Better than my past self: Temporal comparison raises children’s pride without triggering superiority goals.

Abstract

Western societies offer children many opportunities for downward social comparisons (i.e., comparing oneself favorably to others). Such comparisons make children feel proud of themselves but could inadvertently trigger a desire to be superior to others. How can children be made to feel proud without triggering a desire for superiority? We hypothesized that downward temporal comparisons (i.e., comparing one's current self favorably to one's past self) can make children feel proud and give them a sense of insight and progress, without triggering a desire for superiority. We randomly assigned 583 children (M age ϭ 11.65, SD ϭ 1.92) to engage in social comparisons (downward or upward), temporal comparisons (downward or upward), or no comparison. As hypothesized, downward social and temporal comparisons both made children feel proud, but only temporal comparisons did so without triggering superiority goals. Relative to social comparisons, temporal comparisons gave children a sense of progress and insight. These comparison effects were similar across middle-to-late childhood (ages 8-10), early adolescence (ages 11-13), and middle adolescence (ages 14-16). Collectively, our findings suggest that social comparisons contribute a competitive interpersonal orientation marked by a desire for superiority. Temporal comparisons, in contrast, shift children's goals away from being better than others toward being better than their own past selves.

Family socioeconomic status, subjective social status, and achievement motivation among Chinese college freshmen: A latent growth modeling approach

“…Upward social comparisons cause students to feel ashamed of themselves, and downward social comparisons trigger a desire for superiority toward others. In contrast, downward temporal comparisons (comparing one’s present self favorably to one’s past self, rather than to others) cause students to feel proud and give them a sense of progress and insight without triggering a desire for superiority (Gürel et al, 2020). Considering this type of comparison, recommendations for schools and families that encourage college freshmen to evaluate themselves using temporal comparisons (focused on personal growth and development) and attempt to combat intense (and often harmful) social comparisons may be a helpful strategy to enhance achievement motivation during the college transition, which is critical to facilitating freshmen’s transition and adaptation to college life.…”

Dual Effects of Partner’s Competence: Resource Interdependence in Cooperative Learning at Elementary School

“…For instance, pupils from grade 3 inspect and evaluate peers' work and display "besting behaviors", revealing a need to excel over others, along with comparative evaluative statements, even when the context is not a competitive one [64]. In sum, from the age of seven or eight, children become increasingly sensitive to social comparisons [65][66][67].…”

“…Pepitone [64] underlined that being in a classroom implies a number of ingredients that reinforce the likelihood of social comparison: Novel tasks and new learning imply some degree of cognitive uncertainty, in a context where relevant others (people belonging to a reference group confronted to the same instruction) are available, and where evaluation is important. Moreover, the reward system, perceived focus on achievement and social pressure to perform well contribute to create an evaluative atmosphere in the classroom, both for children [59,65] and teachers [71,72]. While arguing that normative evaluation is less important in elementary school than in junior high school, Stipek and Mac Iver [58] underlined that focus on relative performance, the use of competitive activities in the classroom, and assignment to classes according to ability may appear as soon as grade 3 in elementary school.…”

Raising Children With High Self‐Esteem (But Not Narcissism)

“…For example, while monitoring children’s status on social media, overvaluing parents smiled when their child gained status, but frowned when their child lost status, as revealed by their facial muscle activity (Grapsas, Denissen, Lee, Bos, & Brummelman, 2020). Encouraging children to think they are better than others triggers their narcissistic desire to be superior to others at the expense of their desire to grow and learn (Gürel et al, 2020).…”