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Comparison
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." 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 deci ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Social Comparison Theory
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. 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.Schachter, S. (1959). The psychology of affiliation: Experimental studies of the sources of gregariousness (Vol. 1). Stanford University Press. Social comparison can be traced back to the pivotal paper ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 products based on price, features, reviews and other criteria. Most comparison shopping sites aggregate product listings from many different retailers but do not directly sell products themselves, instead earning money from affiliate marketing agreements. In the United Kingdom, these services made between £780m and £950m in revenue in 2005. Hence, E-commerce accounted for an 18.2 percent share of total business turnover in the United Kingdom in 2012. Online sales already account for 13% of the total UK economy, and its expected to increase to 15% by 2017. There is a huge contribution of comparison shopping websites in the expansion of the current E-commerce industry. History The first widely recognized comparison-shopping agent was Bargain ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Comparison Of Dietary Fat Composition
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." 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 deci ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 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 (or propinquity). Festinger studied psychology under Kurt Lewin, an important figure in modern social psychology, at the University of Iowa, graduating in 1941; however, he did not develop an interest in social psychology until after joining the faculty at Lewin's Research Cente ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Comparison (grammar)
Comparison is a feature in the morphology or syntax of some languages whereby adjectives and adverbs are inflected to indicate the relative degree of the property they define exhibited by the word or phrase they modify or describe. In languages that have it, the comparative construction expresses quality, quantity, or degree relative to ''some'' other comparator(s). The superlative construction expresses the greatest quality, quantity, or degree—i.e. relative to ''all'' other comparators. The associated grammatical category is degree of comparison. The usual degrees of comparison are the ''positive'', which simply denotes a property (as with the English words ''big'' and ''fully''); the ''comparative'', which indicates ''greater'' degree (as ''bigger'' and ''more fully''); and the ''superlative'', which indicates ''greatest'' degree (as ''biggest'' and ''most fully''). Some languages have forms indicating a very large degree of a particular quality (called ''elative'' in Semit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 as positive and superlative degrees of comparison. The syntax of comparative constructions is poorly understood due to the complexity of the data. In particular, the comparative frequently occurs with independent mechanisms of syntax such as coordination and forms of ellipsis (gapping, pseudogapping, null complement anaphora, stripping, verb phrase ellipsis). The interaction of the various mechanisms complicates the analysis. Absolute and null forms A number of fixed expressions use a comparative form where no comparison is being asserted, such as ''higher education'' or ''younger generation''. These comparatives can be called ''absolute''. Similarly, a null comparative is one in which the starting point for comparison is not stated. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 behavior, while cultural anthropology studies cultural meaning, including norms and values. A portmanteau term sociocultural anthropology is commonly used today. Linguistic anthropology studies how language influences social life. Biological or physical anthropology studies the biological development of humans. Archaeological anthropology, often termed as 'anthropology of the past', studies human activity through investigation of physical evidence. It is considered a branch of anthropology in North America and Asia, while in Europe archaeology is viewed as a discipline in its own right or grouped under other related disciplines, such as history and palaeontology. Etymology The abstract noun ''anthropology'' is first attested in reference t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 with other types of figurative language, such as antithesis, hyperbole, metonymy, and simile. One of the most commonly cited examples of a metaphor in English literature comes from the "All the world's a stage" monologue from '' As You Like It'': All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances And one man in his time plays many parts, His Acts being seven ages. At first, the infant... :—William Shakespeare, '' As You Like It'', 2/7 This quotation expresses a metaphor because the world is not literally a stage, and most humans are not literally actors and actresses playing roles. By asserting that the world is a stage, Shakespeare uses points of comparison between the world an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 create an implicit comparison (i.e. saying something "''is''" something else). This distinction is evident in the etymology of the words: simile derives from the Latin word ''similis'' ("similar, like"), while metaphor derives from the Greek word ''metapherein'' ("to transfer"). Like 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. Uses In literature * "O My like a red, red rose." "A Red, Red Rose," by Robert Burns. * John Milton, ''Paradise Lost'', a Homeric simile:::As when a prowling Wolf, ::Whom hunger drives to seek new haun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 through comparative research to examine the scope of human behavior and test hypotheses about human behavior and culture. Cross-cultural studies is the third form of cross-cultural comparisons. The first is comparison of case studies, the second is controlled comparison among variants of a common derivation, and the third is comparison within a sample of cases. Unlike comparative studies, which examines similar characteristics of a few societies, cross-cultural studies uses a sufficiently large sample so that statistical analysis can be made to show relationships or lack of relationships between the traits in question. These studies are surveys of ethnographic data. Cross-cultural studies are applied widely in the social sciences, particular ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 apples and oranges'', refers to the apparent differences between items which are popularly thought to be incomparable or incommensurable, such as apples and oranges. The idiom may also be used to indicate that a false analogy has been made between two items, such as where an ''apple'' is faulted for not being a good ''orange''. Variants The idiom is not unique to English. In Quebec French, it may take the form (to compare apples with oranges), while in European French the idiom says (to compare apples and pears) or (to compare cabbages and carrots). In Latin American Spanish, it is usually (comparing potatoes and sweet potatoes) or commonly for all varieties of Spanish (comparing pears with apples). In some other languages the ter ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 sequence of words, and '' tropes,'' where words carry a meaning other than what they ordinarily signify. An example of a scheme is a polysyndeton: the repetition of a conjunction before every element in a list, whereas the conjunction typically would appear only before the last element, as in "Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!"—emphasizing the danger and number of animals more than the prosaic wording with only the second "and". An example of a trope is the metaphor, describing one thing as something that it clearly is not in order to lead the mind to compare them, in "All the world's a stage." Four rhetorical operations Classical rhetoricians classified figures of speech into four categories or :Jansen, Jeroen (2008) Imitatio'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
