When Peer Performance Matters: Effects of Expertise and Traits on Children's Self‐Evaluations After Social Comparison

Lapan, Candace; Boseovski, Janet J.

doi:10.1111/cdev.12941

Cited by 16 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…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].…”

Section: Social Comparison and Competition In Childrenmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

et al. 2021

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A partner’s competence should logically favor cooperative learning. However, research in cooperative learning has shown that a partner’s competence may or may not activate a threatening social comparison and yields dual effects: It is beneficial when students work on complementary information while it is detrimental when students work on identical information. Two studies conducted at elementary school (study 1 with 24 fourth graders working on encyclopedic texts, and study 2 with 28 fifth graders working on argumentative texts) replicated that interaction: Information distribution (complementary vs. identical information) moderated the relationship between partner’s competence and pupils’ learning outcomes. The relation between partner’s competence and students’ performances was positive when working on complementary information, but negative when working on identical information. A third study confirmed that working on identical information led to a competitive social comparison whereas complementary information reinforced the pupils’ cooperation perception. Contributions to cooperative learning research are discussed in terms of the competitive comparisons that may arise during cooperative learning at elementary school.

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Section: Social Comparison and Competition In Childrenmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

et al. 2021

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“…Why? Lapan and Boseovski () reasoned that young children may not fully realize the implications of their peers’ skill level in making social comparisons. That is, young children may consider themselves highly capable, even when they are outperformed by unskilled peers.…”

Section: How Social Relationships Shape the Self‐conceptmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…And this can be achieved without sacrificing children's natural environment or our own experimental control. As articles in this special section have illustrated, laboratory experiments can be designed to mirror children's natural environments (Cimpian et al., ; Lapan & Boseovski, ), and longitudinal studies can include controlled assessments of actual parent–child interactions (Brummelman et al., ; Harris et al., ).…”

Section: Going Forwardmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Children Construct Views of Themselves: A Social‐Developmental Perspective

Brummelman

Thomaes

2017

Child Development

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As they grow up, children construct views of themselves and their place in the world, known as their self-concept. This topic has often been addressed by social psychologists (studying how the self-concept is influenced by social contexts) and developmental psychologists (studying how the self-concept changes over time). Yet, relatively little is known about the origins of the self-concept. This article calls for research that bridges social and developmental psychology to illuminate this important issue. Adopting such a social-developmental approach, the current special section shows that children construct their self-concept based on the social relationships they have, the feedback they receive, the social comparisons they make, and the cultural values they endorse. These findings underline the deeply social nature of self-development.

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“…It has been theorized that, from this age onward, social comparisons, unlike temporal comparisons, might hinder self-improvement (Ruble, Grosovsky, Frey, & Cohen, 1992). For example, when children are outperformed by others, they may feel that they are low in ability and there is not much they can do to change that (Lapan & Boseovski, 2017;Ruble et al, 1992). Thus, we focused on this critical developmental period and tracked the effects of social and temporal comparisons across middle-to-late childhood (ages 8 -10), early adolescence (ages 11-13), and middle adolescence (ages 14 -16).…”

Section: Developmental Trendsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Gürel¹,

Brummelman²,

Sedikides³

et al. 2020

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

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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.

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When Peer Performance Matters: Effects of Expertise and Traits on Children's Self‐Evaluations After Social Comparison

Cited by 16 publications

References 48 publications

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

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

How Children Construct Views of Themselves: A Social‐Developmental Perspective

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

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