Mastery Motivation

Jasmine Jones
Explore

What activities did you enjoy as a child?

Did your parents, teachers, siblings or friends help you to understand the activities?

Did you often try to complete tasks on your own and declined help from others?
 Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFyuXAy79wo
What is Mastery Motivation?

An intrinsic desire to master one’s own environment in the face of adversity.

Difference between competence and mastery motivation.

Two parts of mastery motivation: controlling the environment and achieving a goal that
is pleasurable.

Motivation cannot be observed…..can only be inferred from behavior.

(Jennings & Dietz, 2003)

Robert White

“Motivation reconsidered, The Concept of Competence,” 1959

Described mastery motivation as “effectance motivation”, drawing attention to

completing goals that affected one’s environment.

Advantageous for infants to explore and manipulate new environment.

(Jennings & Dietz, 2003)

Mastery Motivation Development (Infancy)

1. Attend to the Novel

2. Influence the Environment

3. Control the Environment (Achieve a Simple Goal)

4. Focus on Outcome of Action Chains

(Jennings & Dietz, 2003)

Mastery Motivation Development (3 years)

Beginning at age 3, children begin to understand difficulty level.

Understand if the goal requires high or low skill level.

(Jennings & Dietz, 2003)

Types of Mastery Motivation

Object Mastery Motivation

Social Mastery Motivation

Motor Mastery Motivation

(Keilty & Freund, 2004)

Operationalize Mastery Motivation
Yarrow and colleagues invented tasks to assess mastery motivation.

Tasks measure various mastery and are meant to be challenging.

Examiner tells the child that the examiner and the mother are both busy to view to child’s motivation to
independently manipulate the environment.

Measures persistence of child to master a task and affect such as smiling and showing pride to understand
child’s motivation.

Also give the child impossible tasks and ask to help during the last task. Code child’s unwillingness for the
examiner’s help and complete the task on their own.

(Jennings & Dietz, 2003)

Why is Mastery Motivation Important?

Infants that showed high mastery motivation at age one were more likely to have higher
IQs in preschool years.

Early mastery motivation vs early cognitive development.

(Jennings & Dietz, 2003)

Role of Caregivers and Teachers: Decrease
Learned Helplessness

Variety of stimulating toys related to tasks persistence.

Provide variety of activities also predicts later persistence at tasks.
Parents interactional style also predicts persistence at tasks.
Warmth
Minimal control
Appropriate scaffolding
(Jennings & Dietz, 2003)
Further Research

Little is known about how early mastery motivation influences later motivational
development, other domains of development, and overall well being.

Unknown how early mastery motivation influences children beyond the preschool
years.
References

Keilty, B., & Freund, M. (2004). Mastery motivation: A framework for considering the "how" of infant and toddler
learning. Young Exceptional Children, 8(1), 2-10. doi:10.1177/109625060400800101
Jennings,K. & Dietz, L. (2003) Mastery motivation and goal persistence in young children. In Bornstein, M., Davidson,
L., Keyes,C., & Moore, K. (Eds), Well-being Development Across the Life Course (295-309). New Jersey
Cerebral Palsy Foundation. (January 4, 2017). Mastery Motivation.[Video File]. Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFyuXAy79wo