To Confirm or to Conform? Performance Goals as a Regulator of Conflict with More Competent Others

Nicolas Sommet (1) , Céline Darnon (2) , Fabrizio Butera (1)

1 UNIL - Université de Lausanne = University of Lausanne
2 LAPSCO - Laboratoire de psychologie sociale et de psychologie cognitive

Despite the fact that most competence-relevant settings are socially relevant settings, the interpersonal effects of achievement goals have been understudied. This is all the more surprising in the case of performance goals, for which self-competence is assessed using an other-referenced standard. In the present research, performance-goals are conceived as a social tool for regulating interpersonal behaviors with more competent others. In the confrontation with a more (vs. equally) competent disagreeing partner, performance-approach goals (focus on approaching normative competence) should be associated with more dominant behavior, i.e., competitive conflict regulation, whereas performance-avoidance goals (focus on avoiding normative incompetence) should be associated with more submissive behavior, i.e., protective conflict regulation. Four studies give support to these predictions with self-reported conflict regulation measures (Study 1 and 3), evaluation of models associated to self-confirmation and compliance (Study 2) and conflict regulation behaviors (Study 4). Theoretical contributions to both the literature on achievement goals and that on socio-cognitive conflict, as well as practical implications for the issue of competence asymmetry in educational settings, are discussed.

Mots clés: performance goals; relative competence; socio-cognitive conflict; interpersonal behavior regulation; self-evaluation threat.

Domaines: Psychologie

Nicolas Sommet, Céline Darnon, Fabrizio Butera. To Confirm or to Conform? Performance Goals as a Regulator of Conflict with More Competent Others. Journal of Educational Psychology, 2015, 107 (2), pp.580-598. ⟨10.1037/a0037240⟩. ⟨hal-01349103⟩