Empathic forecasting of the big-fish-little-pond effect

Area of Science:

• Social Psychology
• Educational Psychology
• Affective Science

Background:

• The big-fish-little-pond effect (BFLPE) describes how students' self-evaluations are influenced by their rank within a school's academic standing.
• Previous research has established the BFLPE's impact on individuals' experienced emotions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether the BFLPE extends to empathic forecasting, i.e., predicting others' emotional responses.
• To examine the factors influencing these empathic forecasts, including individual and group rank.

Main Methods:

• Three studies were conducted involving participants receiving performance feedback.
• Participants reported their own affect or forecasted another person's affect.
• The influence of individual rank, group rank, and the extremity of these ranks on empathic forecasts was analyzed.

Main Results:

• The BFLPE was extended to empathic forecasting, demonstrating that people predict others' emotions based on relative rank.
• Forecasters overestimated the BFLPE's influence on negative emotions compared to actual experienced emotions.
• Empathic forecasts were more sensitive to an individual's rank within a group than to the overall rank of the group.

Conclusions:

• The BFLPE influences how individuals predict others' emotional reactions to academic standing.
• While the BFLPE applies to empathic forecasting, there are notable differences from the effect on experienced emotions, particularly in the overestimation of negative emotional impacts.
• The findings highlight the role of individual rank salience over group rank in shaping these predictions.