The current study tested the effect of ego resilience on engagement and achievement as mediated by social relatedness, using three waves of data and controlling for the stability of each construct as well as within wave correlations among study variables. Using structural equation modeling, we were able to control for the stability of each construct as well as the within wave correlations of residual error variances between constructs. The model also took into account the transactional properties of academic engagement and academic achievement. Furthermore, the study tested the moderation effects of gender on each theoretically-significant path. Despite the models having adequate fit indices, in the larger context of the model the hypothesis that ego resiliency predicts subsequent social relatedness was not supported in either reading or math revised models. Because of this, the overall study hypothesis that social relatedness would mediate the relationship between ego resiliency and subsequent academic engagement and achievement was not supported. However, there were several findings of interest. The results of this study were consistent with the reasoning that social relatedness helps children feel more accepted and supported by peers and teachers, therefore promoting more classroom engagement. Findings suggested that, while social interactions seem to impact students? academic engagement across in the subsequent year, their level of ego resilience at school entry appears to be an important long-term contributor to math achievement two years later. The moderation analyses indicated that ego resilience had more effect on boys? reading achievement and academic engagement two years later. Study limitations and implications were also discussed.

With the continuing growth of consumer participation in brand activities in social media, social media marketers and researchers have sought to tap into consumer engagement and relationship building by creating interpersonal social media environments that can facilitate consumers’ sense of belonging or social relatedness. Although consumer engagement and relationship building have become mainstream research topics in social media, little is known about which marketing efforts brands should undertake in order to engage various consumers who have different motivations to engage with brands. The purpose of this research was to explore the mechanism by which consumer motivations and perceptions of social relatedness influence consumer engagement and relationship building in the context of social media. Three studies were conducted to examine whether the extent to which consumers’ experience of social relatedness in social media moderates the effects of self-determination on consumer engagement (i.e., intrinsic motivation and future intention) and relational outcomes (i.e., satisfaction, affective commitment, control mutuality, competence trust, and benevolence/integrity trust). The findings consistently showed that consumers’ perceptions of the social relatedness they experienced within social media moderated the effect of self-determination on intrinsic motivation and affective commitment. Specifically, the positive influence of social relatedness on consumers’ intrinsic motivation and affective commitment to brand activities was greater for consumers with a low level of self-determination than for those who were motivated by a high level of self-determination. Consumers with low levels of self-determination yielded greater intrinsic motivation and affective commitment when they experienced high perceived social relatedness than when they perceived low perceived relatedness. However, among brand followers in social media, the consumer self-determination × social relatedness interaction effects on the relational outcomes were greater for those who were high in self-determination than for those who were low in self-determination. Overall, this research highlights the importance of fulfilling consumers’ need for social relatedness in the context of social media, especially for those who are motivated to engage in brand activities via external factors. Further, findings of this research yield insights into segmenting consumers based on the level of consumer self-determination and consumer type. / text

Studiens syfte är att ur ett symbolisk interaktionistiskt synsätt försöka förstå vad som motiverar vuxna amatörskådespelare, amatörsångare och amatörmusikalartister att delta i ideella konstnärliga projekt. Något annat som studien tar reda på är om konstutövandet och gruppen de deltar i har någon inverkan på individens identitet och identitetsskapande. Genom nio semistrukturerade intervjuer skapas en förståelse kring motivationen och identitetsskapandet. Detta förklaras sedan genom motivationsteorier samt teorier kring identiteten, där det visar sig att gemenskapen i gruppen, konstnärlig utmaning och utveckling, deltagandet i den konstnärliga processen, känslan av flow, själva utförandet och dess påverkan på välbefinnandet, viljan att uttrycka sig samt personlig utveckling var de huvudsakliga motivationsfaktorerna. Det visar sig även att både det konstnärliga utförandet och gruppen har en inverkan på individens identitet och identitetsskapande. / The purpose of this study is, from a symbolic interactionistic perspective, to try to understand what motivates adult amateur actors, amateur singers and amateur musical artists to participate in non-profit artistic projects. The study also determines whether art practice and the group attending have any impact on the individual's identity and identity formation. Nine semi-structured interviews have been done to get a deeper understanding about the motivation and identity creation. The data from the interviews shows that social belonging, artistic challenge and development, participation in the artistic process, the sense of flow, the desire to express oneself as well as personal development were the main motivation factors. It also shows that both the artistic performance as well as the group had an impact on the individual's identity and identity formation. The data are then explained by motivation theories and theories of identity.