This study was designed to examine infant emotion regulation within mildly frustrating delay situations with mothers and fathers. Contextual influences on, and consistent individual differences in, observed strategy use and expressed emotion were assessed in a sample of 1212-to 14-month- old infants, each seen on two occasions, once with each parent. Infants were seen in two delay situations with each parent, one in which the parent was asked to remain fairly inactive, and one in which no restrictions were placed on parental behavior. Results suggested strong contextual (parent- passive vs. parent-active) influences on the level of expressed negative versus positive emotion, and on the types of emotion regulation strategies used by infants, but few sex-of-parent effects. Overall, results suggest that expressed emotion and strategy use are more similar than different in interactions with mothers and fathers. However, some differential use of particular emotion regulation strategies may reflect developing adaptations made by infants to different characteristics of relationships with mothers and fathers.

A descriptive study of the modulation of negative emotion in the toddler period was conducted by examining expressions of negative emotion and the strategies used to reduce or change these expressions. 6 strategies were identified and evaluated in terms of their frequency of use in different situations, relations with emotional expressiveness, and cross-situational consistency. 37 2-year-olds were seen in 2 laboratory contexts (delay and separation) each with 2 variants. Emotion regulation strategies and emotional expressiveness were coded from videotapes of children's behavior in these 4 situations. Findings suggest that active engagement was most commonly used and most negatively associated with child distress. Use of strategies varied by context, and there was more cross-situational consistency in use of strategies that were more negatively or positively associated with distress within a given context than in use of particular strategies without consideration of their within-context significance.

This study examined the empirical validity of a model of human motivation as it applies to school success and failure in 3 independent samples of 10- to 16-year-old African-American youth. Specifically, we assessed how indicators of context, self, and action relate to measures of risk and resilient outcomes in school in 3 different samples, using 3 different measurement strategies. Correlational and path analyses on the 3 data sets supported the empirical validity of the model. African-American youth's experience of their parents' school involvement predicted a composite of self-system processes, which in turn predicted the subjects' reports of their engagement in school. Engagement then predicted school performance and adjustment. The data supported a reciprocal path from action to context, suggesting that youth who show more disaffected patterns of behavior and emotion in school experience less support from their families than those reporting more engaged patterns of action. Implications for program and policy decisions are discussed.

This study examined the contribution of perceived control and autonomy to children's self-reported behavior and emotion in the classroom (N = 246 children ages 8-10 years). Multiple regression analyses revealed unique effects of autonomy over and above the strong effects of perceived control. In addition, both sets of perceptions (and their interaction) were found to distinguish children who were active but emotionally disaffected from those who were active and emotionally positive. Specific predictions were also tested regarding the effects of (a) control attributions to 5 causes and (b) 4 reasons for task involvement that differed in degree of autonomy on children's active (vs. passive) behavior and 4 kinds of emotions: boredom, distress, anger, and positive emotions. Implications of the findings for theories of children's motivation are discussed, as well as for diagnostic strategies to identify children at risk for motivational problems

Third- through 6th-grade retained students (n = 74) were compared with random (n = 60) and matched-ability (n = 69) samples of nonretained students from their present classrooms and students from earlier classrooms who were socially promoted (n = 35) when the retained students were held back. Retained students did not differ significantly from the comparison groups in perceptions of self-worth or peer relatedness but had significantly lower perceptions of cognitive competence than the random sample. Retained students did not perform as well academically as the random sample but performed just as well as the matched ability sample and better than the socially promoted sample

The present article addresses 3 issues pertaining to the conceptualization and assessment of the effects of over- and underrating academic competence. First, it is shown that it is impossible to separate the effects of over- and underrating from the effects of both perceived and actual competence. Second, it is shown that the method used by Connell and Ilardi in a previous article to assess the effect of net over-versus underrating is of questionable validity. Finally, a new definition and method for assessing the effects of over- and underrating is presented. The new method was applied to Connell and Ilardi's data to retest the hypothesis that overrating is associated with more problematic psychological profiles than accuracy and underrating. Results did not generally support the hypothesis, but did shown that the correlates of over- and underrating vary as a function of both extremity of over- or underrating and the level of children's actual competence

