Children's Application of Attribution Principles to Social Comparisons

ABOUD, FRANCES E. Children's Application of Attribution Principles to Social Comparisons. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1985, 56, 682-688. The extent to which children use social comparison information to evaluate themselves was examined. Children from the second and fifth grades (7and 10-year olds, respectively) completed a test and then were given infbrrnation about their own and others' performance on the test and the time each had to complete it. The subject's own perfonnance and time were constant across all conditions; the peer information varied in a 2 (perfonnance) x 2 (time) factorial design. Thus, the subject's performance was either equal or inferior to that of his or her peers, and the time was the same as or less than that of his or her peers. The children evaluated their own and each peer's ability. The results indicated that although second graders evaluated ability in line with their own and their peers' perfrnmance within each perfonnance condition, they did not make different self-evaluations across conditions. They also did not compensate for their time disadvantage. In contrast, fifth graders made appropriate evaluations of their ability on the basis of variations in relative performance and compensated for time differences. Results are discussed in terms of the application of causal attribution principles, such as covariation and discounting, to social comparisons.