The self-protective properties of ingroup comparisons for low socioeconomic status students: A pilot study

A pilot study, the first step for work to be completed later, was used to investigate whether low socioeconomic status (SES) students restrict social comparison to their ingroup (the other low SES students) to self-protect. After receiving false performance feedback on a memory test, low and high SES students were asked to select another student and to predict his/her test score. In contrast to expectations, participants’ dominant choice was to select high SES targets, regardless of their own SES. Likewise, participants’ achievement level affected neither target selection nor score prediction. Both limitations of this study and methodological improvements are suggested and discussed.