Relations between social comparison orientation and adjustment in Chinese adolescents: Moderating effects of initial adjustment status

Abstract

This 1-year longitudinal study examined relations between social comparison orientation (SCO) and socioemotional adjustment and academic achievement. A sample of Grades 7 and 8 students (N = 336, initial M age = 14.08 years) in China participated in the study. Data were collected from self-reports, peer assessments and school records. It was found that early SCO positively contributed to later academic achievement. Moreover, the relations between early SCO and later socioemotional adjustment were moderated by the initial status of adolescents. Specifically, SCO was positively associated with social competence and negatively associated with depression in initially competent and well-adjusted adolescents, but the pattern of the associations was opposite in initially incompetent and poorly adjusted adolescents. The results indicate that whereas SCO may contribute directly to academic achievement, its contributions to socioemotional development might depend on adolescents' initial status in adjustment.

Social Comparison Orientation Associated with Psychological Well Being: The Mediated Role of Self-efficacy

“…Nevertheless, can we switch our social comparison (SC) perception for more positive feedback? A one-year longitudinal study conducted examined the relationship between SCO and socialemotional adjustment and academic performance [11], supporting the finding that high level of SCO leads to an improvement in academic performance [10]. The well-adjusted students who process comparison as a normal and motivating goal to improve tend to express higher self-esteem and selfefficacy, leading to less influence from less competent in the upward comparison.…”

“…The well-adjusted students who process comparison as a normal and motivating goal to improve tend to express higher self-esteem and selfefficacy, leading to less influence from less competent in the upward comparison. On the other hand, poor adjustment students enjoy downward comparison for short-term self-inflation, but it might also reduce their effort and motivation to study [11]. Again, the engagement of SC seems to improve people's performance in various contexts because through comparison; they identified their relatively higher power status and self-evaluation, which consolidated their conceptual image as good or bad and buffered the negative influence from upward comparison.…”

The stability of the twofold multidimensionality of academic self-concept: A study of Chinese secondary school students

“…Last but not least, the predominance of social comparison over dimensional comparison might also be related to the Chinese educational context. In Chinese schools, academic social comparisons are a common phenomenon, in particular among Chinese adolescents (Fu et al, 2018;Li et al, 2021). In such an educational context, our participants might use more social comparison than dimensional comparison to rate their self-concepts in Chinese and math.…”

Don’t Waste a Crisis: COVID-19 and Marketing Students’ Self-Regulated Learning in the Online Environment

“…Studies of social comparison have been conducted mostly in experimental settings, in which the participants were presented with a comparison target and then asked to report their response (e.g., Buunk et al, 2005; Negru-Subtirica et al, 2020). However, it is largely unknown “how social comparison takes places among students on their academic achievement” (Fu et al, 2018, p. 134). Therefore, both grade expectations and comparative appraisal of grades with peers’ grades are important outcomes to assess students’ efforts to self-regulate their learning strategies.…”