There is now an ample literature relating social comparison processes to health, illness, and disability. A search of the literature using PsychLit from 1987 to mid- 1996 produced more than 40 references that examined comparisons among various patient groups across the life span. Nine of these studies examined individuals with chronic pain disorders, and eight of the pain-related studies involved rheumatoid arthritis. Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a relatively common, chronic, and incurable disease. Its physical signs and symptoms include severe joint pain and stiffness, fatigue and, short of surgery, irreversible joint damage and immobility. Many affected individuals face increasing disability as the disease progresses. Still, a confident prognosis for most patients is difficult to make, and many patients experience fluctuating symptoms of disease activity, that is, flares and remissions. The ambiguity of this illness and its many threats to self-esteem and well-being make it a useful context in which to study social comparisons and other selective evaluations. Affleck, Tennen, Pfeiffer, Fifield, and Rowe found that in response to a structured interview, RA patients tended to rate their illness as less severe than that of the average patient and their adjustment as being better than average. Patients who rated their illness as comparatively less severe actually had a less active disease than other patients in the sample and those rating their adjustment as better than average were judged by their care providers as adjusting better to their illness.