A new conceptualization of perceived control was used to test a process model describing the contribution of these perceptions to school achievement for students in elementary school (N = 220). Three sets of beliefs were distinguished: (a) expectations about whether one can influence success and failure in school (control beliefs); (b) expectations about the strategies that are effective in producing academic outcomes; and (c) expectations about one's own capacities to execute these strategies. Correlational and path analyses were consistent with a process model which predicted that children's perceived control (self-report) influences academic performance (grades and achievement test scores) by promoting or undermining active engagement in learning activities (as reported by teachers) and that teachers positively influence children's perceived control by provision of contingency and involvement (as reported by students). These results have implications for theories of perceived control and also suggest one pathway by which teachers can enhance children's motivation in school. Several decades of research have demonstrated that an important contributor to school performance is an individual's expectations about whether he or she has any control over academic successes and failures. A robust body of empirical findings has been produced using a variety of constructs, such as locus of control, causal attributions, learned helplessness, and self-efficacy. Beginning with the examination of beliefs about whether reinforcements are under internal or external control (Rotter, 1966), empirical evidence has accumulated indicating that children who believe that doing well in school is contingent on their own actions perform better than those who do not (Seligman, 1975). Similarly, children who believe that good grades are caused by internal and controllable causes (like effort; Weiner, 1979), who believe that they can produce the responses that lead to desired outcomes (Bandura, 1977), or who believe that they possess high ability (Harter, 1981; Stipek, 1980) perform better academically. These children score higher on tests of intelligence

Theories of internalization typically suggest that self-perceptions of the "causes" of (i.e. reasons for) behavior are differentiated along a continuum of autonomy that contains identifiable gradations. A model of perceived locus of causality (PLOC) is developed, using children's self-reported reasons for acting. In Project 1, external, introjected, identified, and intrinsic types of reasons for achievement-related behaviors are shown to conform to a simplex-like (ordered correlation) structure in four samples. These reason categories are then related to existing measures of PLOC and to motivation. A second project examines 3 reason categories (external, introject, and identification) within the domain of prosocial behavior. Relations with measures of empathy, moral judgement and positive interpersonal relatedness are presented. Finally, the proposed model and conceptualization of PLOC are discussed with regard to intrapersonal versus interpersonal perception, internalization, cause-reason distinctions, and the significance of perceived autonomy in human behavior.

Research testing self-determination theory was discussed in terms of recent work on intrinsic motivation, participative management, and leadership. On three occasions, managers' interpersonal orientations—toward supporting subordinates' self-determination versus controlling their behavior— were related to perceptions, affects, and satisfactions of the subordinates. Data from 23 managers and their subordinates in a major corporation showed that managers' orientations did correlate with the subordinate variables, although the magnitude of the relation varied, seemingly as a function of factors in the corporate climate. An organizational development intervention, focused on the concept of supporting subordinates' self-determination, was provided for the managers. Evaluation of the program showed a clearly positive impact on managers' orientations, though a less conclusive radiation to subordinates. To be self-determining means to experience a sense of choice in initiating and regulating one's own actions. Recent research linking self-determination to, enhanced creativity (Amabile, 1983), conceptual learning (Benware & Deci, 1984), self-esteem (Deci, Schwartz, Sheinman, & Ryan, 1981), and general well-being (Langer & Rodin, 1976) has stimulated psychologists to clarify the antecedent conditions that promote self-determination and to detail the relevance of self-determination to various applied settings. Concepts related to self-determination have been vigorously researched and discussed in the organizational literature for over a quarter century. Argyris (1957) and McGregor (1960), for example, stressed that organizational contexts providing workers the opportunity to satisfy their higher order needs (Maslow, 1943) promote effective performance. Furthermore, management styles (e.g., Likert, 1967; Marrow, Bowers, & Sea

This study examined direct and moderating influences of gender and sex-role orientations on children's general self-esteem. Moderating influences of these variables on the prediction of self-esteem were examined with respect to two sets of competence beliefs regarding school achievement: perceived capacities and perceived strategies for doing well in school. One hundred nineteen fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade children were assessed using the Perceived Competence Scale for Children (Harter, 1982), the Multidimensional Measure of Children's Perceptions of Control (Connell, 1985), and the Children's Personal Attributes Questionnaire (Hall & Halberstadt, 1980). Correlational and hierarchical multiple regression analyses indicated that upper elementary schoolchildren's general self-esteem is (a) marginally related to biological gender, with boys showing a slight advantage; (b) significantly related to masculinity and androgyny; and (c) predicted more strongly by perceived capacities to do schoolwork in girls than in boys, and by perceived (lack of) strategies for academic success in nontraditionally sex-typed children than in traditionally sex-typed children. Of the two nontraditionally sex-typed groups, androgynous children were found to have more positive school competence beliefs than were undifferentiated children.

