A chart showing a comparison of qualities of a variety of cooking oils, aimed at helping the reader decide which choices would be best for their health. Comparison of dietary fat composition.png
A chart showing a comparison of qualities of a variety of cooking oils, aimed at helping the reader decide which choices would be best for their health.

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:

Contents

To compare is to bring two or more things together (physically or in contemplation) and to examine them systematically, identifying similarities and differences among them. Comparison has a different meaning within each framework of study. Any exploration of the similarities or differences of two or more units is a comparison. In the most limited sense, it consists of comparing two units isolated from each other. [1]

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." 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: 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 websites 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. [2]

Humans also tend to compare themselves and their belongings with others, an activity also observed in some animals. [3] Children begin developing the ability to compare themselves to others in elementary school. [4] 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 in 1954, [5] 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, [6] [7] introducing the concepts of downward and upward comparisons and expanding the motivations of social comparisons. [8]

Human language has evolved to suit this practice by facilitating grammatical comparison, with comparative forms 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 associated with comparison of adjectives and adverbs is degree of comparison. [9]

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:

It is important to recognise that comparison is not a method or even an academic technique; rather, it is a discursive strategy. There are a few important points to bear in mind when one wants to make a comparison. First of all, one has to decide, in any given work, whether one is mainly after similarities or differences. It is very difficult, for example, to say, let alone prove, that Japan and China or Korea are basically similar or basically different. Either case could be made, depending on one's angle of vision, one's framework, and the conclusions towards which one intends to move. [10]

Anderson notes as an example that "[i]n 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 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". [10] Notably, the phrase "comparative studies" is generally used to refer to cross-cultural studies, within the fields of sociology and anthropology. 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". [11]

Literature

The primary use of comparison in literature is with the simile, a figure of speech that directly compares two things. [12] [13] Similes are a form of metaphor that explicitly use connecting words (such as like, as, so, than, or various verbs such as resemble) [12] though these specific words are not always necessary. [14] 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 "[o]dyous of olde been comparsionis", [15] which was reflected by many later writers, such as William Shakespeare, who included the line in Much Ado About Nothing , "comparisons are odious". [16] Miguel de Cervantes, in a passage in Don Quixote , wrote, "[i]s 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?" [17]

File comparison

This section is an excerpt from File comparison.[ edit ]
The KDE diff tool Kompare Kompare.png
The KDE diff tool Kompare

In computing, file comparison is the calculation and display of the differences and similarities between data objects, typically text files such as source code.

The methods, implementations, and results are typically called a diff, [18] after the Unix diff utility. The output may be presented in a graphical user interface or used as part of larger tasks in networks, file systems, or revision control.

Some widely used file comparison programs are diff, cmp, FileMerge, WinMerge, Beyond Compare, and File Compare.

Many text editors and word processors perform file comparison to highlight the changes to a file or document.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Metaphor</span> Figure of speech of implicit comparison

A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas.

A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two things. Similes differ from metaphors by highlighting the similarities between two things using comparison words such as "like", "as", "so", or "than", while metaphors create an implicit comparison. This distinction is evident in the etymology of the words: simile derives from the Latin word similis, while metaphor derives from the Greek word metapherein. As in the case of metaphors, the thing that is being compared is called the tenor, and the thing it is being compared to is called the vehicle. Author and lexicographer Frank J. Wilstach compiled a dictionary of similes in 1916, with a second edition in 1924.

In computing, the utility diff is a data comparison tool that computes and displays the differences between the contents of files. Unlike edit distance notions used for other purposes, diff is line-oriented rather than character-oriented, but it is like Levenshtein distance in that it tries to determine the smallest set of deletions and insertions to create one file from the other. The utility displays the changes in one of several standard formats, such that both humans or computers can parse the changes, and use them for patching.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leon Festinger</span> American social psychologist

Leon Festinger 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 psychology by demonstrating the inadequacy of stimulus-response conditioning accounts of human behavior is largely attributed to his theories and research. Festinger is also credited with advancing the use of laboratory experimentation in social psychology, although he simultaneously stressed the importance of studying real-life situations, a principle he practiced when personally infiltrating a doomsday cult. He is also known in social network theory for the proximity effect.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Comparative psychology</span> Discipline of psychology dedicated to the study of non-human animal behavior

Comparative psychology refers to the scientific study of the behavior and mental processes of non-human animals, especially as these relate to the phylogenetic history, adaptive significance, and development of behavior. The phrase comparative psychology may be employed in a narrow and a broad meaning. In its narrow meaning, it refers to the study of the similarities and differences in the psychology and behavior of different species. In a broader meaning, comparative psychology includes comparisons between different biological and socio-cultural groups, such as species, sexes, developmental stages, ages, and ethnicities. Research in this area addresses many different issues, uses many different methods and explores the behavior of many different species from insects to primates.

A visual comparison is to compare two or more things by eye. This might be done by placing them side by side; by overlaying them; by alternating an image or by presenting each image to a separate eye.

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 through comparative research to examine the scope of human behavior and test hypotheses about human behavior and culture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Comparative politics</span> Field in political science

Comparative politics is a field in political science characterized either by the use of the comparative method or other empirical methods to explore politics both within and between countries. Substantively, this can include questions relating to political institutions, political behavior, conflict, and the causes and consequences of economic development. When applied to specific fields of study, comparative politics may be referred to by other names, such as comparative government.

