Human behavior is generally characterized by striving for control and is organized into phases of goal engagement and disengagement. People’s motivation to pursue a particular goal depends on situational incentives and personal preferences as well as interactions between these two factors. Ideally, the motivational and volitional regulations of behavior take turns during different behavioral phases and are separated from each other in a clear way. They both ensure, in their own way, the functional optimization of goal selection, goal striving, and goal realization. Individuals differ with regard to their motivational and volitional regulation. Both types of behavioral regulation start developing during early childhood and are closely associated with the behavior of adult socialization agents. During youth and adulthood, individuals’ control striving becomes focused on their own development. It thus dynamically completes the dialectic transaction between individual and environment.