This study examines the contributions of temperamentally and nontemperamentally based emotional reactions to the organization of social interactive behavior within the Strange Situation to better understand the emotional underpinnings of attachment system functioning. At 12 1/2 and 19 1/2 months, temperamental fear (assessed via maternal report) was related to independent per-episode dimensions of social interactive and distress behavior. Fear was moderately correlated with both distress and interactive dimensions at each age. Path-analytic models revealed that temperamental fear had direct effects on interactive behavior and also indirect effects mediated by preceding distress reactions. However, residualized measures of "context-specific" distress (with temperamental variance removed) were still highly consistent across Strange Situation episodes and also significantly predicted subsequent social interactive behavior; furthermore, stable distress reactions from 12 1/2 to 19 1/2 months significantly predicted concurrent stability in social interactive behavior. We discuss likely sources of "context-specific" emotional influences on Strange Situation behavior and also age-related differences in these findings.

The purpose of this study was to elucidate the psychological concomitants of discrepancies between fourth- to sixth-grade children's perceptions of academic competence and 2 measures of their "actual" competence in this domain: teacher ratings and achievement test scores. Over-, under-, and congruent child raters were identified on the basis of the 2 external standards and then compared on child and teacher ratings of self-esteem, self-regulatory style, and coping with perceived failure. 6 teachers and 121 lower- to upper-middle-class suburban students participated. As predicted, no differences were obtained between congruent and distorted (combined over- and under-) raters on these self-system variables. Consistent with previous research, overrating children showed higher self-esteem on self- and teacher ratings than underraters. After controlling for level of perceived competence, overraters scored higher on anxiety, and, when overrating occurred against the teacher standard, these children were rated by teachers as having lower self-esteem, poorer coping strategies, and less internalized self-regulatory styles. Comparing the 2 standards, self-reported difficulties were associated with underrating against the teacher's standard but not the achievement standard. Teacher reported difficulties were associated with the opposite pattern of underrating against the 2 standards. Motivational factors contributing to patterns of discrepancies are discussed, as are the educational implications of mismatches between teacher and student perceptions of objective and intrapsychic aspects of school experience.

This study investigates three different types of motivation: intrinsic, extrinsic, and internalized. Open‐ended interviews were conducted with 121 5‐ to 13‐year‐old children. Responses to a series of ‘why questions' about two types of behaviours (liked and disliked) were collected and used as indices of the three types of motivation. Responses were initially coded into 10 motivational categories, and then into three motivational supercategories: intrinsic, extrinsic, and internalized. Reasons falling into these three categories were then examined for hypothesized age differences and differences in the frequencies of the categories for the two classes of behaviour. Support was found for the hypothesis that liked behaviours would be intrinsically motivated across the age range. In contrast, age group differences were obtained in the motivation for disliked behaviours, with extrinsic motivation showing higher frequencies at the younger ages and internalized motivation showing higher frequencies at the older ages. The importance children attributed to doing disliked behaviours was positively associated with internalized motivation. These results suggest that intrinsic and internalized motivations are conceptually and developmentally distinct motivational sources and thus should be examined separately in research on children's motivational development.

CONNELL, JAMES P., and THOMPSON, Ross. Emotion and Social Interaction in the Strange Situation: Consistencies and Asymmetric Influences in the Second Year. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1986, 57, 733745. Current theories of socioemotional development point out that emotion may play an adaptive role in behavioral organization. This study examined the relations between emotional arousal and social interactive behaviors in the Ainsworth Strange Situation. The data for the study were from Thompson and Lamb. 43 infants were observed in the Strange Situation at 121/2 months and 191/2 months. Episode-by-episode ratings of 5 social interactive behaviors directed to mother or stranger were performed independently at 121/2 and 19 1/months: proximity-seeking, contact-maintaining, resistance, avoidance, and distance interaction. Continuous dimensions of social interactive behaviors were factor analytically derived within 2 separation and 2 reunion episodes. Time-sampled ratings of the infant's vocalizations and facial expressions were also independently assessed. Infants' emotional reactions were more consistent across episodes and less contextually sensitive than their pattern of social interactive behaviors. Emotion appears to play a more central role in predicting subsequent social interactive behaviors with mother than vice versa. Older infants' emotions were less consistent across episodes but more predictive of social interaction. Over a 7-month period, social interactive dimensions were more stable in infants with stable emotion ratings than the reverse. These data provide evidence of the central role played by emotion in the regulation of social interactive behaviors in the Strange Situation.