Past work has documented and described major patterns of adaptive and maladaptive behavior: the mastery-oriented and the helpless patterns. In this article, we present a research-based model that accounts for these patterns in terms of underlying psychological processes. The model specifies how individuals' implicit theories orient them toward particular goals and how these goals set up the different patterns. Indeed, we show how each feature (cognitive, affective, and behavioral) of the adaptive and maladaptive patterns can be seen to follow directly from different goals. We then examine the generality of the model and use it to illuminate phenomena in a wide variety of domains. Finally, we place the model in its broadest context and examine its implications for our understanding of motivational and personality processes. The task for investigators of motivation and personality is to identify major patterns of behavior and link them to underlying psychological processes. In this article we (a) describe a research-based model that accounts for major patterns of behavior, (b) examine the generality of this model—its utility for understanding domains beyond the ones in which it was originally developed, and (c) explore the broader implications of the model for motivational and personality processes.

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A social-cognitive approach to motivation and personality

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) comprises a deficit in behavioral inhibition. A theoretical model is constructed that links inhibition to 4 executive neuropsychological functions that appear to depend on it for their effective execution: (a) working memory, (b) self-regulation of affect-motivation-arousal, (c) internalization of speech, and (d) reconstitution (behavioral analysis and synthesis). Extended to ADHD, the model predicts that ADHD should be associated with secondary impairments in these 4 executive abilities and the motor control they afford. The author reviews evidence for each of these domains of functioning and finds it to be strongest for deficits in behavioral inhibition, working memory, regulation of motivation, and motor control in those with ADHD. Although the model is promising as a potential theory of self-control and ADHD, far more research is required to evaluate its merits and the many predictions it makes about ADHD.

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Behavioral inhibition, sustained attention, and executive functions: Constructing a unifying theory of ADHD.

The present article examines the nature and function of human agency within the conceptual model of triadic reciprocal causation. In analyzing the operation of human agency in this interactional causal structure, social cognitive theory accords a central role to cognitive, vicarious, self-reflective, and self-regulatory processes. The issues addressed concern the psychological mechanisms through which personal agency is exercised, the hierar- chical structure of self-regulatory systems, eschewal of the dichotomous construal of self as agent and self as object, and the properties of a nondualistic but nonreductional conception of human agency. The relation of agent cau- sality to the fundamental issues of freedom and deter- minism is also analyzed. The recent years have witnessed a resurgence of interest in the self-referent phenomena. One can point to several reasons why self processes have come to pervade many domains of psychology. Self-generated activities lie at the very heart of causal processes. They not only contribute to the meaning and valence of most external influences, but they also function as important proximal determi- nants of motivation and action. The capacity to exercise control over one's own thought processes, motivation, and action is a distinctively human characteristic. Because judgments and actions are partly self-determined, people can effect change in themselves and their situations through their own efforts. In this article, I will examine the mechanisms of human agency through which such changes are realized.

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Human Agency in Social Cognitive Theory

Research on moral judgment has been dominated by rationalist models, in which moral judgment is thought to be caused by moral reasoning. The author gives 4 reasons for considering the hypothesis that moral reasoning does not cause moral judgment; rather, moral reasoning is usually a post hoc construction, generated after a judgment has been reached. The social intuitionist model is presented as an alternative to rationalist models. The model is a social model in that it deemphasizes the private reasoning done by individuals and emphasizes instead the importance of social and cultural influences. The model is an intuitionist model in that it states that moral judgment is generally the result of quick, automatic evaluations (intuitions). The model is more consistent than rationalist models with recent findings in social, cultural, evolutionary, and biological psychology, as well as in anthropology and primatology.

https://www.motherjones.com/files/emotional_dog_and_rational_tail.pdf

The emotional dog and its rational tail: a social intuitionist approach to moral judgment.

Two data sources--self-reports and peer ratings--and two instruments--adjective factors and questionnaire scales--were used to assess the five-factor model of personality. As in a previous study of self-reports (McCrae & Costa, 1985b), adjective factors of neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness-antagonism, and conscientiousness-undirectedness were identified in an analysis of 738 peer ratings of 275 adult subjects. Intraclass correlations among raters, ranging from .30 to .65, and correlations between mean peer ratings and self-reports, from .25 to .62, showed substantial cross-observer agreement on all five adjective factors. Similar results were seen in analyses of scales from the NEO Personality Inventory. Items from the adjective factors were used as guides in a discussion of the nature of the five factors. These data reinforce recent appeals for the adoption of the five-factor model in personality research and assessment.

