title: The overpowering effect of social comparison information: on the misalignment between mastery-based goals and self-evaluation criteria.
abstract: If people's goals and evaluative standards were aligned, then individuals with mastery-based goals should, theoretically, primarily rely on temporal comparison information (i.e., on how they performed relative to before). In contrast, individuals with performance-based goals should rely on social comparison information (i.e., on how they performed relative to others). However, across three studies, we explored a misalignment phenomenon we call "the overpowering effect of social comparison information" (TOESCI). We found that, irrespective of individuals' specific achievement goal (performance-based vs. mastery-based), there is a consistent, dominant reliance on social comparisons over temporal comparisons in their performance self-evaluations. These findings suggest that one's goals and evaluation criteria do not always align-that explicitly endorsing mastery-based goals does not necessarily lead one to rely on temporal comparison information over social comparison information. Only after receiving an explicit reminder to consider their mastery-based goal did participants align their goal and performance self-evaluation criteria.
authors.affiliation: 1University of Groningen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Nico W
authors.initials: NW
authors.lastname: Van Yperen
authors.forename: N Pontus
authors.initials: NP
authors.lastname: Leander
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D005260:Female; D006040:Goals; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009042:Motivation; D012647:Self-Assessment; D012933:Social Identification; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: achievement goal; feedback; goal setting; motivation; temporal comparison