THE INFLUENCES OF GOAL-RELATED ACTIONS AND REWARD INFORMATION ON CHILDRENS AND ADULTS PERCEPTIONS OF EFFORT EXPENDITURE AND GOAL DESIRE

An action perception approach (i.e., Heider, 1958) was used to investi gate the influences of qualitatively different goal-related actions on 2nd- and 5th-grade children's and college students' perceptions of ac tors' effort expenditure (i.e., trying) and goal desire (i.e., wanting ). Actors performed three repetitive actions or three equifinal action s within 2 reward conditions (offer of reward or no reward, for attemp ting to attain a prosocial goal). At each age level, perceptions of ef fort and want varied significantly by goal-related actions, whereas re ward information did not emerge as an influential factor in differenti ating perceptions of effort and want. Age-related findings suggested t hat, compared with the college students, the children overattributed t rying and wanting to the actors. In the repetitive-actions condition, both 2nd and 5th graders gave significantly higher effort and want rat ings than college students did. In the equifinal-actions condition, 2n d and 5th graders gave significantly higher effort ratings than colleg e students did.