Motivation and Self-Regulation Across the Life-Span

In the past two decades, an approach to the study of motivation has emerged that focuses on specific cognitive and affective mediators of behavior, in contrast to more general traits or motives. This "social-cognitive" approach grants goal-oriented motivation its own role in shaping cognition, emotion and behavior, rather than reducing goal-directed behavior to mere information processing or to an enactment of a personality type.