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Cited by 326

The DOI matches its OpenAlex record; 35 of the 35 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Individual Differences in Achievement Goals among Young Children

Patricia A. Smiley, Carol Sorich Dweck·1994·Child Development

Abstract

Developmental research has generally not found evidence of helpless responses to failure in young children; a prevailing view is that young children lack the cognitive prerequisite for helplessness. However, recent evidence suggests that even preschoolers are vulnerable to helplessness in some situations. In the present study with 4- and 5-year-olds, we tested a goal-confidence model that predicts achievement behavior during failure for older children. We first categorized preschoolers' orientations toward "learning" or "performance" goals based on their preference for a challenging or nonchallenging task. As for older children, goal orientation was independent of ability and predicted cognitions and emotions during failure. Further, consistent with the model, within a learning goal, children displayed the mastery-oriented pattern regardless of confidence level, whereas within a performance goal, children with low confidence were most susceptible to helplessness. These behavior patterns were found on a second task as well. Thus, our findings show that individual differences in achievement goals emerge very early.

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OpenAlex · 10.1111/j.1467-8624.1994.tb00845.x

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Metadata

Authors
Smiley, P. A., & Dweck, C. S.
Venue
Child Development
Publisher
Wiley
Published
1994-12-01
Volume
65
Issue
6
Pages
1723-1723
ISSN
0009-3920 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2149541117
Cited by
326
References
35
FWCI
9.82
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Individual Differences in Achievement Goals among Young Children. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1111/j.1467-8624.1994.tb00845.x
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Smiley, P. A., & Dweck, C. S. (1994). Individual Differences in Achievement Goals among Young Children. Child Development. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.1994.tb00845.x

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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

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