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Validation of the five-factor model of personality across instruments and observers.

Variations of the self-imposed delay-of-gratification situation in preschool were compared to determine when individual differences in this situation may predict aspects of cognitive and self-regulatory competence and coping in adolescence.

/pdf/predicting-adolescent-cognitive-and-self-regulatory-3f4wl0d4ft.pdf

Predicting adolescent cognitive and self-regulatory competencies from preschool delay of gratification: Identifying diagnostic conditions.

Delay of gratification, assessed in a series of experiments when the subjects were in preschool, was related to parental personality ratings obtained a decade later for 95 of these children in adolescence. Clear and consistent patterns of correlations between self-imposed delay time in preschool and later ratings were found for both sexes over this time span. Delay behavior predicted a set of cognitive and social competencies and stress tolerance consistent with experimental analyses of the process underlying effective delay in the preschool delay situation. Specifically, children who were able to wait longer at age 4 or 5 became adolescents whose parents rated them as more academically and socially competent, verbally fluent, rational, attentive, planful, and able to deal well with frustration and stress. Comparisons with related longitudinal research using other delay situations help to clarify the important features of the situations and person variables involved in different aspects of delay of gratification.

The nature of adolescent competencies predicted by preschool delay of gratification.

Recent efforts to resolve the debate regarding the consistency of social behavior are critically analyzed and reviewed in the light of new data. Even with reliable measures, based on multiple behavior observations aggregated over occasions, mean cross-situational consistency coefficients were of modest magnitude; in contrast, impressive temporal stability was found. Although aggregation of measures over occasions is a useful step in establishing reliability, aggregation of measures over situations bypasses rather than resolves the problem of cross-situational consistency. The Bem-Funder (1978) template-matching approach did not enhance the search for cross-situational consistency either in their original data or in an extended replication presented here. The Bern-Allen (1974) moderator-variable approach also was not found to yield greater cross-situational consistency in the behavior of "some of the people some of the time" either in their original data or in the present study of conscientiousness. Congruent with a cognitive prototype approach, it was proposed and demonstrated that the judgment of trait consistency is strongly related to the temporal stability of highly prototypic behaviors. In contrast, the global impression of consistency may not be strongly related to highly generalized cross-situational consistency, even in prototypic behaviors. Thus, the perception and organization of personality consistencies seems to depend more on the temporal stability of key features than on the observation of cross-situational behavioral consistency, and the former may be easily interpreted as if it were the latter.

Beyond déjà vu in the search for cross-situational consistency.

Anchoring, efficacy, and action: The influence of judgmental heuristics on self-efficacy judgments and behavior.

People high in rejection sensitivity (RS) anxiously expect rejection and are at risk for interpersonal and personal distress. Two studies examined the role of self-regulation through strategic attention deployment in moderating the link between RS and maladaptive outcomes. Self-regulation was assessed by the delay of gratification (DG) paradigm in childhood. In Study 1, preschoolers from the Stanford University community who participated in the DG paradigm were assessed 20 years later. Study 2 assessed low-income, minority middle school children on comparable measures. DG ability buffered high-RS people from interpersonal difficulties (aggression, peer rejection) and diminished well-being (e.g., low self-worth, higher drug use). The protective effect of DG ability on high-RS children's self-worth is explained by reduced interpersonal problems. Attentional mechanisms underlying the interaction between RS and strategic self-regulation are discussed.

Philip K. Peake

Papers

Predicting adolescent cognitive and self-regulatory competencies from preschool delay of gratification: Identifying diagnostic conditions.

The nature of adolescent competencies predicted by preschool delay of gratification.

Beyond déjà vu in the search for cross-situational consistency.

Anchoring, efficacy, and action: The influence of judgmental heuristics on self-efficacy judgments and behavior.

Regulating the Interpersonal Self: Strategic Self-Regulation for Coping With Rejection Sensitivity