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oai:keep.lib.asu.edu:node-2011252025-05-05T15:53:02Zoai_pmh:alloai_pmh:repo_items

201125 https://hdl.handle.net/2286/R.2.N.201125 http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ All Rights Reserved 2025 76 pages Masters Thesis Academic theses en Mahaffey, Elise Lucca, Kelsey Benitez, Viridiana Luo, Rufan Arizona State University Partial requirement for: M.A., Arizona State University, 2025 Field of study: Psychology When faced with difficult challenges, children’s persistence matters, however, indiscriminate persistence is not necessarily strategic. Children glean important information about when and how hard to persist from adult language and pedagogical behavior and are able to rationally decide how to allocate their own effort based on cost-benefit analyses from a young age. However, less is known about how children learn to make these strategic effort allocation decisions. In the current study, one potential influence that may relate to the development of this ability is examined: parent talk about effort and challenges. This study has three aims: 1) to characterize the content and frequency of parents’ spontaneous talk about both the positive aspects of persistence and their costs (parent challenge-relevant talk); 2) to examine the extent to which parent challenge-relevant talk predicts children’s strategic persistence on an online exploratory search task; and 3) to explore how this varies across two cultures (the United States and Turkey). Findings demonstrate cultural differences in the amount of parent challenge-relevant talk, such that parents in the United States more frequently discuss the rewards and goals of persistence, as well as use more persistence and praise talk, than parents in Turkey. Across both countries, rewards and goals talk is more frequent than talk about persistence, praise, or costs. Contrary to our hypothesis, parent challenge-relevant talk is not related to children’s strategic or general persistence in the search task, however, children get better at persisting strategically as they get older. Results provide insight into how parents may spontaneously highlight the cost-benefit analysis involved in effort in their everyday language with their children. Developmental Psychology Cognitive Psychology Cross-cultural motivational frameworks parent-child interaction strategic persistence wordless book Cross-Cultural Examination of Parent Challenge-Relevant Talk in the United States and Turkey and its Relation to Children’s Strategic Persistence