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

Better than my past self: temporal comparison raises children’s pride without triggering superiority goals
Better than my past self: temporal comparison raises children’s pride without triggering superiority goals
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 (Mage = 11.65, SD = 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.
1076-898X
Gurel, C.
8233c73f-23b9-4fa9-b974-008742dc6d97
Brummelman, Eddie
b35dff27-28b1-4184-ab81-da7815676194
Sedikides, Constantine
9d45e66d-75bb-44de-87d7-21fd553812c2
Overbeek, G.
ec52a788-1e93-423e-bfc6-f5dc96a0976b
Gurel, C.
8233c73f-23b9-4fa9-b974-008742dc6d97
Brummelman, Eddie
b35dff27-28b1-4184-ab81-da7815676194
Sedikides, Constantine
9d45e66d-75bb-44de-87d7-21fd553812c2
Overbeek, G.
ec52a788-1e93-423e-bfc6-f5dc96a0976b

Gurel, C., Brummelman, Eddie, Sedikides, Constantine and Overbeek, G. (2019) Better than my past self: temporal comparison raises children’s pride without triggering superiority goals. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied. (doi:10.1037/xge0000733). (In Press)

Record type: Article

Abstract

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 (Mage = 11.65, SD = 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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More information

Accepted/In Press date: 3 December 2019

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 436577
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/436577
ISSN: 1076-898X
PURE UUID: 20abb6f7-ae69-4908-9124-167bc79e8851
ORCID for Constantine Sedikides: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-4036-889X

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Date deposited: 16 Dec 2019 17:30
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 05:08

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Contributors

Author: C. Gurel
Author: Eddie Brummelman
Author: G. Overbeek

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