Social comparison and life satisfaction in social media: The role of mattering and state self-esteem

The overarching aim of this study is to explain how comparing self to others in social media might predict one’s sense of life satisfaction. In order to achieve that, we test the hypothesis that mattering and state self-esteem play a serial mediation that explains the link between social comparison in social media and life satisfaction. One hundred and forty-seven participants’ ages between 18 to 35 were recruited to participate in this research and were asked to fill up the Iowa-Netherlands Comparison Orientation Measure, General Mattering Scale, State Self-Esteem Scale and Riverside Life Satisfaction Scale questionnaires. Bias-free Bootstrap Method with 5000 sample has been conducted to analyze the relationship among the variables, and the results suggested that the overall model of the predictor significantly contributed to life satisfaction. Nevertheless, because social comparison did not predict the sense of mattering, serial mediation did not occur as per hypothesized. Our supplementary analyses indicated that state self-esteem fully mediated the contribution of mattering on life satisfaction. Implication, limitation and suggestions are discussed at the end of the paper

Students' Self-Esteem at School: the Risk, the Challenge, and the Cure

As one of the most important elements in students' psychological well-being, self-esteem is often neglected at school. In schools where students are grouped based on their academic abilities (Between Class Ability Grouping or BCAG, or tracking), teachers are likely to have different expectancies toward different group of students; towards high-achieving students, they tend to be academically supportive, while towards low-achieving students, they tend to control students' behavior in order to avoid disciplinary problems. In turn, students observe their teachers' classroom behavior and develop different perception towards their teachers' expectancy. Eventually, self-esteem of the students is affected by their perceived teachers' expectancy (PTE), where the effect is not always positive. In other words, while most teachers would rather not to teach in mixed classrooms, the practice of BCAG might contribute negative effect to students' self-esteem. Therefore, any strategy to improve students' self-esteem might not be able to produce long-lasting result, because teachers' expectancy towards the students is strongly influenced by the classroom segregation. However, it was discovered recently that Locus of Control (LoC) mediates the effect of PTE on students' self-esteem. In the light of that, there is a hope to develop or maintain students' self-esteem levels by developing some strategies based on Behavior Modification Theories to alter students' LoC

Teachers' Expectancy and Students' Attitude Towards Science

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of teachers' expectancy and students' attitude towards science (ATS). The participants were 130 teachers and 300 students from secondary schools in Indonesia. The results indicated teachers' expectancy significantly affected students' ATS. Different kind of expectancy led teachers to have different classroom behavior. Teachers expect students from the science streams to have significantly higher potential to improve their academic achievements compared to the students from non-science stream. The results also showed that there is a significant correlation between teachers' expectancy and students' perception of teachers' behavior. Furthermore, because students from science stream perceived that their teachers are supportive, they believe that the teachers expected them to score higher in science. In turn, this belief led them to possess higher ATS compared to the non-science stream students, which perceived that their teachers are focusing more on controlling their behavior. It could be concluded that teachers' expectancy affected students' ATS, moderated by the students' perception of teachers' behavior