Who strives and who gives up? The role of social comparison distance and achievement goals on students’ learning investment

Abstract

The current survey tests the effects of social comparison distance on investment in learning. The social comparison is known to have two directions: upward and downward. It is hypothesized that, apart from these two directions, there are two distances: moderate and extreme. These distances are supposed to have an impact on the learning investment (when students will strive) or the disinvestment (when they will not make a great effort). Globally, students seem to put more effort in the case of moderate-distance conditions than in the case of extreme-distance conditions. However, the effect of distance is different according to the achievement goals reported by participants (interaction between comparison distance and achievement goals): the participants with performance goals strive more in the moderate-distance condition, whereas those with mastery goals seem to put a quite stable effort regardless of the distance. Implications in educational settings are discussed