The idea for this book grew out of the conference "Motivational Psychology of Ontogenesis" held at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, Germany, in May 1998. This conference focused on the interface of development and motivation and therefore brought together scholars from three major areas in psychology - developmental, motivational and lifespan.
This combination of fields represents the potential influence of development on motivation and the potential role motivation plays in development and its major contexts of family, work and school. Thus, contributors were...

Human behavior is very flexible, capable of influencing a huge variety of developmental paths. Therefore, development in the life course needs to be regulated. The life-span theory of control proposes that control of one's environment is the key to adaptive functioning throughout the life span. This theory identifies the evolutionary roots and the life-span developmental course of human striving to control the environment (primary control) and the self (secondary control). Primary control is directed at producing effects in the external world, while secondary control influences the internal...

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...

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...

Human behavior is very flexible, capable of influencing a huge variety of developmental paths. Therefore, development in the life course needs to be regulated. The life-span theory of control proposes that control of one's environment is the key to adaptive functioning throughout the life span. This theory identifies the evolutionary roots and the life-span developmental course of human striving to control the environment (primary control) and the self (secondary control). Primary control is directed at producing effects in the external world, while secondary control influences the internal...