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Carol Sansone, Ph.D.
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Contact Information
Carol Sansone
Department of Psychology
University of Utah
380 South 1530 East, Room 502
Salt Lake City, Utah 84112 -0251
Webpage: www.psych.utah.edu/carolsansone
Office: 810 Social & Behavior Sciences Tower
Phone: (801) 581-3667
Email: carol.sansone@psych.utah.edu
Department Fax: (801) 581-5841
Research Interests
My research interests focus on intrinsic motivation; self-regulation of motivation; gender differences in motivation for math and science; life span development differences in self-regulation; and self-regulation of motivation in online learning.
Education
| Ph.D. | Columbia University, 1984 |
Selected Publications
Edited Works
Sansone, C., Morf, C.C., & Panter, A.T. (Eds.) (2004). The Sage Handbook of Methods in Social Psychology. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. [more information on the book.].
Sansone, C. & Harackiewicz, J.M. (Eds.). (2000). Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation: The Search for Optimal Motivation and Performance. San Diego, CA: Academic Press. [list of contributors].
Sansone, C. (Ed). (1999). Special issue on Intrinsic Motivation, Creativity, and Performance: New Perspectives on Old Questions. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology [Academic Press] . [table of contents for special issue].
Other Publications
Renninger, K. A., Sansone, C., & Smith, J. L., (2004). Love of learning. In C. Peterson & M. E. P. Seligman (Eds.) Character strengths and virtues: A classification and handbook. New York: Oxford University Press.
Sansone, C., & Smith, J.L. (2000). Interest and self-regulation: The relation between having to and wanting to. In C. Sansone & J.M. Harackiewicz (Eds.). Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation: The Search for Optimal Motivation and Performance. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Sansone, C., & Smith, J.L. (2000). The "how" of goal pursuit: Interest and self-regulation. Psychological Inquiry.
Sansone, C., Wiebe, D. J., & Morgan, C. (1999). Self-regulating interest: The moderating role of Hardiness and Conscientiousness. Journal of Personality, 61, 701-733.
Isaac, J.D., Sansone, C., & Smith, J.L. (1999). Other people as a source of interest in an activity. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 35, 239-265.
Sansone, C., & Harachiewicz, J.M. (1996). "I don't feel like it": The function of interest in self-regulation. In L. Martin & A. Tesser (Eds.), Striving and feeling: Interactions among goals, affect, and self-regulation (pp. 203-228). Mahweh, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Strough, J., Berg, C.A., & Sansone, C. (1996). Goals for everyday problem solving across the life span: Age and gender differences in the salience of interpersonal context. Developmental Psychology, 32, 1106-1115.
Sansone, C., & Berg, C.A. (1993). Adapting to the environment across the life span: Different process or different inputs? International Journal of Behavioral Development, 16, 215-241.
Sansone, C., & Morgan, C. (1992). Intrinsic motivation and education: Competence in context. Motivation and Emotion, 16, 249-269.
Sansone, C., Weir, C., Harpster, L., & Morgan, C. (1992). Once a boring task always a boring task? Interest as a self-regulatory mechanism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 379-390.
Harackiewicz, J.M., & Sansone, C. (1991). Goals and intrinsic motivation: You can get there from here. Advances in Motivation and Achievement, 7, 21-49.
Sansone, C. (1989). Competence feedback, task feedback, and intrinsic interest: An examination of process and context. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 25, 343-361.
Sansone, C., Sachau, D.A., & Weir, C. (1989). Effects of instruction on intrinsic interest: The importance of context. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 819-829.
Sansone, C. (1986). A question of competence: The effects of competence and task feedback on intrinsic interest. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 918-931.
Research Statement
My research interests focus on intrinsic motivation; self-regulation of motivation; gender differences in motivation for math and science; life span development differences in self-regulation; and self-regulation of motivation in online learning.
We have been investigating the process through which people develop and maintain motivation in day-to-day life. Motivation in everyday life involves feelings of "having to" and of "wanting to." In the short term, feeling that we HAVE to do something may be sufficient to motivate behavior (e.g., an exam tomorrow may motivate my reading the text tonight). However, this may not be sufficient over the long term (e.g., will I continue to read about this subject after the exam, the class, or school, is over?) We suggest that having some interest in what we do (i.e., feeling like you want to do it) is not a luxury. Rather, it is essential for any long-term behavior. This suggests that self-regulation of behavior over time must include the regulation of both kinds of motivation. Our research focus has been to test this hypothesis and explore some of the implications.
If maintaining some interest is important for maintaining performance over time, then one implication is that individuals faced with an uninteresting task should quit the activity. However, what if individuals believed that maintaining performance on this task was important? In that case, they may be motivated to make performance more interesting. In so doing, individuals may come to redefine the task to include these more interesting factors.
For example, someone whose job is to inspect potato chips for regularity of appearance may begin to look for meaningful shapes (e.g., Elvis) in the irregular chips. Even though his or her employer may consider these behaviors "off-task", these behaviors may be essential if he or she is going to maintain performance on the job over time. Our research has tested and found support for this idea about the self-regulation of interest.
We have also examined how individuals of different ages and gender view their everyday life across the life span (this work has been conducted with Dr. Cindy Berg in the developmental psychology area, and was funded by a grant from NICHD and NIA). We are currently combining knowledge gained in this project about interpersonal goals in achievement settings and our self-regulation of motivation model to examine gender differences in motivation to perform math and science activities. We have also begun to examine the appearance of this self-regulatory process in other domains (e.g., work, online learning). If you are interested in hearing more about our research, you may contact me at the above address. The listed publications will also provide additional information.
Research Areas
Social, Diversity, Interpersonal Processes, Social-Developmental
My Graduate Students
Tamra Fraughton
