TY - JOUR
AU - Smith, Monte
AB - Examined the interrelations among performance in school, friendship choices in the classroom, and the importance of various school-related activities for 270 5th- and 6th graders' self-definition, using the self-evaluation maintenance (SEM) model. Ss were administered the Piers-Harris Children's Self-Concept Scale, and 16 teachers rated Ss' performance. Ss named as friends those classmates whose performance (both actual and distorted) was better than their own on irrelevant activities and somewhat inferior to their own on relevant activities. There was also a striking similarity effect. Friends' overall performance was highly similar to the S's own overall performance, and both the Ss and friends performed better on the S's relevant activity than on the S's irrelevant activity. The performance of a distant other, in this case a disliked other, was derogated on both relevant and irrelevant activities. Results support the use of an SEM model and suggest that although friendship choices may indeed be governed by attempts to maintain a positive self-evaluation, individuals do not achieve this goal by choosing as friends those who perform poorly on personally relevant activities. Individuals choose as friends others who are highly similar to themselves in terms of overall ability and who are interested in and perform well on those activities that are consequential to them. (23 ref)
TI - Friendship choice and performance: Self-evaluation maintenance in children
JF - Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
DO - 10.1037/0022-3514.46.3.561
DA - 1984-03-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/american-psychological-association/friendship-choice-and-performance-self-evaluation-maintenance-in-zU5Pa7FBpI
SP - 561
EP - 574
VL - 46
IS - 3
DP - DeepDyve
ER -