Marc wrote:
> Normally students "just throw something on" meaning t-shirt, shorts,
> whatever. When students do a little social comparison to other students
> based on attire, they feel equal since everyone is dressed the same. On the
> test day, the student breaks the routine and "dresses up" meaning perhaps a
> nice pair of pants, nice shirt, etc. Now the social comparison based on
> attire makes them feel somehow better than the other students who are still
> dressing "normally". The end result is more confidence in their ability and
> hence a lessening of anxiety. And it is the lower anxiety level that allows
> the student to perform better on the test than that student normally would.
>
> So a student can improve his/her performance on an exam by dressing better
> than others in the class. The actually degree of "dressing up" would depend
> on the comparison group.
There may be a flip side to this: Social comparison perhaps makes the
dresser-upper feel better, but it might also make the non-dressers-up
(non-dress-uppers? non-dressers-uppers?) feel WORSE. If the grading scheme
tends to reward relatively better performance over relatively worse
performance, tactics that enhance one's relative ranking in the class (yourself
doing better OR the other person doing worse) work to one's advantage.
My wife--a superlative student (I say with absolutely no bias)--used to march
into class with nothing but a pencil in her hand, something her class mates
noticed. The impression she gave was that she knew the material so cold that
she didn't need any props (books, notes, whatever) when it came to test time.
Well, she did know her stuff, but one might have suspected just a little "psych
job" at work, too. It wasn't long before she became known as the "curve
buster."
Pat Cabe
**************************************************
Patrick Cabe, Ph.D.
Department of Psychology
University of North Carolina at Pembroke
One University Drive
Pembroke, NC 28372-1510
(910) 521-6630
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty."
Thomas Jefferson
"There is the danger that everyone waits
idly for others to act in his stead."
Albert Einstein
"Majorities simply follow minorities.
Gandhi
