June 11, 2025
Contact: Eric Stann, StannE@missouri.edu

It started with a TikTok trend.

Makenzie Schroeder, a graduate student in the University of Missouri's College of Arts and Science, noticed people were posting filtered photos of themselves looking slimmer, often captioned with phrases such as “my motivation.” These weren’t photos of celebrities or influencers; rather, people were posting filtered selfies, shared as ideal versions of themselves.

That made Schroeder wonder: What happens when people stop comparing themselves to others online and start comparing themselves to their own filtered photos?

To find out, Schroeder partnered with Elizabeth Behm-Morawitz, professor and chair of Mizzou’s Department of Communication, to study what the researchers call “social self-comparison” — the process of comparing one’s own appearance to digitally altered selfies.