Stimulating outperformance has high priority in Dutch education. Aim is to change the Dutch egalitarian culture to a more performanceoriented culture that rewards outperformance. Although privately satisfying, outperformance can also lead to interpersonal strain. Elxine and Lobel (1999) introduced the term Sensitivity about being the Target of a Threatening Upward Comparison (STTUC) to refer to this outperformance-related distress. Through a systematic review of 39 studies (37 samples) evidence was found for the STTUC-framework and characteristics of the outperformer, situation and relation were found to influence STTUC. An interesting finding in relation to Dutch educational policy is that in individualistic, performanceoriented cultures that accept inequality, outperformers experience more STTUC. Furthermore sociotropy proves to be a consistent predictor of STTUC while narcissism predicts positive emotions in response to outperformance. Findings suggest that the aimed cultural change in Dutch education can increase STTUC and can favour outperformers high in narcissism over those high in sociotropy. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.</p
