ABSTRACT
This chapter reports results from a short-term longitudinal study examining the influence on toddler mastery motivation and competence of three aspects of the early social environment: mother-child attachment security, maternal scaffolding behaviour, and family climate. It predicts that security of attachment would be related to toddler instrumental mastery motivation and toddler competence, in part on the basis of previous research. The chapter includes child temperament measures as possible predictors of both mastery motivation and competence. Measures of child competence showed less evidence of cross-age stability than reported in previous research, probably because the content of competence factors changed somewhat with age. Measure-by-measure comparisons over time would give a more accurate picture of cross-age stability of competence for subjects in this study. It appears that early motivation in children, as measured does not propel a child towards greater levels of competence seven months later. No consistent predictors from the early social environment emerged for the instrumental aspect of mastery motivation.
