Individual Strivings in Social Comparison Processes: Achievement Motivation Goals in the Big-Fish-Little-Pond Effect

In school settings, adolescents recur to different sources of information to create their beliefs about future possibilities. Social comparison processes and personal goals related to achievement play an important role in shaping these beliefs. Drawing upon literature concerning the Big-Fish-Little-Pond effect and the Achievement Goal Theory, the present study aimed at understanding how adolescents attending the last year of secondary school (n = 689; Mage = 18.15; SD = 0.57) perceive their possibilities of potentially having a better future than their classmates. In particular, we sought to understand in what way this perception is influenced by students’ perceived relative position in their class—which accounts for the social comparison process—and its interaction with different types of achievement goals (mastery-approach goals, mastery-avoidance goals, performance-approach goals, and performance-avoidance goals). Results showed that perceived relative position mediated the relationship between the predictors (classmates’ average achievement and individual achievement) and future expectations. Furthermore, analyses of moderated mediation showed that both performance-approach and performance-avoidance goals reduced the impact of a low perceived relative position on future expectations, while mastery-approach and mastery-avoidance goals did not moderate its effect.