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The Effects of Mastery and Competitive Conditions on Self‐Assessment at Different Ages
Author(s) -
Butler Ruth
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1467-8624
pISSN - 0009-3920
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8624.1990.tb02772.x
Subject(s) - psychology , normative , competence (human resources) , developmental psychology , perception , task (project management) , self assessment , social psychology , cognitive psychology , philosophy , management , epistemology , neuroscience , economics
It was hypothesized that self‐evaluative accuracy will increase with age in a competitive condition, while even young children will appraise their performance quite accurately in a mastery condition. Children at ages 5, 7, and 10 working in either a match‐the‐standard or a competitive condition copied a drawing and then evaluated their copies. As hypothesized, competing 5‐year‐olds overestimated the quality of their copies, and self‐assessments became less positive and better correlated with adult judgments with age. There were no age differences in self‐evaluative accuracy in the mastery condition. Examination of children's explanations for their ratings and their interest in the task supported the interpretation that young children are guided by a nonnormative concept of ability, which can lead to overoptimistic perceptions of competence under competition. Older children tended to adopt normative goals and criteria for self‐assessment in competition and mastery ones in the match the standard condition, and were realistic about their performance in both.