Social comparison processes and academic achievement: The dependence of the development of self-evaluations on friends' performance.

The purpose of this study was to examine the role of social comparison processes in children's self-evaluations. Children's aptitudes to gauge their self-evaluations of their abilities in school activities (i.e., perceived academic competence) on the basis of their actual performance depended on how well their reciprocated friends performed academically. Self-evaluations of performance were not affected when the comparison was based on levels of nonreciprocated friends' achievement.