Development and socialization of self-regulation from infancy to adolescence: A meta-review differentiating between self-regulatory abilities, goals, and motivation

Self-regulation has been intensely studied across developmental science disciplines in virtue of its significance to understanding and fostering adaptive functioning throughout life. Whereas research has predominantly focused on self-regulatory abilities, age-related changes in goals and motivation that underlie self-regulation have been largely neglected. In a systematic meta-review, we disentangle the development of self-regulatory abilities from age-related goals and motivation between infancy and adolescence. We further investigate the roles of parents, teachers, and peers in the socialization of self-regulatory abilities separately from the socialization of goals and motivation. We searched reviews and meta-analyses on self-regulation in typical development (0–18 years), identifying 1,935 records, from which 136 articles were included. Results show that self-regulation develops from being largely co-regulated in infancy to an independent yet socially-calibrated process in adolescence. We further demonstrate continuity as well as age-related transitions in the abilities, goals, and motivation employed for self-regulation, and pinpoint the exact role of various social agents involved in these processes. Our meta-review yields a detailed description of self-regulation development between infancy and adolescence, providing a starting point for future developmental and intervention work regarding key processes and social agents to be considered when targeting self-regulation in a particular age group.