Factors in social comparison of performance influencing actual performance

Abstract

Seven experiments were conducted which measured changes in the subjects '

The effect of social comparison information on learned helpless and mastery‐oriented children in achievement settings

“…Such a possibility is consistent with the finding that children with high self-concepts maintain their positive self-evaluation by attributing personal or low consensus success to their own personal characteristics, and children with low self-concept maintain their negative self-evaluation by attributing low consensus or personal failures to their own inadequacies (Ames, 1978). It is also consistent with Rijsman's (1974) finding that people with different expectations for future performance vary in problem-solving behaviours following the presentation of social comparison feedback. To examine whether social comparison information influences individual differences in response to failure, the present study examines the attributions, behaviour and affect of helpless and mastery-oriented children following failure that is accompanied by group failure feedback, personal failure feedback and no social comparison information.…”

“…less reward after playing with toys than a same-sexed partner), attended less efficiently on a subsequent block puzzle task. Social comparison information also affects future performance differently across tasks and problemsolving situations (Rijsman, 1974;Spear and Armstrong, 1978). For example, Spear and Armstrong (1978) report that when boys receive failure (criticism) feedback paired with low consensus information on a motor task, performance is facilitated.…”

“…Perhaps this difference is due to the presence of the adult experimenter who may be providing strong evaluative pressure in this problemsolving situation. Rijsman (1974) suggests that when evaluative pressure is high, low consensus feedback leads to increased rather than decreased subsequent performance.…”

Power difference between players and level of matrix as determinants of competition in a MDG

“…A number of the predictions, inherent in Figure 2, received experimental support in a series of studies which measured the change in performance after feedback about how P, under various conditions of evaluative pressure. scored in comparison with 0 (Rijsman, 1974).…”

Social influence and threat in confrontations between competent peers.

“…Similarity has therefore been frequently investigated for these specific attributes (e.g. Gastorf & Suls, 1978;Suls, Gaes, & Gastorf, 1979;Wheeler & Koestner, 1984) while few developments have been concerned with similarity regarding competence or performance (for exceptions see Rijsman, 1974;Taylor, Wayment, & Carillo, 1996;Wheeler, Martin, & Suls, 1997). In other words, very few studies have been conducted to explore lateral comparisons, i.e.…”