The human condition is better improved by altering detrimental circumstances and personal perspectives than by trying to alter personal outlooks, while ignoring the very circumstances that serve to nourish them

People who are insecure about themselves will avoid social comparisons that are potentially threatening to their self-esteem

For many activities, people cannot rely solely on themselves in evaluating their ability level because such judgments require inferences from probabilistic indicants of talent about which they may have limited knowledge. Self-appraisals are, therefore, partly based on the opinions of others who presumably possess evaluative competence

Self-doubt creates the impetus for learning but hinders adept use of previously established skills

People's conceptions about themselves and the nature of things are developed and verified through four different processes: direct experience of the effects produced by their actions, vicarious experience of the effects produced by somebody else's actions, judgments voiced by others, and derivation of further knowledge from what they already know by using rules of inference

[Children] receive direct instruction from time to time about the appropriateness of various social comparisons

Forceful actions arising from erroneous beliefs often create social effects that confirm the misbeliefs