Mastery Motivation In Young Children: Development And Its Relations To Competence And Self-Esteem

Mastery motivation is a core concept in the field of human development, which isdefined that humans are motivated to understand, influence, and interact effectively withenvironment in varying degrees. Given the crucial role of mastery motivation inindividual development, especially in early life, this study firstly investigated themanifestations and characteristics in early childhood. Secondly, concerning the relationsof mastery motivation to other mental functions, we examined the associations of masterymotivation with competence (e.g., cognition and motor skills) in both cross-sectional andlongtudinal researches. In addition, the influence of social factors on this internalmotivation increases along with children’s socialization. Self-esteem, which is defined asthe emotional experience based on self-evaluation of competence and worthiness, may beaffected by competence and mastery motivation directly or indirectly. Therefore, themodels describing the relationships among mastery motivation, competence andself-esteem were built and tested. All the results were concluded as follow:Developmental Characteristics:(1) With regards to the behavioral mansfestations of instrumental aspects of masterymotivation, motor mastery were performed by children’s own motors without using otherobjects, motors with other objects, or children’s vocalization; object-oriented masterywere performed by making objects move, sound, or change in other ways; social masterywere performed by seeking contact with adults directly, attracting adults’ attentionindirectly, or inspiring other people’s imitation.(2) With regards to the behavioral mansfestations of expressive aspects of masterymotivation, children gained much positive emotion experience in motor mastery andobjected-oriented mastery, which was reflected by gestures, expressions and speech;children also gained positive emotion experience when they succeeded in social mastery,and they had no obvious negative emotion even though failing.(3) Along with children’s development, the proportion of motor mastery andobject-oriented mastery decreased and that of social mastery increased; children’s motorsin motor mastery and object-oriented mastery transitted from more gross motors to morefine motors and from more simple to more complex; language became to play an important role in social mastery and expressive aspects of mastery motivation; there weresignificant differences among three ages in porportin of behaviors alone, behaviors andlanguage, and language alone to gain social mastery, which reflected the central transitionof motor and language in early development; the objects of children’s social masterywere increasingly expanded from teachers to more people such as other children.(4) As children’s ages increased, their persistence on materials with more cognitionengaged and less effect produced improved significantly, and the trasnsition in masterydecreased significantly. Whereas, interest in materials with less cognition engaged andmore effect produced dropped from age4to5and rised from age5-6.(5) There were significant differences among persistence on various materials forchildren aged4-6, with lowest persistence on materials with cognition engaged absolutelyand highest persistence on equivocal masterials. In addition, there were significantdifferences among interest in various materials, with lowest interest in materials withcognition engaged absolutely and highest interest in materials with less cognitionengaged and more effect produced and equivocal masterials.(6) The interactive influences of age and material type on persistence and interestwere significant. The general trends of persistence for four types of marterials wereparallel from age4to6except materials with more cognition engaged and less effectproduced. In addition, there was a great diversity of interest in various materials atseparate age.Mastery Motivation and Competence:(7) The transition and off-mastery in object-orientied mastery motivation predictedcognition-learning and fine motor negatively; persistence on materials with less cognitionengaged and more effect produced predicted fine motor negatively; persistence onmaterials with moderate cognition engaged and moderate effect produced predictedcognition-learning negatively; persistence on materials with more cognition engaged andless effect produced predicted cognition-learning positively.(8) When temperament was controlled, on cognition-learning, persistence onmaterials with moderate cognition engaged and moderate effect produced and transitionin mastery had negative predictive effects, whereas, persistence on materials with morecognition engaged and less effect produced had a positive predictive effect. On finemotor skills, the transition and off-mastery still had negative predictive effects.(9) For the effect-producing task (with less cognition engaged and more effectproduced), the moderation effect of Activity-Attention were significant. For children of Activity Type, higher levels of exploration predicted lower cognition, and higher masterypleasure predicted lower levels of fine motor and appoaches to learning. Theserelationships were not significant for children of Attention Type.(10) For the difficult task (with more cognition engaged and less effect produced),the moderation effect of Reactivity-Inhibition and Activity-Attention were significant.For children of Inhibition Type, higher mastery pleasure from success predicted higherlevels of fine motor, whereas the relation was not significant for children of ReactivityType. For children of Attention Type, higher persistence when they failed predictedhigher levels of appoaches to learning, whereas the relation was not significant forchildren of Activity Type.(11) For parental report of mastery motivation, the moderation effect ofActivity-Attention was significant. For children of Attention Type, higher object-orientedmastery motivation predicted higher levels of fine motor and appoaches to learning, andhigher gross motor mastery motivation predicted higher levels of sensory motor, whereasthese relations were not significant for children of Activity Type.(12) For parental report of mastery motivation, the moderation effect ofReactivity-Inhibition was significant. For children of Inhibition Type, higher socialmastery motivation with children predicted lower levels of fine motor, sensory motor,and appoaches to learning. In turn, for children of Reactivity Type, higher social masterymotivation with children predicted higher levels of fine motor.Mastery Motivation, Competence and Self-esteem(13) According to persistence on various materials and general mastery (off masteryand transition in mastery), two models were built for describing the relationships amongmastery motivation, competence and self-esteem. In the first model, there were threesignificant paths. Persistence on materials with more cognition engaged and less effectproduced explained12%of variance in cognition-learning, and Persistence on materialswith less cognition engaged and more effect produced explained4%of variance in finemotor. Further, the latent variable of competence explained17%of variance in perceivedcompetence of self-esteem. In the second model, there were two significant paths. Thetransition in mastery explained18%of variance in cognition-learning andcognition-learning explained11%of variance in perceived competence of self-esteem.