The DOI matches its Crossref record; 156 of the 156 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Boring but important: A self-transcendent purpose for learning fosters academic self-regulation.
Open accessAbstract
Many important learning tasks feel uninteresting and tedious to learners. This research proposed that promoting a prosocial, self-transcendent purpose could improve academic self-regulation on such tasks. This proposal was supported in 4 studies with over 2,000 adolescents and young adults. Study 1 documented a correlation between a self-transcendent purpose for learning and self-reported trait measures of academic self-regulation. Those with more of a purpose for learning also persisted longer on a boring task rather than giving in to a tempting alternative and, many months later, were less likely to drop out of college. Study 2 addressed causality. It showed that a brief, one-time psychological intervention promoting a self-transcendent purpose for learning could improve high school science and math grade point average (GPA) over several months. Studies 3 and 4 were short-term experiments that explored possible mechanisms. They showed that the self-transcendent purpose manipulation could increase deeper learning behavior on tedious test review materials (Study 3), and sustain self-regulation over the course of an increasingly boring task (Study 4). More self-oriented motives for learning--such as the desire to have an interesting or enjoyable career--did not, on their own, consistently produce these benefits (Studies 1 and 4).
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Cites
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Cited by
Duckworth, A. L., & Yeager, D. S. (2015) · Educational Researcher · doi:10.3102/0013189x15584327 · Cited by 993
Self-citationMind-Set Interventions Are a Scalable Treatment for Academic Underachievement
Paunesku, D., Walton, G. M., Romero, C., Smith, E. N., Yeager, D. S., & Dweck, C. S. (2015) · Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/0956797615571017 · Cited by 981
Self-citationYeager, D. S., Romero, C., Paunesku, D., Hulleman, C. S., Schneider, B., Hinojosa, C., Lee, H. Y., O'Brien, J., Flint, K., Roberts, A., et al. (2016) · Journal of Educational Psychology · doi:10.1037/edu0000098 · Cited by 691
Self-citationBolino, M. C., & Grant, A. M. (2016) · Academy of Management Annals · doi:10.5465/19416520.2016.1153260 · Cited by 682
Self-Control and Academic Achievement
Duckworth, A. L., Taxer, J. L., Eskreis-Winkler, L., Galla, B. M., & Gross, J. J. (2019) · Annual Review of Psychology · doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-010418-103230 · Cited by 662
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Metadata
- Authors
- Yeager, D. S., Henderson, M. D., Paunesku, D., Walton, G. M., D'Mello, S., Spitzer, B. J., & Duckworth, A. L.
- Venue
- Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
- Published
- 2014-10
- Volume
- 107
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 559-580
- ISSN
- 0022-3514 (ISSN-L)
- 1939-1315
- OpenAlex
- W1986461797
- Cited by
- 530
- References
- 156
- FWCI
- 38.59
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
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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.
