1 The Concept of Action: A Historical Perspective.- I. Introduction.- II. Action theory and the organismic paradigm.- III. On autonomous man.- IV. Alternative action models.- A. Von Wright.- B. Louch.- V. A learning theory approach.- VI. Actions and psychological theory.- A. Pierre Janet.- B. Parsons.- VII. Intentional actions.- VIII. Structural developmental theory and action theory.- IX. The concept of “locus of control”.- X. Plans of action.- XI. A developmental perspective.- XII. Conclusion.- 2 Determinants of Action: An Organismic and Holistic Approach.- I. Introduction.- II. Self-regulation.- III. How selfish is self-regulation?.- IV. Determinants of action.- V. An activity-levels model of development: Organism- environment interaction.- VI. Development of the self-system.- 3 Self-object Relation as a Basis of Human Development.- I. Introduction.- II. The formation of self-object relations.- III. The social nature of object relations.- A. Goodness-of-fit between action and object.- B. Exploration and the formation of object relationships.- C. Formation of self-object relations through social interaction.- D. Application of the sociohistorical approach.- IV. The other side of the coin: Social interaction as shared object relations.- V. Valences of objects.- A. Subjective valence.- B. Objective valence.- C. Abstract valence.- D. Transitions in development.- VI. General principles of self-object relations: Looking at the process.- A. Internalization versus externalization.- B. Subjectivization versus objectivization.- VII. Some developmental trends.- A. Hierarchy of object relations.- B. Decontextualization and separation.- C. From subjective valence to abstract valence and return.- VIII. Application of the action categories to children’s role play: summarizing demonstration.- IX. Concluding remarks.- 4 The Role of Internalization in the Transfer of Mnemonic Strategies.- I. Introduction.- II. A framework for examining transfer.- A. The information-processing metaphor.- B. A developmental approach to strategy use and transfer.- III. Current research on the transfer of memory strategies.- A. Blind training.- B. Laissez-faire conditions.- C. Instruction and feedback studies.- D. Self-monitoring studies.- E. General principles training.- IV. The development of transfer skill: Analyzing variability.- A. Developmental changes in patterns of variability.- B. Variability in strategy use: Two examples.- C. Within-subject variability: Strategy change as a pathway through an experiment.- D. New methods for studying variability.- V. Children as adaptive memorizers: The Vygotskyan approach and the social nature of cognitive tasks.- 5 The Significance and Function of Students’ Goals.- I. Introduction.- II. The significance of students’ goals.- III. Dimensions of students’ goals.- A. Sources of goals: Self and environment.- B. Orientiation: Toward self or task.- C. Perspective: Anticipation-evaluation.- D. Stable-changing.- IV. Changes and stabilities in students’ goals.- A. The learning environment.- V. Conclusion.- 6 Interests and their Structural Development: Theoretical Reflections.- I. Introduction.- II. Philosophy of man: Relationships with the environment and action theory.- III. Affect and motivation.- IV. Social cognition.- V. Model of self-regulation.- A. Dynamics.- VI. The development of self-regulation: A selective review of the literature.- A. Self-regulation at the action level.- B. Self-regulation at the self-concept level (i.e., cognitions).- C. Self-regulation at the plan of action level.- VII. Conclusion.- 7 Interest Development as Structural Change in Person-Object Relationships.- I. Introduction.- II. Theoretical framework.- A. The person-environment relationship.- B. The interest object.- C. Structural components of interest-oriented person-object relationships.- D. Specific features of the interest-oriented person-object relationship.- III. Structural aspects of the development of interest.- IV. The interest genesis Project: Goals and methods.- A. Objectives.- B. Procedure and method.- C. Data analysis.- V. Theoretical clarification of casuistic results.- A. Differentiation of the structures of interested-oriented person-object relationships.- B. Specification of global developmental components.- C. Hypothetical models of structural change.- VI. Concluding remarks.- 8 Continuity in Young Children’s Actions: A Consideration of Interest and Temperament.- I. Introduction.- II. Interest.- A. Defining interest.- B. Research on young children’s interest.- III. Temperament.- IV. The role of interest in young children’s temperament.- A. Subjects.- B. Data collection.- C. Data reduction.- D. Results and discussion.- V. Interest, temperament, and action.- A. “Thundercats,” scene play at 3 years of age.- B. “Magic Castle,” scene play at 4 years of age.- VI. Conclusions.- 9 Interests and Their Structural Development: A Qualitative Content Analysis.- I. Introduction.- II. The development of interests.- A. A review of the literature.- B. Some developmental questions.- C. The empirical approach to interests.- III. Interests: Two exploratory studies.- A. Study 1.- B. Study 2.- C. Conclusion.- IV. Additional empirical evidence.- A. Study 3.- B. Study 4.- C. Conclusion.- V. General conclusion.- Author Index.