Comparative research is a research methodology in the social sciences exemplified in cross-cultural or comparative studies that aims to make comparisons across different countries or cultures. A major problem in comparative research is that the data sets in different countries may define categories differently or may not use the same categories.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Social comparison theory</span> Theory in social psychology

Social comparison theory, initially proposed by social psychologist Leon Festinger 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 in order to reduce uncertainty in these domains, and learn how to define the self. Comparing oneself to others socially is a form of measurement and self assessment to identify where an individual stands according to their own set of standards and emotions about themselves.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Comparative sociology</span> Branch of the discipline of sociology

Comparative sociology involves comparison of the social processes between nation states, or across different types of society. There are two main approaches to comparative sociology: some seek similarity across different countries and cultures whereas others seek variance. For example, structural Marxists have attempted to use comparative methods to discover the general processes that underlie apparently different social orderings in different societies. The danger of this approach is that the different social contexts are overlooked in the search for supposed universal structures.

This article compares computer software tools which are used for accomplishing comparisons of files of various types. The file types addressed by individual file comparison apps varies, but may include text, symbols, images, audio, or video. This category of software tool is often called "file comparison" or "diff tool", but those effectively are equivalent terms — where the term "diff" is more commonly associated with the Unix diff utility.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">File comparison</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laurent Thévenot</span>

Laurent Thévenot is a French sociologist Professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Comparative historical research</span> Method in the social sciences

Comparative historical research is a method of social science that examines historical events in order to create explanations that are valid beyond a particular time and place, either by direct comparison to other historical events, theory building, or reference to the present day. Generally, it involves comparisons of social processes across times and places. It overlaps with historical sociology. While the disciplines of history and sociology have always been connected, they have connected in different ways at different times. This form of research may use any of several theoretical orientations. It is distinguished by the types of questions it asks, not the theoretical framework it employs.

In cultural and social studies, configurations are patterns of behaviour, movement and thinking, which research observes when analysing different cultures and/ or historical changes. The term “configurations” is mostly used by comparative anthropological studies and by cultural history. Configurational analysis became a special method by the Stuttgart school of Historical Behaviour Studies during the 1970s and later by body culture studies in Denmark.

<i>Comparing Media Systems</i>

Comparing Media Systems: Three Models of Media and Politics (2004), by Daniel C. Hallin and Paolo Mancini, is a seminal study in the field of international comparative media system research. The study compares media systems of 18 Western democracies including nine Northern European countries, five Southern European countries and four Atlantic countries.

Engaged theory is a methodological framework for understanding the social complexity of a society, by using social relations as the base category of study, with the social always understood as grounded in the natural, including people as embodied beings. Engaged theory progresses from detailed, empirical analysis of the people, things, and processes of the world to abstract theory about the constitution and social framing of people, things, and processes.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diff-Text</span> Application Software

Diff-Text is a web-based software tool that efficiently identifies differences between two blocks of plain text. It operates on a closed-source model and offers a donation or pay-what-you-want payment option. To be compared, text is pasted directly into the web-page. Diff-Text was developed by DiffEngineX LLC and uses improved algorithms originally developed for the spreadsheet compare tool DiffEngineX. It allows the user to choose between comparing on the level of whole lines, words, or characters. If comparing whole lines, only the line that is not a part of the other block will be reported. Diff Text considers a paragraph to be any line ending with a Windows, Macintosh or Unix line terminator.

References

  1. ↑ Patrick Manning, Navigating World History: Historians Create a Global Past (2003), p. 279-80.
  2. ↑ Silver, Henry K.; Hecker, James A. (March 1970). "The Pediatric Nurse Practitioner and the Health Associate: New Types of Health Professionals". Journal of Medical Education. 45: 171–176. Retrieved 10 May 2016.
  3. ↑ Schmitt, V; Federspiel, I; Eckert, J; Keupp, S; Tschernek, L; Faraut, L; Schuster, R; Michels, C; Sennhenn-Reulen, H; Bugnyar, T; Mussweiler, T; Fischer, J (2015). "Do monkeys compare themselves to others?". Animal Cognition. 19 (2): 417–428. doi:10.1007/s10071-015-0943-4. PMC   4751161 . PMID   26615416.
  4. ↑ Robert S. Siegler, Judy S. DeLoache, Nancy Eisenberg, How Children Develop (2006), p. 429.
  5. ↑ Festinger L (1954). "A theory of social comparison processes". Human Relations. 7 (2): 117–140. doi:10.1177/001872675400700202. S2CID   18918768.
  6. ↑ Gruder C. L. (1971). "Determinants of social comparison choices". Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 7 (5): 473–489. doi:10.1016/0022-1031(71)90010-2.
  7. ↑ Wills T. A. (1981). "Downward comparison principles in social psychology". Psychological Bulletin. 90 (2): 245–271. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.90.2.245.
  8. ↑ Schachter, S. (1959). The psychology of affiliation: Experimental studies of the sources of gregariousness (Vol. 1). Stanford University Press.
  9. ↑ Huddleston, Rodney; Pullum, Geoffrey (2002), The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, pp. 1099–1170
  10. 1 2 Benedict Anderson, "Frameworks of Comparison: Benedict Anderson reflects on his intellectual formation," London Review of Books, Vol. 38, No. 2 (21 January 2016), p. 15-18.
  11. ↑ Gordon Marshall, "comparative sociology, comparative method", The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Sociology (1994), p. 77.
  12. 1 2 Murfin, Ross; Ray, Supryia M. (2003). The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms (2nd ed.). Bedford/St. Martins. pp.  447–448. ISBN   978-0312259105.
  13. ↑ "Simile". Literary Terms. 2015-06-22. Retrieved 6 April 2016.
  14. ↑ Harris, Robert A. (5 January 2010). "A Handbook of Rhetorical Devices". Virtual Salt. Retrieved 6 April 2016.
  15. ↑ John Lydgate, "The Hors, the Shepe, and the Gosse", line 204.
  16. ↑ William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing (1598-99), Act III, scene 5, line 19.
  17. ↑ Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote (1605-15), Part II, Chapter I.
  18. ↑ "diff", The Jargon File.
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