Interest as a motivational resource: Feedback and gender matter, but interest makes the difference

Abstract. This study tested the hypothesis that interest in a certain topic enables children to sustain their intrinsic motivation in topic-related tasks when positive feedback is absent. Ninety-one Israeli children in the seventh grade completed a questionnaire assessing their interest in the topic of logic questions. Later, in individual sessions, children worked on logic questions, and either received positive feedback or no feedback on their performance. Then, they completed a questionnaire assessing their intrinsic motivation to participate in a similar task. As expected, children with a high level of interest reported more intrinsic motivation than did children not high on interest. Among children with moderate interest, absence of positive feedback was associated with decreased intrinsic motivation for boys, and increased motivation for girls. This gender-related pattern was interpreted as suggesting that girls with moderate interest perceived the positive feedback as an attempt to control them. The findings support the view that interest may serve as a personal resource that helps children to cope with non-optimal learning conditions

Identified versus introjected approach and introjected avoidance motivations in school and in sports : the limited benefits of self-worth strivings

On the basis of self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000), the authors examined whether 2 different types of introjected motivation-an avoidant type aimed at avoiding low self-worth and an approach type aimed at attaining high self-worth-are both associated with a less positive pattern of correlates relative to identified motivation-acting because one identifies with the value of the action. Two studies focusing on the academic and sports domains (N = 1,222) showed that children and adolescents differentiated between the 2 types of introjected motivation. Although introjected avoidance motivation was associated with a more negative pattern of affective and performance correlates than was introjected approach motivation, identified motivation was associated with a much more positive pattern of correlates than both types of introjected motivation. Furthermore, being high on introjected approach motivation did not yield any benefits even when combined with high identified motivation. Results suggest that past findings portraying introjected motivation as being less desirable than identified motivation cannot be ascribed to the avoidance component of introjected motivation. Findings are consistent with the view that even an approach-oriented introjected motivation has very limited benefits when compared with identified motivation

An examination of the controlling dynamics involved in parental child-invested contingent self-esteem

Objective. The present study examined dynamics involved in parents' tendency to hinge their self-esteem on their children's achievements (i.e., child-invested contingent self-esteem). In two studies, a model was tested in which perceived social pressure to be an achievement-promoting parent, and parents' own controlled causality orientation, served as antecedents of parental child-invested contingent self-esteem which, in turn, was related to achievement-oriented psychologically controlling parenting. Design. Study 1 was a cross-sectional study in which 254 mothers, 248 fathers, and their 12-year-old children completed a self-report survey. Study 2 was a short-term longitudinal study of 186 parents of 10-year-old children. Results. Both studies provided support for the hypothesized model. Study 1 showed that the model held even when controlling for parents' level of self-esteem. Study 2 showed that increases in parental child-invested contingent self-esteem were related to increases in achievement-oriented psychologically controlling parenting even when controlling for child performance. Conclusions. Parents' tendency to invest their self-worth in their child's performance is related to a psychologically controlling parenting style and is influenced by parents' personality as well as their perception of the social environment

Measuring Parental Conditional Regard in the Domains of Academic Achievement and Emotion Regulation: A German-Language Adaptation of the Parental Conditional Regard Scale

Otterpohl N, Keil AG, Assor A, Stiensmeier-Pelster J. Erfassung von elterlicher bedingter Wertschätzung im Lern- und Leistungsbereich und im Bereich der Emotionsregulation Eine deutschsprachige Adaptation der Parental Conditional Regard Scale (PCR-D). ZEITSCHRIFT FUER ENTWICKLUNGSPSYCHOLOGIE UND PAEDAGOGISCHE PSYCHOLOGIE. 2017;49(2):98-111.Parental conditional regard is a widely used parenting practice to foster desired child behavior in the domains of academic achievement and emotion regulation. This practice involves parents providing more attention and affection than usual when their children enact desired behaviors or attributes and providing less attention and affection than usual when their children do not. However, since parental conditional regard is negatively associated with psychosocial adjustment (e.g., self-esteem and emotion regulation) as well as academic achievement, it is necessary to develop a diagnostic instrument that enables researchers to assess parental conditional regard. In the present study, we tested a German adaptation of the Parental Conditional Regard Scale (PCR; Roth, Assor, Niemiec, Ryan & Deci, 2009) in two samples of German adolescents (N = 144; N = 293; 10-17 years). Results revealed the expected factor structure, excellent internal consistencies, and acceptable retest reliabilities. The German PCR revealed the expected correlations between parental conditional regard and important validity criteria, such as emotion regulation, self-esteem, and school grades. Tests of measurement invariance indicated no differences between boys and girls

