The Effects of Attribution of Peers’ Success and Self-Efficacy on Helping Behaviors in Upward Social Comparisons

This study attested to the factors affecting helping behaviors in upward social comparison situations as Korean adolescents face fierce competition and compare themselves with superior classmates. It was designed to examine the interaction effect of the teacher factor (attribution of peers’ success) and the student factor (one’s academic, empathic, and academic self-efficacy) on helping behaviors in upward social comparison. This study found that Korean middle school students who received that attribution of their superior peer’s success was based on his/her effort reported less negative emotion and more helping behavior. It also discovered that students’ empathic self-efficacy moderated on relations between attribution of peers’ success and helping behavior. Students with higher empathic self-efficacy reported more helping behavior when they perceived that their superior peer’s achievement was from their effort than those with lower empathic self-efficacy. This study indicated that both the teacher and student factors need to be provided when developing adolescents’ prosociality in upward comparisons.