Social-motivational processes and interpersonal relationships: Implications for understanding motivation at school.
Abstract
Social-motivational processes and socialization experiences can play a critical role in students' academic success. However, the search for specific mechanisms and processes that explain these social influences on motivation is still in its inception. The purpose of this article was to begin to articulate some of these processes in the hope that more precise explanations of influence will emerge. The 1st section of the article focuses on ways in which social-motivational processes are relevant for understanding motivation to achieve academically, using goal pursuit as a case in point. Models describing complementary, developmental, and hierarchical relations among social and task-related goals and their implications for understanding student achievement are presented. Then, ways in which students' social encounters and experiences with parents, teachers, and peers might influence their adoption and internalization of socially valued goals are examined. New directions for theoretical and empirical inquiry are presented.
Cites (19)
- The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation.Baumeister, Roy F., Leary, Mark R. · 1995 · Psychological Bulletin
- Stress, social support, and the buffering hypothesisCohen, Sheldon, Wills, Thomas A. · 1985 · Psychological Bulletin
- A social-cognitive approach to motivation and personality.Dweck, Carol S., Leggett, Ellen L. · 1988 · Psychological Review
- An attributional theory of achievement motivation and emotionWeiner, Bernard · 1985 · Psychological Review
- Classrooms: Goals, structures, and student motivation.Ames, Carole · 1992 · Journal of Educational Psychology
- Achievement motivation: Conceptions of ability, subjective experience, task choice, and performance.Nicholls, John G. · 1984 · Psychological Review
- Motivational determinants of risk-taking behavior.Atkinson, John W. · 1957 · Psychological Review
- Motivation in the classroom: Reciprocal effects of teacher behavior and student engagement across the school year.Skinner, Ellen A., Belmont, Michael J. · 1993 · Journal of Educational Psychology
- Black students' school success: Coping with the ?burden of ?acting white??Fordham, Signithia, Ogbu, John U. · 1986 · The Urban Review
- Cultivating competence, self-efficacy, and intrinsic interest through proximal self-motivation.Bandura, Albert, Schunk, Dale H. · 1981 · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Cited by (29)
- The "what" and "why" of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behaviorDeci, Edward L., Ryan, Richard M. · 2000 · Psychological Inquiry
- Sense of relatedness as a factor in children's academic engagement and performance.Carrie J. Furrer, Ellen A. Skinner · 2003 · Journal of Educational Psychology
- Engagement and disaffection in the classroom: Part of a larger motivational dynamic?Skinner, Ellen, Furrer, Carrie, Marchand, Gwen, Kindermann, Thomas · 2008 · Journal of Educational Psychology
- Conceptualization, Measurement, and Improvement of Classroom Processes: Standardized Observation Can Leverage CapacityPianta, Robert C., Hamre, Bridget K. · 2009 · Educational Researcher
- Interpersonal Relationships, Motivation, Engagement, and Achievement: Yields for Theory, Current Issues, and Educational PracticeMartin, Andrew J., Dowson, Martin · 2009 · Review of Educational Research
How to cite
Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Social-motivational processes and interpersonal relationships: Implications for understanding motivation at school. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1037//0022-0663.91.1.76
- The paper
- Wentzel, K. R. (1999). Social-motivational processes and interpersonal relationships: Implications for understanding motivation at school. Journal of Educational Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-0663.91.1.76
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.