Mastery Motivation, Preschool and Early Childhood

Theoretical Background

Most work in mastery motivation refers to the classic work by Robert White (1959) as the source of the original propositions. White proposed that drive reduction theory could not explain some observations of behavior that apparently occurred in a satiated state—in the absence of a drive. A good example of this is sex. The goal of the sex drive is biological reproduction. However, even when that goal has been met, when we have reproduced, we still engage in sex—apparently for the pleasure of it. White suggested that these behaviors occurring in a satiated state were the result of effectance motivation. This propensity to act on the environment is a primitive biological endowment, which results in competence motivation, the impetus toward mastering tasks and improving skills.

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation

Hunt (1965) highlighted the importance of standards to motivation in his cognitive-motivational perspective. Hunger and thirst are the result of physiological standards, but cognitive processes provide psychological standards. Hunt distinguished between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation by specifying the source of factors related to the standards. Thus, the absence of food was an external factor, while incongruity with a psychological standard was the source of intrinsic motivation. Hunt's work is probably best remembered for his notion of the “match.” The match is the optimal level of incongruity between the organism's level of cognitive processing and the stimulus from the environment. Because the match provides the highest degree of motivation, and resolution of the incongruity leads to change in cognitive structures, finding the right match will facilitate behavior change.

Learning Theory

In contrast to White and Hunt, learning theory has emphasized that mastery motivation can be acquired. This perspective has suggested that these motivation processes are the result of the contingencies between the child's action and the outcome. Recognition of the contingency produces pleasure and awareness of the contingency as a result of experiencing it increases motivation.

Harter (1978) also discussed learning as an influence on motivation but emphasized the social nature of the acquisition process. The encouragement of others (often in the form of praise) provides information about successes and becomes internalized as development occurs. The child who does not receive praise for independent acts will be less likely to develop internal self-praise and thus will continue to be dependent on external sources of motivation.

Characteristics of Mastery Motivation in Early Childhood

The classic work done on mastery motivation focused on children working by themselves to explore and use a toy (MacTurk & Morgan, 1995). Examples of this would be persistence in putting pieces in puzzles or finding out how a toy CD player worked. More recent work has expanded the notion of mastery motivation to include not only actions with toys or objects but also actions directed toward people. What we term social mastery motivation can be indexed by the child's attempts to initiate, maintain, and influence interactions with others. The most current thinking has another domain of mastery motivation, that of the self. This conceptualization is the result of looking at the literature in mastery motivation and self-concept simultaneously. The affective expression of mastery motivation is sometimes called pride, a concept that also appears in the self-concept literature as self-evaluation. [Page 679]Likewise, the self-concept literature explores the notion of autonomy, which is tied to the child's independent effort, a key component of the definition of object-oriented mastery motivation.

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