# The relationship between affective response to social comparison and academic performance in high school #### (2010) Maike J. P. W. Wehrens, Abraham P. Buunk, Miranda J. Lubbers, Pieternel Dijkstra, Hans Kuyper, Greetje P. C. van der Werf Link:: Related:: [[The long-term effect of social comparison on academic performance]] Tags:: #📜 ### Abstract The goal of the present study was to study the relationship between affective responses to social comparison and test scores among high school students. Our analyses showed that three types of responses to social comparison could be distinguished: an empathic, constructive, and destructive response. Whereas girls scored higher on empathic response, boys scored higher on destructive response. In addition, students who had a high social comparison orientation (SCO) scored higher on all three types of responses than students who expressed a low SCO. Multilevel regression analyses indicated that, after controlling for previous performance, a destructive response was negatively related to performance on tests for reading comprehension and mathematics. An empathic response was positively related to performance on reading comprehension only whereas a constructive response compensated the negative relationship between destructive response and reading comprehension. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved) [[Social comparisons in the classroom are generally forced upon students]]. This is why it's essential to understand how they effect students performance and wellbeing. The three responses, empathetic, constructive, and destructive were defined like this: "empathic responses suggest a focus on the comparison target, with students identifying with the target. Students sympathized with the target and felt sorry or happy for him or her. Constructive responses seemed to entail a focus on the self, generating affects such as hope and optimism (when identifying with the target) and pride and shame (when contrasting with the target). Destructive responses were mainly characterized by a contrasting interpretation of social comparison information, with either a dual focus or a focus on the self, and consisting of feelings such as envy, resentment and schadenfreude. The destructive response, however, also included the fear of a low grade in the future, which is also a negative reaction, though focused on the self, identifying with the target.” (Wehrens et al., 2010, p. 211) ### How did the responses effect performance? Interestingly, constructive self responses were not related to performances. It's theorized this is because [[Student's with a mastery orientation care less about performance metrics and care more about mastery oriented goals]]. Students with an empathetic response performed better on reading comprehension tests. This is because [[In social comparison individuals can identify or contrast themselves with their comparison target]] and if they identify (empathetic response) with a target that did better than them on the test it could help enhance positive affect and inspire them to perform better on the next test. Destructive responses tended to decrease academic performance. It's important to note that the positive relationship between empathetic responses and academic performance was weaker than the relationship between destructive responses and performance. This is because of [[Positive-negative asymmetry]]. They also find students with a higher Social Comparison Orientation (SCO) were more effected by any of the responses. # Annotations (10/17/2022, 8:40:19 AM) “Social comparisons are not merely a matter of choice (Huguet et al., 2009; Levine, 1983). Due to the structure of the classroom and its strong evaluative nature, many comparisons are ‘forced’ upon children, as are its consequences.” (Wehrens et al., 2010, p. 203) Understanding social comparisons effects on grades is essential because it's not the students choice whether they socially compare to another student or not. Teachers at Cornell release statistics on class averages openly even if you ask them to or not. “In general, social comparisons with classmates make students feel and think more negative about themselves (e.g., Levine, 1983). Illustrative is the widely observed Big-Fish–Little-Pond-Effect (Marsh, 1991), i.e., the finding that pupils in higher ability schools show substantially lower academic self-concept than equally intelligent and performing pupils in lower ability schools, and that negatively influences academic performance.” (Wehrens et al., 2010, p. 204) This agrees with what Medvec, Madey, and Gilovich (1995) found when comparing Olympic medalists self esteem from social comparison. We put more emphasis on social comparisons to evaluate self esteem then objective metrics which is why smart students in academically smart institutions have lower self esteem. “In their review on social comparisons in the classroom, Dijkstra et al. (2008) conclude that especially social comparison (with those who perform better) seems to be a two-edged sword: although they may lead students to do better, it makes them feel and think worse about themselves.” (Wehrens et al., 2010, p. 204) “although it is commonly believed that emotions are an important part of learning and teaching, they constitute a severely understudied topic in educational research (Gumora & Arsenio, 2002; Hazari, Tai, & Sadler, 2007).” (Wehrens et al., 2010, p. 205) “umora and Arsenio (2002), however, showed the importance of emotions in the classroom: they found negative affect to be negatively related to GPA and achievement scores and to contribute to students’ GPA, over and above the influence of cognitive variables, such as academic self-concept” (Wehrens et al., 2010, p. 205) “Relative to individuals with a low SCO, individuals with a high SCO are more interested in comparisons, seek out more comparisons, spend more time engaging in comparisons, and base their personal risk perceptions (more) on comparisons with others (Buunk & Gibbons, 2006).” (Wehrens et al., 2010, p. 205) “In terms of the models of Buunk et al. (2005) and Smith (2000), empathic responses suggest a focus on the comparison target, with students identifying with the target. Students sympathized with the target and felt sorry or happy for him or her. Constructive responses seemed to entail a focus on the self, generating affects such as hope and