Children's and adults' evaluations of self-enhancement and self-deprecation depend on the usual performance of the self-presenter.

This study examined how evaluations of self-presentation vary with age depending on the self-presenter's usual performance. People's usual performance is a key factor because it generally influences the social evaluations and judgments that others make about them. Children aged 7 and 8 years (second graders) and 10 and 11 years (fifth graders), as well as adults, were presented with scenarios in which protagonists responded to praise after a good performance using either self-enhancement or self-deprecation. The other person in scenarios knew that the protagonist's usual performance on the task was either good or poor. After the protagonist responded to praise in a self-enhancing or self-deprecating way, the participants judged how the other person would evaluate the protagonist's ability (good/poor) and character (nice/mean). For ability evaluations specifically concerning protagonists who usually performed poorly, the results showed that by around 10 years of age children no longer tended to give more positive ability evaluations for self-enhancement than for self-deprecation. Adults gave less positive ability evaluations for self-deprecation than for self-enhancement, but only when the protagonists usually performed well. In relation to the character evaluations, by around 10 years of age self-enhancement led to less positive character evaluations than self-deprecation, but only when the protagonists usually performed poorly. Overall, second graders evaluated self-presenters as more competent and nicer. These results indicate that the expected evaluation of self-enhancement and self-deprecation is influenced by the usual level of performance but that there are developmental changes in this aspect of social cognition.