title: The influences of goal-related actions and reward information on children's and adults' perceptions of effort expenditure and goal desire.
abstract: An action perception approach (i.e., Heider, 1958) was used to investigate the influences of qualitatively different goal-related actions on 2nd- and 5th-grade children's and college students' perceptions of actors' effort expenditure (i.e., trying) and goal desire (i.e., wanting). Actors performed three repetitive actions or three equifinal actions within 2 reward conditions (offer of reward or no reward, for attempting to attain a prosocial goal). At each age level, perceptions of effort and want varied significantly by goal-related actions, whereas reward information did not emerge as an influential factor in differentiating perceptions of effort and want. Age-related findings suggested that, compared with the college students, the children overattributed trying and wanting to the actors. In the repetitive-actions condition, both 2nd and 5th graders gave significantly higher effort and want ratings than college students did. In the equifinal-actions condition, 2nd and 5th graders gave significantly higher effort ratings than college students did.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA.
authors.forename: B L
authors.initials: BL
authors.lastname: Parker
authors.forename: E F
authors.initials: EF
authors.lastname: Jones
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D006040:Goals; D006801:Humans; D007389:Internal-External Control; D009042:Motivation; D010552:Personality Assessment; D010553:Personality Development; D005082:Physical Exertion; D012201:Reward; D012938:Social Perception; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology