Teachers are often asked to nominate students for enrichment programs for gifted children, and studies have repeatedly indicated that students' intelligence is related to their likelihood of being nominated as gifted. However, it is unknown whether class-average levels of intelligence influence teachers' nominations as suggested by theory-and corresponding empirical results-concerning reference group effects. Herein, it was hypothesized that when students' individual fluid and crystallized intelligence scores were similar, students from classes with higher average levels of intelligence would have a lower probability of being nominated for an enrichment program for gifted children than students from classes with lower average levels of intelligence. Furthermore, we investigated whether 3 teacher variablesexperience with giftedness, beliefs about the changeability of intelligence, and the belief that giftedness is holistic or domain specific-would influence the expected reference group effect. In a study comprising data from 105 teachers and 1,468 of their (German) third-grade students, we found support not only for a positive association between students' individual intelligence scores and the probability that students would be nominated as gifted but also, more importantly, for the proposed reference group effect: When controlling for individual levels of intelligence, students' probability of being nominated was higher in classes with lower average levels of intelligence. In addition, the results showed that this reference group effect was stronger when teachers saw giftedness as holistic rather than domain specific. Also, depending on teachers' kinds of experience with giftedness, the reference group effect varied in size.
Research converges on the notion that when people feel envy, they disguise it towards others. This implies that a person's envy in a given situation cannot be accurately perceived by peers, as envy lacks a specific display that could be used as a perceptual cue. In contrast to this reasoning, research supports that envy contributes to the regulation of status hierarchies. If envy threatens status positions, people should be highly attentive to identify enviers. The combination of the two led us to expect that (a) state envy is difficult to accurately perceive in unacquainted persons and (b) dispositional enviers can be accurately identified by acquaintances. To investigate these hypotheses, we used actor-partner interdependence models to disentangle accuracy and bias in the perception of state and trait envy. In Study 1, 436 unacquainted dyad members competed against each other and rated their own and the partner's state envy. Perception bias was significantly positive, yet perception accuracy was non-significant. In Study 2, 502 acquainted dyad members rated their own and the partner's dispositional benign and malicious envy as well as trait authentic and hubristic pride.Accuracy coefficients were positive for dispositional benign and malicious envy and robust when controlling for trait authentic and hubristic pride. Moreover, accuracy for dispositional benign envy increased with the depth of the relationship. We conclude that enviers might be identifiable but only after extended contact and discuss how this contributes to research on the ambiguous experience of being envied.
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