optimism (when identifying with the target) and pride and shame (when contrasting with the target). Destructive responses were mainly characterized by a contrasting interpretation of social comparison information, with either a dual focus or a focus on the self, and consisting of feelings such as envy, resentment and schadenfreude. The destructive response, however, also included the fear of a low grade in the future, which is also a negative reaction, though focused on the self, identifying with the target.” (Wehrens et al., 2010, p. 211) In general, I believe having a bodhicitta mindset is the way to go when evaluating one self off of others. “We indeed found that students who reported a strong destructive response received lower test scores for reading comprehension and mathematics than students who reported a weak destructive response. Buunk et al. (2005) suggested that responding with negative feelings to social comparisons may lead to frustration and a lack of ambition, and may therefore undermine performance.” (Wehrens et al., 2010, p. 211) Destructive responses are not the reaction to have for increasing performance. “In contrast to what we expected, students’ constructive responses were not related to performances. A possible explanation is that students’ constructive responses did not only involve positive emotions, but also a focus on the self. Students who, when achieving, tend to focus on themselves often hold mastery-oriented goals (i.e., goals that orient the student toward self-improvement, development of competence, and task mastery, in contrast to performance goals that orient students toward the demonstration of competence relative to others and the maintenance of self-worth; e.g.,Ames & Archer, 1988; Pintrich, 2000 ).” (Wehrens et al., 2010, p. 211) “Although students who hold mastery goals are relatively happy and intrinsically motivated and their positive emotions may help them perform (Howell, 2009), a strong self-focus may not always be a good thing in class. Research, for instance, shows that mastery-oriented students tend to allocate their study efforts disproportionately to personally interesting material and tend to neglect other material, a tendency that has been found to be related to low grades in the class (Senko & Miles, 2008).” (Wehrens et al., 2010, p. 211) Students who have a strong self focus in class (me) might not be a good thing for academic performance in class because they allocate studying efforts to material which they find more interesting rather than focusing on material which is likely to help them out on a test. “students who reported strong destructive reactions to the comparison target and only weak constructive responses performed worse than students who reported strong destructive reactions and strong constructive responses at the same time.” (Wehrens et al., 2010, p. 211) This reminds me of the growth mindset. “students who reported a high empathic response received higher scores on reading comprehension than students who reported a low empathic response. Being able to imagine oneself in the situation of a comparison target may inspire students to attain the same desirable position as the comparison target, and motivate them to avoid finding themselves in the same undesirable situation as the comparison target (e.g., Lockwood, 2002; Lockwood & Kunda, 1997).” (Wehrens et al., 2010, p. 211) “It must be noted, however, that the positive relationship between empathic responses and performance was weaker than the relationship between destructive responses and performance” (Wehrens et al., 2010, p. 211) “this seems to be in line with literature on the positive–negative asymmetry which argues that the impact of negative events is far greater than the impact of positive events (e.g., Peeters & Czapinski, 1990; Taylor, 1991)” (Wehrens et al., 2010, p. 211) Humans have negativity dominance. We prioritize negative information over positive which is why empathetic responses didn't have as much of a positive effect on academic performance as negative effects from destructive responses. “It must be noted, however, that the relationship between empathic responses and performance and the compensating effect of constructive responses, were only found for reading comprehension.” (Wehrens et al., 2010, p. 211) “A possible explanation for the relatively strong relationship between social comparison responses and performances we found in our study, is that social comparisons have much more impact on high school students than on college graduates. As noted before, adolescents are still in the process of developing their identity, and as a result, are likely to be much more affected by social comparisons than college graduates who, in general, have a more stable sense of self.” (Wehrens et al., 2010, p. 211) I myself experienced a rapid solidification of identity in the Freshman year of college in comparison to my security during my high school years. “Consistent with our expectations we found that boys, more than girls, showed stronger destructive responses, reflecting relatively strong feelings of competition, whereas girls, more than boys, showed stronger empathic responses, reflecting a stronger concern for others.” (Wehrens et al., 2010, p. 211) “According to Tesser et al. (1988), the effects on the self are especially pronounced with psychologically close others. That is, when someone close to us is outperforming us on a dimension relevant to our self-evaluation, we feel more threatened and inferior than when a stranger outperforms us on that same dimension. A possible explanation for the gender difference in responses to social comparison is, therefore, that boys, more than girls, perceive grades to be more central to their definition of self and/or tend to compare themselves more often to classmates that are psychologically close to them, i.e., friends.” (Wehrens et al., 2010, p. 212) This agrees with the classic concept that the more similar you are to someone the more you may compete with them. It makes sense that if you don't hold a metric as part of your self-evaluation you will be much less effected effected by that metric through social comparison than someone who does. “As expected, we found that, as students had a higher SCO, they responded more strongly – regardless of the specific type of response – to social comparisons.” (Wehrens et al., 2010, p. 212)