Projects
| Project 5: | Developmental psychology |
| Manager: | Gisela Trommsdorff (FB Psychologie, Universität Konstanz) |
| Agent: | Dipl.-Psych. Tobias Heikamp, Dipl.-Psych. Jeanette Ziehm, Dipl.-Psych. Anika Fäsche, Dipl.-Psych. Ines A. Spitzner, Dr. Antje von Suchodoletz |
| 2006 – 2009 | Developmental conditions of intentionality and its limits |
| 2009 – 2012 | Developmental conditions of intentionality and its limits: self-regulation in school-aged children |
Project Description
The aim of this project is to contribute to the understanding of intentionality and its limits from a developmental psychological perspective. Here, we focus on the origin of limits of intentionality and their changes during the course of development. Intentionality is seen here as motivated and goal-directed behavior. In this project, we investigated individuals’ motivation and ability to self-regulate as a prerequisite for the intentional regulation of behavior. In particular, we considered emotional, cognitive, and behavioral aspects of self-regulation and their roles with regard to socioemotional development and development in the school context. Limits of intentionality are seen as internal and external developmental conditions of self-regulation, which are influenced by biological (e.g., temperament) and experience-based factors (e.g., parenting) in different contexts of development (family, school, culture). In order to investigate limits of collective intentionality we used cross-cultural methods to investigate cultural values, which, being collective, generalized, action-guiding beliefs, provide a framework for the development of self-regulation. For this purpose, we have successfully carried out studies in cooperation with international developmental psychologists. The present studies have shown that goal achievement in the school context (e.g., social goals, performance goals) is constrained when the development of the motivation and ability to sustain goal-oriented behavior by means of self-regulation (e.g., inhibitory control, emotion regulation, self-efficacy beliefs) is limited by individual characteristics (e.g., temperament) and contextual conditions (e.g., parenting, sociocultural norms). Observations of peer interactions in small groups have revealed positive relations between individual self-efficacy beliefs and cooperative behavior when collectively shared goals are pursued. Thus, the present findings support the importance of self-efficacy beliefs for limits of collective intentionality.
The socialization of self-regulation during the course of development takes place within context-specific parent–child interactions. This means that positive effects of parenting behavior on the development of self-regulation (e.g., emotion regulation) are limited or not effective if parents’ intentions and behaviors (e.g., reprimanding) are not in line with children’s goals (e.g., seeking support). In order to help children achieve culturally preferred socialization goals of self-regulation, caregivers pursue parenting goals that are in line with prevailing cultural values and that influence culture-specific forms of parenting behavior. The successful achievement of culture-specific developmental goals means that individual goals and behavior are in line with the cultural beliefs that are shared by the members of a cultural group. Furthermore, our studies have shown that generalized collective intentions (values) are also relevant for the evaluation of actions, behaviors, and intentions of collective actors (e.g., institutions). Thus, from adevelopmental psychological point of view, limits of individual and collective intentionality are seen as associated with internal and external conditions of different forms of self-regulation.
In summary, the present work within the research group has led to a better psychological understanding of the developmental conditions and outcomes of self-regulation through the conceptual and methodological collaboration of the research projects on motivation, cognition, and law. The focus on limits of collective intentionality provided the opportunity to study the role of sociocultural contexts for self-regulation that had so far been neglected.