Reflect on your career as a student. Did you ever compare yourself to your higher-achieving classmates? If so, was the extent to which you compared yourself consistent across all grades? Research reveals that upward social comparison increases as level of education increases. Upward social comparison involves comparing yourself to people that are “better” than you in some way. In the school setting, social comparisons relate to academic achievement and grades. Research has revealed that, oftentimes, making upward social comparisons inspires people to perform better in order to match or exceed others’ achievement.
Florence Dumas et al. attempted to identify the extent of upward social comparisons among elementary school students. The researchers found that elementary school students do not compare themselves upwardly with their peers. They do make social comparisons but they do not realize their position in an academic hierarchy. Upward social comparisons became more prevalent in middle school, and in ninth grade, students made upward comparisons in each subject area. The upward comparisons, however, did not make students feel less capable because the purpose of the assessment was self-improvement.
Researchers also found that students were more likely to make upward social comparisons as they began to understand the values of their teacher and the school system. Students constantly receive and interpret a multitude of explicit and implicit messages and learn, for example, that good performance is characterized by high achievement. This realization, along with the emergence of an achievement hierarchy in older grades, is a main cause of upward social comparisons
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