Towards a wider conception of autonomy support in adolescence : the contribution of reflective inner‑compass facilitation to the formation of an authentic inner compass and well‑being

Ample research has demonstrated the benefits of basic autonomy supportive practices (e.g., perspective-taking, choice, minimizing-control) for adolescents’ psychosocial functioning. Herein, we posit that there is one additional autonomy supportive practice with specific importance for adolescents’ development: Reflective Authentic Inner Compass facilitation. This practice is posited to contribute to the formation of an Authentic Inner-Compass: An action-guiding schema, informing youth on what they truly value, need, and want, and consisting of two parts: (1) A foundation including authentic values, interests, and life-aspirations, and (2) Autonomous commitment to future-oriented goals and decisions, based on the foundation. A longitudinal study of 18–19 year-old Israeli adolescents showed that perceived Reflective Authentic Inner Compass Facilitation by instructors uniquely predicted (beyond Basic Autonomy Support) adolescents’ experience of having an authentic inner-compass in the military domain, which then predicted autonomous engagement in plan-promoting activities. A cross-sectional study with 16−18 year-old Belgian adolescents showed that perceived Reflective Authentic Inner Compass Facilitation by parents uniquely predicted (beyond Basic Autonomy Support) the experience of having an authentic inner-compass, which then related positively to well-being. Implications of the notion of the authentic inner compass for the conceptualization of autonomy support and the experience of autonomy are discussed

The emotional and academic consequences of parental conditional regard: Comparing conditional positive regard, conditional negative regard, and autonomy support as parenting practices

The authors conducted 2 studies of 9th-grade Israeli adolescents (169 in Study 1, 156 in Study 2) to compare the parenting practices of conditional positive regard, conditional negative regard, and autonomy support using data from multiple reporters. Two socialization domains were studied: emotion control and academics. Results were consistent with the self-determination theory model of internalization, which posits that (a) conditional negative regard predicts feelings of resentment toward parents, which then predict dysregulation of negative emotions and academic disengagement; (b) conditional positive regard predicts feelings of internal compulsion, which then predict suppressive regulation of negative emotions and grade-focused academic engagement; and (c) autonomy support predicts sense of choice, which then predicts integrated regulation of negative emotions and interest-focused academic engagement. These findings suggest that even parents’ use of conditional positive regard as a socialization practice has adverse emotional and academic consequences, relative to autonomy support

The beliefs that underlie autonomy-supportive and controlling teaching: a multinational investigation

We investigated the role of three beliefs in predicting teachers' motivating style toward students-namely, how effective, how normative, and how easy-to-implement autonomy-supportive and controlling teaching were each believed to be. We further examined national collectivism-individualism as a predictor of individual teachers' motivating style and beliefs about motivating style, as we expected that a collectivistic perspective would tend teachers toward the controlling style and toward positive beliefs about that style. Participants were 815 full-time PreK-12 public school teachers from eight different nations that varied in collectivism-individualism. All three teacher beliefs explained independent and substantial variance in teachers' self-described motivating styles. Believed effectiveness was a particularly strong predictor of self-described motivating style. Collectivism-individualism predicted which teachers were most likely to self-describe a controlling motivating style, and a mediation analysis showed that teachers in collectivistic nations self-described a controlling style because they believed it to be culturally normative classroom practice. These findings enhance the literature on the antecedents of teachers' motivating styles by showing that teacher beliefs strongly predict motivating style, and that culture informs one of these beliefs-namely, normalcy