Poster #85 - Role of Respect in Teen Motivation: A Developmental Perspective

• In Event: 3-159 - Poster Session 12
  In Poster Session: PS 12 Section - Education, Schooling

Integrative Statement

Motivating students to complete tedious assignments has been a notoriously difficult challenge, as interest, engagement, and motivation in school tend to decline in adolescence (Ecchols, Lord, & Midgley, 1991). Research on compliance to institutional authorities has shown the importance of respect (Tyler & Jackson, 2014). Respect can encourage compliance, even when requests go against one’s own self-interest. Adolescents, in particular, tend to show an increased attention to and reactance to social status and respect as they progress through pubertal maturation (Crone & Dahl, 2012), indicated in part by an increase in gonadal hormones (e.g. Testosterone and Estradiol) that have been linked to reactance to status and fairness (Eisenegger, Haushofer, & Fehr, 2011). Therefore, we predicted that as adolescents progress through pubertal development, there would be an increased coupling between feeling respected by adults and feeling motivated to comply with adults’ requests (e.g. tedious math homework).

Students at a middle school (age 12-13) and high school (age 14-18) students (N = 701) were invited to participate in an online survey during class during regular school hours. First, students responded to the items measuring feelings of adult respect (e.g. “Today, teachers and other adults at my school treated me with respect"). Next, each student saw a picture of a white female teacher above a picture of the grade level-appropriate math worksheet. Students then indicated their motivation to complete the assignment (e.g. "I would try to truly learn as much as I could”). Middle school and high school 9th grade students also completed the Pubertal Development Scale (Carskadon & Acebo, 1993), which consists of several gender specific physical development items (e.g. “Have you experienced growth of body hair) rated on a 4-point scale. Additionally, middle school students provided 2 ml passive drool saliva samples for hormone assay.

A significant positive relationship was found between feelings of adult respect and motivation, b = .258, t(700) = 6.742, p <.001, that remained consistent across all analyses. When looking at a dummy coded school level variable (a proxy for age), we do not find a significant main effect of school level nor a significant interaction of school and feelings of adult respect.

When looking at the role of PDS, there is a significant interaction of feelings of adult respect and PDS (b = .178, t(429) = 2.013, p = .044). Looking only at middle schoolers (where pubertal change is still mostly underway; i.e. a greater variance of PDS), there is a clearer interaction, b = .310, t(429) = 2.684, p = .008). Results indicate that as students are going through puberty, there is an increased coupling of feeling respected and being motivated to complete class assignments such that early maturers are more motivated the more respected they feel mimicking high school seniors. Additionally, grade (and age) are proxies for underlying developmental shifts that may not be immediately apparent. Subsequent analyses using the middle school pubertal hormone data (e.g. Testosterone and Estradiol) are underway in order to illuminate a potential mechanism for the respect/motivation coupling.

Authors

• Fortunato Nick Medrano, University of Texas at Austin
  Presenting Author

• David S. Yeager, University of Texas at Austin
  Non-Presenting Author