Background
Early studies found that, among individuals with equal achievement, those perceived to exert less effort were rated as having greater ability (i.e. there was a negative relationship between effort and ability), leading to proposals that effort-achievement comparisons are highly influential in forming ability self-concepts. We argue that effort-achievement comparisons have been neglected in recent research due to large-scale studies failing to confirm the early findings. However, this may be because these studies have shifted their focus to a different type of effort: goal-driven effort, meaning perceived effort an individual actively chooses to invest.
Aims
This study examines whether the negative relationship between effort and ability self-concepts among individuals with equal achievement can be confirmed when effort is operationalized more similarly to the earlier studies, as so-called data-driven effort, meaning perceived effort resulting from task requirements.
Sample
Participants were 448 ninth-grade students from Germany.
Method
Data-driven effort, achievements (school grades) and ability self-concepts in the domains of STEM and languages were assessed. We used structural equation modeling to test our hypotheses.
Results
There was a strong negative relationship between data-driven effort and ability self-concepts in the two domains when controlling for achievements in the domains.
Conclusions
In line with older self-concept research, these findings suggest that there is another influential comparison process, in which data-driven effort is compared with achievements, a topic that merits further investigation in future research.