Motivation and Self-Regulation across the Life Span - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0521101484 ISBN 13: 9780521101486

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2009

Synopsis

In the past two decades, an approach to the study of motivation has emerged that focuses on specific cognitive and affective mediators of behavior, in contrast to more general traits or motives. This "social-cognitive" approach grants goal-oriented motivation its own role in shaping cognition, emotion and behavior, rather than reducing goal-directed behavior to mere information processing or to an enactment of a personality type. This book adds a developmental perspective to this process-oriented approach. Critical elements of motivational systems can be specified and their interrelations understood by charting the origins and the developmental course of motivational processes. Moreover, a process-oriented approach helps to identify critical transitions and effective developmental interventions. The chapters in this book cover various age groups throughout the life span and stem from four major traditions in motivational psychology: achievement motivation, action theory, the psychology of causal attribution and perceived control, and the psychology of personal causation and intrinisic motivation.

About this title

Book Description

Motivation used to be seen as a trait that people had or didn't have. Now we think of motivation as involving many processes (thoughts, feelings, and actions) that occur as people pursue their goals. These processes help us understand how one person differs from another motivationally , and how a given person can change over the life span. In this book, a group of internationally renowned scholars discuss their research on motivation, highlighting processes that both help people and hinder them over the life course as they attempt to reach their goals.

About the Author

Jutta Heckhausen grew up in Germany and did her graduate work and Ph.D. at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland where she studied the way in which infants' development is promoted by interaction and joint activities with their mothers. In 1984, Dr Heckhausen joined the Center for Life-Span Psychology at the Max-Planck-Institute for Human Development in Berlin, where she became a senior scientist with her own research group. In the 1980s and 90s, she expanded her research area to include development in adulthood and old age, formulated the life-span theory of control with her collaborator Dr Richard Schulz, and launched a research program to test its propositions and applicability to developmental regulation in adulthood. In 1995-1996, she was a fellow at the Center for Social and Behavioral Science at Stanford. In 2000, Dr Heckhausen joined the Department of Psychology and Social Behavior at UC Irvine and constituted the research laboratory on Life-Span Development and Motivation. Her current research focuses on motivation and agency in life-span development, particularly during developmental transitions.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0521101484
• ISBN 13: 9780521101486
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 472
• Editor: Heckhausen Jutta, Dweck Carol S.