Why are some goal pursuits more successful than others? What personal variables help achieve successful self-regulation? The goal of the present program of research is to investigate the relationships between two important components of effective self-regulation: motivation and monitoring. This dissertation suggests that an organismic approach to self-regulation such as self-determination theory (SDT) can supplement the view brought forward by control theory's (CT mechanistic self-monitoring system, by proposing that people may have different regulation styles based on their motivational orientation. More specifically, it is argued that SDT and CT may be in congruence with regard to general dispositional styles of monitoring and motivation, such that that public self-consciousness may be associated with a nonself-determined motivational orientation, while private self-consciousness may be associated with a self-determined motivational orientation. However, it is also argued that SDT and CT make different predictions with regard to the effects of situational manipulations of public and private self-awareness, and that these effects may influence people differentially based on their motivational orientation. It is hypothesized that: (a) conditions conducive to private self-awareness affect individuals with self-determined and nonself-determined motivational orientations differently as they become more aware of their respective personal style of behavioural regulation and their different personal goals (i.e., intrinsic versus extrinsic goals respectively), and (b) conditions conducive to public self-awareness create a controlling environment and lead individuals with both self-determined and nonself-determined motivational orientations to focus on self-presentation, their public image and the ways others perceive them. To test these ideas, a series of four studies is proposed to answer a progression of research questions using survey and laboratory methodologies. Results from a meta-analysis (Study I) and structural equation modeling (Study 2) reveal that private self-consciousness is associated with higher levels of global self-determination and that public self-consciousness is associated with lower levels of global self-determination, across various samples. Public self-consciousness and low global self-determination also appear jointly related to detrimental self-regulatory functioning such as setting goals that are incoherent with the self, while private self-consciousness and high global self-determination appear related to positive self-regulatory functioning such as setting goals that are coherent with the self (Study 2). Furthermore, findings suggest that a situational increase of private self-awareness has a strong impact on the self-regulatory functioning of individuals with low levels of global self-determination as they become more aware of their extrinsic goals and behave in coherence with these goals, but little impact on individuals with high levels of global self-determination as this condition matches their style of regulation and their behaviour is already in coherence with their intrinsic goals (Study 3). Conversely, a situational increase in public self-awareness appears to have a strong impact on the self-regulatory functioning of individuals with high levels of global self-determination, as this condition pressures them to adopt a different way to regulate their behaviour, but a weaker impact on individuals with low levels of global self-determination, as this condition corresponds to their style of regulation (Study 4). Overall, this program of research constitutes a notable contribution to the extant literature on self-monitoring, self-determination, and behavioural self-regulation. Findings suggest that people with different motivational orientations may have different regulation styles, and that these styles could dictate how self-monitoring affects their self-regulation.

My subjects with insomnia secondary to chronic pain were assigned randomly to either a cognitive-behavioural therapy (n = 25) or a minimal contact symptom-monitoring/waiting-list control group (n = 25). The therapy consisted of a multicomponent seven-week group intervention aimed at promoting good sleep habits, teaching relaxation skills, and changing negative thoughts about sleep. Subjects in the control group monitored their sleep using a sleep diary for seven weeks; they also received weekly supportive phone calls from a therapist. Treated subjects were significantly more improved than control subjects on measures of sleep onset latency, wake time after sleep onset, sleep efficiency, sleep quality, and nocturnal activity levels (obtained from ambulatory monitors). A small, but significant, decrease in pain levels was also found in the treated subjects, but depression and medication use remained unchanged. At a 3 month follow-up, treated subjects showed good maintenance of most therapeutic gains. These results provide the first evidence from a randomized controlled trial that cognitive-behavioural therapy is an effective treatment for insomnia that is secondary to chronically painful medical conditions.

The goal of this thesis was to create and test an interest and motivation self-regulation model comprising three main components: Interest-enhancing strategies, interest, and self-determination. It was first hypothesized that when people are faced with a boring task, they will use the five following interest-enhancing strategies: Challenge enhancement, exploitation of stimulation from the physical context, introduction of variety within the task, provision of self-relevant rationales, and focused attentional involvement on the task. Second, interest-enhancing strategy use was hypothesized to be associated with interest, and interest, in turn, was hypothesized to be associated with the level of self-determination of extrinsic motivation. These relationships were also hypothesized to hold over time. That is, interest-enhancing strategy use was hypothesized to predict long term gains in interest, and long term gains in interest were hypothesized to predict long term gains in self-determination. Four studies were conducted to test the aforementioned hypotheses. Study 1 was a cross-sectional survey (N = 318). Its goal was to provide an exploratory test of the interest and motivation self-regulation model. The goal of Study 2 (N = 434) was to cross-validate the results obtained in Study 1, using a similar methodology. In Study 3 (N = 354), the interest and motivation self-regulation model was tested in the context of a longitudinal survey. Questionnaire measures were obtained twice, at a 10 weeks interval. A control group was also tested at Time 2 to evaluate potential "carry-over" effects. In Study 4 (N = 120), the interest and motivation self-regulation model was evaluated using an experimental design. Interest and motivation were measured repeatedly while the participants performed a boring free recall task. The results of all four studies revealed that the participants used the five proposed interest-enhancing strategies to a moderate extent. A single strategy, namely attentional involvement, was directly and positively associated with interest in all four studies. This strategy also had an indirect positive impact on self-determination, through interest. Moreover, in Studies 1, 2, and 3, challenge enhancement and provision of self-relevant rationales were indirectly associated with interest and self-determination, through the mediation of attentional involvement. In Study 4, provision of self-relevant rationales had a direct positive impact on self-determination. Introduction of variety did not relate, directly or indirectly, to interest and self-determination in any of the four studies. The results pertaining to exploitation of stimulation were inconsistent. In Studies 1 and 2, this strategy displayed a negative indirect impact on interest and motivation, through the mediation of attentional involvement. No significant associations were found in Study 3 for this strategy. In Study 4, this strategy displayed a direct positive impact on interest and self-determination. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

In recent decades, throughout the industrialized world, youth have shown an increasing vulnerability to self-destruction. This thesis supports research which argues that modifying the availability of firearms could act as an immediate approach to the prevention of adolescent suicide. I add to existing psychological and sociological theories, which fail to address the issue of opportunity and the situational factors around an adolescent taking their life, by focusing not only on theory but on the empirical research upon which the validity of these and subsequent theories must depend. I argue that the explanations for suicidal behaviour must, in general, depend on an interactional theory in which socialization, cognitive, intrapsychic, biological factors and opportunity all play a part. For the purposes of this thesis, I have used a cross-section of studies that include the four primary methods of studying the epidemiology of suicide, including: (1) profile analyses; (2) restrospective and prospective investigations of patients who come to clinical attention on account of attempted suicide; (3) cohort analyses; and (4) psychological autopsies of suicides. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

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