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Background: We investigated the link between the endorsement of self-enhancement values (e.g., ambition, influence, authority and social power) and school achievement (i.e., grades). Aim: Adopting an intersectional framework, we argued that the link may be qualified by both students' gender and their parents' education level. We hypothesized that depending on students' different experiences in the school system as a function of their gender and their parents' level of educational attainment, the endorsement of self-enhancement values might be either beneficial or detrimental to their academic achievement. Samples: We conducted two studies: a pilot study (N = 191) and a preregistered main study (N = 652). Method: High-school students reported their endorsement of self-enhancement values, their gender and their parents' education level. The school administration provided students' grade average. Results and Conclusions: In the pilot study, we found an interaction effect between the endorsement of self-enhancement values, gender and parental level of education on grades: For male students, the endorsement of self-enhancement values was associated with lower grades when their parents had a lower education level, but there was no such association for male students whose parents had a higher education level. No such effect was found for female students. With an improved methodology, the main study found an interaction effect between the endorsement of self-enhancement values and gender on grades. Independent of parental education level, the endorsement of self-enhancement values had a positive effect on grades among male students. No effect of self-enhancement values on grades was found among female students.

This study investigates young people's awareness of gender differences in achievement and their reversal between educational and occupational contexts. Girls are generally more academically successful than boys but men still enjoy a superior position in the professional world. The present study therefore aimed to determine whether students were aware of a reversal in gender gap, and to explore whether the characteristics associated with high and low status groups (competence and warmth) are attributed to boys and girls in a way that is consistent with their perceived achievement-related status. From sixth grade to bachelor's degree level, 638 students (347 girls and 290 boys, M[subscript age] = 15.98) rated boys' and girls' academic status in middle school, high school and university, as well as men's and women's occupational status. They also assessed male and female students' warmth and competence at their respective school levels. Overall, participants seemed to be aware of a reversal in gender status between educational contexts, where they attributed the highest status to girls, and the occupational context, in which men were perceived as having the highest status. The youngest students have a limited awareness of gender inequalities in the professional world suggesting that understanding of gender dynamics increases with age. Furthermore, female students were perceived as more competent but not necessarily warmer than male students, suggesting they might be considered as a non-traditional female subgroup. This set of perceptions might have different, yet important, implications for boys' and girls' educational and occupational experience and the maintenance of gender hierarchy.

The purpose of this study was to test the links between psychological disengagement from academics and self-esteem during two different periods of adolescence. Previous research provided mixed findings on the links between both psychological disengagement mechanisms (i.e., discounting and devaluing) and self-esteem. To clarify this relationship, global self-esteem as well as self-esteem in school attainment and social domains were assessed among 142 early-adolescents (aged 11 to 12) and 172 mid-adolescents (aged 13 to 15). According to the Psychological Disengagement Model, it was predicted that experience of personal deprivation due to perceived relative academic underachievement would be associated with discounting of academic grades. In turn, a link between discounting and devaluing from school was expected. Both psychological disengagement mechanisms were predicted to harm global self-esteem and self-esteem in the school attainment domains. However, discounting and devaluing were expected to increase self-esteem in the social domains among mid- rather than early-adolescents. Path analyses support in part prediction. Both psychological disengagement mechanisms played a different role on global and domain-specific self-esteem. Among early-adolescents, discounting reduced global self-esteem and self-esteem in school attainment domains. Findings pointed to the self-protective role of discounting on self-esteem in social domains among mid-adolescents as well as the non-protective function of devaluing on global self-esteem, school attainment and social domains of self-esteem. This study contributes by clarifying the links between psychological disengagement from academics and self-esteem at two distinct periods in adolescence and the specific domains of self-esteem.

In academic contexts, failure, as compared to success, is likely to threaten self-esteem and thus, to increase the risk of psychological disengagement from one's studies. The goal of the present research is to examine whether belief in school meritocracy (BSM) increases (vs. decreases) the effect of academic performance on self-esteem and psychological disengagement. In two pre-registered studies, university students reported their BSM. Their self-esteem and psychological disengagement were assessed following a manipulated (Study 1, N = 465) or actual (Study 2, N = 375) academic performance. Results indicated that, in both studies, BSM was positively related to performance self-esteem and negatively related to psychological disengagement. However, BSM also increased the effect of performance (manipulated or actual) on psychological disengagement. Indeed, failure led to more disengagement than success, but more so at a high level of BSM than at a lower level of BSM. The double-edge effects of belief in meritocracy are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The feminization of school hypothesis suggests that boys underachieve in school compared to girls because school rewards feminine characteristics that are at odds with boys' masculine features. Aims: The feminization of school hypothesis lacks empirical evidence. The aim of this study was to test this hypothesis by examining the extent to which school demands are actually associated with female more than male students. Sample and method: A large sample of 1,954 students (1,115 girls and 839 boys) from grades seven, nine, 10, and 12 took part in the study. The participants were asked to rate the extent to which various characteristics valued in the school setting were exhibited by girls or boys who succeed in school. Results: Three sets of characteristics related to school success emerged from the analyses: compliance, assertiveness, and effort/intelligence. Compliance and effort/intelligence were associated with the girls more than with the boys, while assertiveness was associated with the boys more than with the girls. Conclusion: The feminization of school hypothesis received weak support. This study discusses the limits of this hypothesis to explain boys' underachievement in comparison with girls.

