The Development and Validation of the Academic and Social SOC Scale

Abstract

Integrating approaches to self-regulation will greatly inform our understanding of psychological processes and their development. Empirical integration requires measurement tools that are sensitive to changes in self-regulation during critical periods of its development, yet many theories of self-regulation lack such tools. In this dissertation I discuss one approach to self-regulation, the model of selection, optimization, and compensation (SOC), and highlight the mismatch between SOC theory and the application of the SOC questionnaire in adolescent and young adult samples. I then create and validate a new measure of SOC that is theoretically appropriate for use with adolescents and young adults. Adolescence is an especially important period for the development of self-regulation, and accurately measuring SOC during this time will inform our theoretical understanding of SOC and help researchers integrate SOC with alternative conceptualizations of self-regulation.