Achieving a good impression: Reputation management and performance goals

Abstract

Whether a student wants to improve their ability (i.e., has learning goals) or demonstrate it (i.e., has performance goals) plays an important role in their learning and motivation; students focused on the latter tend to avoid taking on challenges and seeking help when they need it. In the achievement literature, these different goals are thought to result primarily from holding different mindsets about whether one's ability is malleable or fixed. We argue, however, that this traditional framework has largely overlooked the powerful role that reputational concerns play in influencing which achievement goals students pursue. Specifically, reputational concerns may drive students to pursue performance goals and "prove" their ability to others, irrespective of their mindsets. We argue that closely investigating these concerns may help uncover new mechanisms by which performance goals are fostered and maintained as well as new strategies for developing interventions aimed at encouraging learning goals. Finally, we offer suggestions for how the achievement and reputation management literatures can be productively brought to bear on one another in future research.

Children’s Reputation Management: Learning to Identify What Is Socially Valued and Acting Upon It

“…For example, the first author knew an elementary-school student who admitted she tried to appear unintelligent to reduce burdensome academic expectations that she felt were being placed on her. This is similar to the phenomena of self-handicapping, in which people downplay their effort so that any failures can be attributed to lack of effort and they can maintain positive impressions of their competence (see Good & Shaw, 2021).…”

“…Some of the challenges involved in reasoning about and acting upon what is socially valued, illustrated with hypothetical quotations from the domain of achievement motivation (see Good & Shaw, 2021). …”

“…Recent research suggests that children as young as age 5 already have some capacity to recognize the relevance of these kinds of comments (Qin et al, 2020). Zhao et al (2020) found that children cheated more after overhearing an experimenter praise a classmate for being smart, which could be interpreted as a cue that the experimenter valued displays of intelligence (see Good & Shaw, 2021). In such contexts, children may view cheating as a means to achieve better performance and more favorable evaluations of their ability.…”

“…For example, a child who concludes that a certain friend values dark humor may be unsure whether other people feel the same way. Similarly, a child who learns that a specific evaluator cares more about performance outcomes than effort or learning may wonder whether this attitude is shared among teachers in general, adults in general, or all people (Good & Shaw, 2021). These questions can be applied to any context in which children try to predict whether inferences they have made about what some people value will also apply to others and can extend to questions of generalization across communities.…”

Being versus appearing smart: Children’s developing intuitions about how reputational motives guide behavior

“…Caring about one's reputation is common in people's daily lives (Baumeister & Jones, 1978; Schlenker & Leary, 1982; Silver et al, 2021) and some of these concerns with reputation appear early in development. Indeed, children as young as 5 years old modify their behavior in ways that help them form better impressions with others (e.g., Aloise‐Young, 1993; for reviews, see Banerjee et al, 2020; Botto & Rochat, 2018; Good & Shaw, 2021; Zhao et al, 2017). For example, 5‐year‐olds are more generous when they know that others are watching or will be aware of their actions (Engelmann et al, 2013; Leimgruber et al, 2012; Rapp et al, 2019; Yazdi et al, 2020).…”