During toddlerhood the ability to organise actions for accomplishing goals rapidly
increases. The developmental changes in actions and self-process that become part of
this motivational system have seldom been studied simultaneously. Fifty-seven
toddlers between the ages of 15 and 35 months were observed for two sessions while
working on mastery tasks. These tasks varied in the degree to which the goal was
implicit in the task materials and consequently in how much representation of the
goal was necessary to carry out the task. Younger toddlers were just as engaged as
older toddlers in tasks with implicit (i.e., proximal) goals but less engaged on
tasks with less implicit (i.e., more distal) goals. Older toddlers were more
successful in reaching goals (i.e., carrying tasks to completion), and they showed
more investment in their own agency (e.g., more pride when goals were reached and
more insistence on completing the last step of a task). These broad behavioural
changes document the increasing propensity of toddlers to use goals to organise
their behaviours and the increasing importance of self-processes in the organisation
of action and motivation.
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