Legault, 2017

Citation:

Legault, L. (2017). Self-Determination theory. Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1162-1

Self-Determination Theory

Summary:

• deals with how humans interact with their social environments
• How motivation leads to personality Development
• Concerned with intrinsic and extrinsic motivation
• Basic Pyc needs:

• Autonomy: perceived self-determination
• Competence: feeling capable
• Relatedness: connectedness

• Life Domains in which SDT is relevant

• work
• relationships
• education
• religion
• stereotyping and prejudice

Six Mini Theories

Cognitive Evaluation Theory

Intrinsic motivation - the desire to engage in behavior that comes from ones' own enjoyment and interests as opposed to external rewards - can be fostered or diminished by both internal states and external experiences. Internal stats can include becoming absorbed to the point that the self-perceptions are dependent upon the behavior and drive the behavior over more than the desire for the behavior itself. One major component of CET is whether the person perceives external input as informational (helpful to the development of competence) vs. controlling (undermining autonomy) can influence how that feedback impacts intrinsic motivation.

Intrinsic motivation can be affected by:

• Rewards/punishments
• Interpersonal Context
• Internal Proclivities

Organismic Integration Theory

This theory deals with how humans "internalize behaviors" through extrinsic motivation. For successful internalization, multiple types of extrinsic motivations must be at play. These extrinsic factors fall along a spectrum ranging from the most external to the most internal:

1. External Regulation - compliance reward based
2. Introjected regulation - Self-control, Ego Maintenace, internal rewards
3. Identified Regulation - Conscious valuing
4. Integrated Regulation - "congruence, awareness, synthesis with self"
5. Intrinsic Regulation - "personal enjoyment, interests, inherent satisfaction"

1-4 are extrinsic 1&2 are controlled 3-5 are autonomous or self-determined

People tend to integrate important behaviors based on their environment and do so by reflecting on and developing vale for those behaviors.

Causality Orientation Theory

Explains what causes the degree to which a behavior is autonomous or controlled. Autonomous Causality Orientation - how autonomous the behavior is - is developed based on whether the person's experiences related to the behavior help them view it as controlled or autonomous.

• Autonimuis functioning/orientation - associated with self-esteem and self-actualization, self-satisfaction
• Controlled functioning/orientation - associated with self-consciousness, concerned with how to behavior relative to external expectations
• impersonal orientation - feelings of helplessness/disconnectedness towards the behavior

Is there any causal research that supports this? If so, how was it operationalized?

Basic Psychological Need Theory

Concerned with how psychological needs are "essential for health and wellbeing." Needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness are innate and universal. The extent to which ones' psych needs are met is positively associated with eudaimonic well-being (experiences of meaning, self-realization... etc.). Environments influences autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Autonomy-supportive environments foster independent decision-making through choice and nurture intrinsic motivations. Environments that foster competence allow for "optimal challenge." Relatedness is dependent upon nurturing reciprocal relationships.

Goal Content Theory

Intrinsic values/aspirations come from the need to satisfy autonomy, competence, and relatedness needs. Extrinsic aspirations come from the attempt to satisfy psych needs with substitutes and do not provide direct nourishment of psych needs.

Relationship Motivation Theory

Concerned with how close relationships support psych needs. Ideally, relationships provide reciprocal support of autonomy, competence, and relatedness.

1. The major principle of RMT is that relatedness depends on whether the relationship supports each individual's autonomy and competence.
2. Relationship fulfillment is dependent upon the level of autonomy a person has in choosing the relationship.

I wonder what this means for mentoring programs where people are matched.

3. There needs to be a mutual desire for the relationship to benefit from both giving and receiving support. "optimal close relationships require more than warmth and attachment."

Refelections:

• It seems that while there are many potential dimensions to behavior, we only talk about a behavior having one dimension. I'm not sure that this actually makes sense.
• It seems that these theories address the complexity of motivation without addressing the multi-dimensional nature of behaviors. The extent to which the behavior is complete, the frequency of the behavior, how much the behavior aligns with the expectations of the self or others all seem to be ignored. Perhaps this is not true in general of the research on SDT and is just an artifact of this paper.