Autonomous regulation and long-term medication adherence in adult outpatients.

Self-determination theory was applied to explore the motivational basis of adherence to long-term medication prescriptions. Adult outpatients with various diagnoses who had been on a medication for at least 1 month and expected to continue (a) completed questionnaires that assessed their autonomous regulation, other motivation variables, and perceptions of their physicians' support of their autonomy by hearing their concerns and offering choice; (b) provided subjective ratings of their adherence and a 2-day retrospective pill count during an interview with a clinical psychologist; and (c) provided a 14-day prospective pill count during a subsequent, brief telephone survey. LISREL analyses supported the self-determination model for adherence by confirming that patients' autonomous motivation for adherence did mediate the relation between patients' perceptions of their physicians' autonomy support and their own medication adherence.

Emotion regulation in two-year-olds: strategies and emotional expression in four contexts.

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.

Parents' involvement in children's schooling: a multidimensional conceptualization and motivational model.

This study had 2 goals. The first was to examine a multidimensional conceptualization of parent involvement in children's schooling, defined as the allocation of resources to the child's school endeavors. A second goal was to evaluate a model in which children's motivational resources (i.e., perceived competence, control understanding, and self-regulation) are mediators between parent involvement and children's school performance. 300 11-14-year-old children and their teachers participated. Factor analyses of a set of parent involvement measures supported the hypothesized 3 dimensions of parent involvement: behavior, intellectual/cognitive, and personal. Path analyses revealed indirect effects of mother behavior and intellectual/cognitive involvement on school performance through perceived competence and control understanding, and indirect effects of father behavior on school performance through perceived competence. The results argue against a unidimensional understanding of parent involvement and support the view of the child as an active constructor of his or her school experience.

Self-perceptions, motivation, and adjustment in children with learning disabilities: a multiple group comparison study.

This study examined the self-perceptions, motivational orientations, and classroom adjustment of children with learning disabilities (LD), matched-IQ non-LD, randomly selected non-LD, and low achieving children. Elementary-age children (N = 148; 37 from each group) completed domain-specific measures of their self-concepts, perceptions of control, and motivation. Teachers rated children on motivational and competence indices and classroom behavioral adjustment. Comparisons among groups indicated that children with LD were lower in perceived cognitive competence and academic self-regulation relative to the nondisabled control groups, but were comparable to the low achieving children. Children with LD were most likely to perceive academic outcomes as controlled by powerful others. No group differences were found for general self-perceptions of control or competence. Teacher ratings of children with LD were more discrepant from those of comparison groups than were self-ratings of children with LD. The results suggest the need for matched-IQ and low achieving control groups in research on children with LD. The origin and role of both environmental inputs and self-perceptions in the adjustment of students with LD are discussed.

Autonomy in children's learning: an experimental and individual difference investigation.

Ninety-one fifth-grade children participated in a study that assessed the effects of motivationally relevant conditions and individual differences on emotional experience and performance on a learning task. Two directed-learning conditions, one controlling and one noncontrolling, were contrasted with each other and with a third nondirected, spontaneous-learning context. Both directed sets resulted in greater rote learning compared with the nondirected-learning condition. However, both the nondirected and the noncontrolling directed-learning sets resulted in greater interest and conceptual learning compared with the controlling set, presumably because they were more conducive to autonomy or an internal perceived locus of causality. Furthermore, children in the controlling condition experienced more pressure and evidenced a greater deterioration in rote learning over an 8-(+/- 1) day follow-up. Individual differences in children's autonomy for school-related activities as measured by the Self-Regulation Questionnaire (Connell & Ryan, 1985) also related to outcomes, with more self-determined styles predicting greater conceptual learning. Results are discussed in terms of the role of autonomy in learning and development and the issue of directed versus nondirected learning.

A Rorschach assessment of children's mutuality of autonomy.

Explored the construct validity of the Mutuality of Autonomy Scale (Urist, 1977), which assesses the developmental level of object relations based upon Rorschach percepts, within a nonclinical child population. Mutuality of Autonomy was found to be related to teacher ratings of interpersonal functioning in the classroom, and to academic grades but not to either standardized achievement or intelligence. In addition, the Mutuality of Autonomy Scale demonstrated predicted correlations with children's perceived control. Children with developmentally lower object relations scores were more likely to perceive "powerful others" or "unknown" sources as controlling outcomes, particularly within the social domain. The results are discussed in terms of the utility of the Mutuality of Autonomy Scale, and the significance of object relations for personality functioning.