During the last several decades, conceptualizations of learning and development have evolved from simplistic disjunctive views originating with stage theorists, views that underestimated the role of learning in development. Taking the place of these views are contextualist views that stress the inherent interaction of personal development and social learning influences. Contemporary models of human development have been expanded to address a wider set of issues underlying personal change, such as atypical and life-span development, generational influences, and evolutionary changes. An especially crucial issue is the development of self-regulatory competence because it represents the point at which the processes of development become fully and reciprocally interactive with learning experiences. The development of self-regulatory control of a task provides a sense of self-efficacy and increases the likelihood of realizing one’s lifetime aspirations. A social cognitive model of self-regulatory development seeks to explain the social learning origins of self-regulatory competence and the continuing reciprocal interdependence of these processes.