One well-known strategy to eliminate social comparisons is to provide children with participation trophies. As one writer for the Novak Djokovic Foundation has noted, “Winning a game or being the best in the class gives children a good feeling about themselves and makes them proud,” and it helps “children get motivated to take the next steps to achieve even bigger goals, such as jumping even further.” Yet social comparisons can backfire: children can learn to always compare themselves with those around them and become trapped in a vicious cycle of competition. Social comparisons are well intentioned: we want to make children feel proud and motivate them to achieve. Most social comparisons are so common in daily life that they are usually glossed over. Last year the Scripps National Spelling Bee awarded winners with $50,000 cash prize and their own trophy-just for being better than others. Sports tournaments award those who surpass others. Adults praise children for outperforming others. Many educators select and publicly announce the “best student” in a class or school. When parents ask, “What grade did you get?” there is a common follow-up question: “So who got the highest grade?” The practice of making such social comparisons is popular in all corners of the world, research shows.
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