Social comparisons with peers are important sources of self-development during adolescence. Many previous studies showed that students' academic self-concepts (ASC) form by contrasting one's own achievement with the average of one's class or school (the Big-Fish-Little-Pond Effect [BFLPE]). Based on social comparison theory, however, we would expect some peers to be more likely social comparison targets than other peers, for example, because they are more visible or students perceive them as similar to themselves. In this study, we used sociometric data to analyze which peers play the most important role for social comparison effects on ASC. We examined how the average achievement of friends, study partners, peers perceived as popular by the student, as well as same-gender and same-ethnic peers affect the general ASC and how these effects compare to the effect of the classroom's average achievement. The study was based on a German longitudinal sample of 2,438 students (44% no recent immigrant background, 19% Turkish immigrant background, 10% Eastern European immigrant background, 27% other immigrant background) from 117 school classes that were followed from grade 9 to 10. Results from longitudinal social network analysis do not confirm substantial incremental effects of specific types of peers, while class average achievement showed a stable negative effect (confirming the BFLPE). In addition, we could provide evidence for social selection effects based on ASC. We conclude that classrooms provide a specific setting that imposes social comparisons with the "generalized peer" rather than with specific subgroups of peers. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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社会比较对学术自我概念的影响——哪些同伴最重要？

与同龄人进行社会比较是青春期自我发展的重要来源。以前的许多研究表明，学生的学业自我概念（ASC）是通过将自己的成绩与班级或学校的平均成绩进行对比而形成的（大鱼小池塘效应 [BFLPE]）。然而，基于社会比较理论，我们预计一些同龄人比其他同龄人更有可能成为社会比较的目标，例如，因为他们更容易被看到或者学生认为他们与自己相似。在这项研究中，我们使用社会计量数据来分析哪些同伴在社会比较对 ASC 的影响方面发挥着最重要的作用。我们研究了学生认为受欢迎的朋友、学习伙伴、同龄人的平均成绩如何，以及同性别和同种族的同伴会影响一般的 ASC，以及这些影响与课堂平均成绩的影响相比如何。该研究基于来自 117 个学校班级的 2,438 名学生（44% 没有近期移民背景，19% 土耳其移民背景，10% 东欧移民背景，27% 其他移民背景）的德国纵向样本，从 9 年级到10. 纵向社交网络分析的结果并未证实特定类型同伴的实质性增量影响，而班级平均成绩显示出稳定的负面影响（证实了 BFLPE）。此外，我们可以为基于 ASC 的社会选择效应提供证据。我们得出的结论是，教室提供了一个特定的环境，可以与“广义的同伴”进行社会比较 而不是与特定的对等子组。（PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2022 APA，保留所有权利）。