Schoolmates provide a frame of reference for social comparisons on which students (partially) base their academic self-concepts (Huguet et al., 2009). The reference group’s mean competency is negatively related to students’ domain-specific self-concepts holding individual competency constant (e.g., Marsh et al., 2008). Such frame of reference effects (or “big-fish–little-pond effects”) on domain-specific self-concepts are assumed to be associated with values students attach to the respective domain. A low self-concept and a high value attached to the domain are inconsistent and therefore induce psychological discomfort (Festinger, 1957; Thibodeau & Aronson, 1992). Devaluation of the academic domain is a potential means to alleviate the psychological discomfort (Major & Schmader, 1998; Steele, 1997). An inconsistency between domain-specific self-concept and value of the domain is however, only expected to elicit psychological discomfort in individuals from Western cultural contexts; in East Asian cultural contexts a low competency relative to one’s reference group is expected to motivate students to increase effort so that they will blend in better and thus secure social approval (Heine et al., 2001). I propose that in Western but not East Asian cultural contexts, the reference group’s mean competency negatively predicts the value students attach to an academic domain. This effect is assumed to be mediated by the domain-specific self-concept—devaluation of an academic domain is thus assumed to be motivated by negative psychological consequences of maintaining a high value of a domain given a relatively low domain-specific self-concept.

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