This research was aimed at identifying some developmental and social-psychological conditions important to the relationship between achievement motivation and scholastic performance. A total of 197 second and fifth grade pupils in two elementary schools were observed near the end of first grade and fourth grade, and then again near the beginning and end of second grade and fifth grade. The data indicate that there is a developmental broadening of the basis of achievement motivation. Behavioral and projective measures of achievement motivation show increasing use over time of social comparison standards along with continuing use of autonomous standards based on comparison with one's own previous performance. The data demonstrate that only autonomous achievement motivation is reliably related to the scholastic performance of second graders, while both autonomous and social comparison-based motivation are positively correlated with the performance of fifth graders. There are some indications in the data that girls rely more heavily than boys on comparisons with their own performance and that while pupils rely more heavily on social comparison than their black classmates do. Role conflict (resulting from a perceived conflict between teacher standards and peer standards for pupil behavior) appeared to interfere with the expression of fifth graders' social comparison achievement motivation in their scholastic performance. (Author/JMB)