The aim of the present study was to test whether the content of a gender stereotype concerning general academic achievement matched the characteristics deemed to predict success in the fields of higher education dominated by women and men respectively. A sample of 207 undergraduate students rated the extent to which characteristics ascribed to successful female students (compliance) and characteristics ascribed to successful male students (assertiveness, intelligence and effort) were predictive of achievement in various fields of higher education, including female (the humanities at the university, paramedical school and advanced literature curriculum) and male dominated majors (science and technology at the university, engineering school and advanced science curriculum). As expected, participants rated compliance as more predictive of success in the female-dominated fields of higher education, while they considered assertiveness, effort and intelligence as more predictive of success in the male-dominated fields of higher education. Implications of this finding for academic choices and gender system maintenance are discussed.

Background: Endorsing an entity theory of intelligence has negative effects on students' academic trajectories. Research focused on students' personal theories of intelligence has shown that girls are more likely than boys to hold an entity theory of intelligence. However, no study has examined the possibility of a gender stereotype basis for this belief. Aims: We examined whether secondary school students are knowledgeable about others' beliefs describing female students' intelligence as less malleable than male students' intelligence. Sample and method: A sample of 85 French ninth graders were asked to rate to what extent others perceived: (1) female or male students' intelligence as malleable and fixed; (2) female or male students as making efforts for their current achievement; and (3) female or male students as having potential for future success. Results: Participants reported that others perceived girls' intelligence as less malleable than boys' intelligence. Moreover, the relationship between current efforts and potential for future achievement depended on the target's gender. The more hardworking a female student was perceived to be in school, the less she was considered to have potential to succeed in the future, whereas such a link was not observed for a male student. Conclusions: Secondary school students seem to be knowledgeable about a gender stereotype regarding intelligence and potential for academic success which is unfavourable for female students. Implications for students' academic trajectories are discussed.

A considerable body of research has shown that being the only representative of one's gender group (solo status) when performing an activity affects women more than men. The aim of our two experiments was to show that the performance context can moderate the effects of numerical status (majority vs. solo) on performance and that men can also be disadvantaged by solo status. Our proposal is that a groupwork context which makes the "leader" stereotype more salient will be more beneficial to men while an intergender comparison context in a typically feminine thematic field will tend to favor women. To test this hypothesis, the numerical status of the women and men was manipulated while they were performing a task presented as a human and social sciences test in either a groupwork or intergender comparison context. As expected, the solo women were less successful in the groupwork context than in the intergender comparison context (Experiment 1) whereas the solo men were less successful in the intergender comparison context than in the groupwork context (Experiment 2). The role of the performance context and the gender stereotypes that it foregrounds seems to be a key factor in the effects of solo status on performance. (Contains 2 tables.)

Examines, through two studies, the tendency of French students of different academic levels to use the prototype-matching strategy (a decision-making strategy where self-concept guides one's choices). Results suggest that not only high achieving students use the prototype-matching strategy. (CMK)

Psychological differences between women and men, far from being invariant as a biological explanation would suggest, fluctuate in magnitude across cultures. Moreover, contrary to the implications of some theoretical perspectives, gender differences in personality, values, and emotions are not smaller, but larger, in American and European cultures, in which greater progress has been made toward gender equality. This research on gender differences in self-construals involving 950 participants from 5 nations/cultures (France, Belgium, the Netherlands, the United States, and Malaysia) illustrates how variations in social comparison processes across cultures can explain why gender differences are stronger in Western cultures. Gender differences in the self are a product of self-stereotyping, which occurs when between-gender social comparisons are made. These social comparisons are more likely, and exert a greater impact, in Western nations. Both correlational and experimental evidence supports this explanation. Keywords: culture, gender differences, social comparison, self-construal, power distance

Four studies examined gender differences in self-construals and the role of social comparison in generating these differences. Consistent with previous research, Study 1 (N = 461) showed that women define themselves as higher in relational interdependence than men, and men define themselves as higher in independence/agency than women. Study 2 (N = 301) showed that within-gender social comparison decreases gender differences in self-construals relative to a control condition, whereas between-genders comparison increases gender differences on both relational interdependence and independence/agency. Studies 3 (N = 169) and 4 (N = 278) confirmed these findings and showed that changing self-construal changes gender differences in social dominance orientation. Across the 4 studies, strong evidence for the role of in-group stereotyping as mediator of the effect of gender on self-construal was observed on the relational dimension but not on the agentic dimension. Keywords: self-concept, gender differences, social comparison, social dominance, self-categorization

Prior research suggests that people can protect their self-esteem by construing upward comparisons with outgroup members as non-self-relevant. In the present experiments, the authors hypothesized that only dominant group members use such a self-protection strategy. This hypothesis was confirmed in three experiments (N = 293) comparing dominant and subordinate-status groups exposed to upward versus downward social comparisons with ingroup or outgroup members. The results also showed that dominant group members suffered from upward comparisons with ingroup members, whereas subordinate group members did not. For the latter, ingroup identification appeared to be a self-protection strategy. Group status may be a potential moderator of the tendency to adopt particular self-protection strategies against upward comparisons.

The present research aims to determine whether girls' higher academic achievement, which should grant them a higher academic status than boys, could prevent them from experiencing social-identity threat on this dimension. Because they fear situations questioning their superiority, we argue that an unfavorable intergroup comparison would be more threatening for the high-status, rather than low-status, group on the dimension of academic achievement. Two studies were conducted, respectively, in high school, where girls should represent the high-status group (Study 1), and middle school, where students might perceive their own group as the high-status group (Study 2). Although both middle-school and high-school students perceived girls as the high-status group, they appraised the outgroup superiority differently. Indeed, it had more impact on girls' perceived threat and boys' perceived challenge in high school (Study 1), but not in middle school (Study 2). The results, however, did not show significant impact of context on performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]