Deci and Ryan
Deci and Ryan
Since then SDT has been extended and applied by scholars across
Canada, to which the papers in the current volume clearly attest.
Differentiating Motivation
Whereas many historical and contemporary theories of motivation have treated motivation primarily as a unitary concept, focussing on the overall amount of motivation that people have for
particular behaviours or activities, SDT began by differentiating
types of motivation. The initial idea was that the type or quality of
a persons motivation would be more important than the total
amount of motivation for predicting many important outcomes
such as psychological health and well-being, effective performance, creative problem solving, and deep or conceptual learning.
Indeed, an abundance of research has now confirmed that the
initial idea was sound.
The most central distinction in SDT is between autonomous
motivation and controlled motivation. Autonomous motivation
comprises both intrinsic motivation and the types of extrinsic
motivation in which people have identified with an activitys value
and ideally will have integrated it into their sense of self. When
people are autonomously motivated, they experience volition, or a
self-endorsement of their actions. Controlled motivation, in contrast, consists of both external regulation, in which ones behavior
is a function of external contingencies of reward or punishment,
and introjected regulation, in which the regulation of action has
been partially internalized and is energized by factors such as an
approval motive, avoidance of shame, contingent self-esteem, and
ego-involvements. When people are controlled, they experience
pressure to think, feel, or behave in particular ways. Both autonomous and controlled motivation energize and direct behavior, and
they stand in contrast to amotivation, which refers to a lack of
intention and motivation.
An enormous amount of research, some of which is reviewed in
the papers of this special issue, has confirmed that, across domains,
Individual Differences
Many theories of motivation have as their primary individual
difference the strength of one or more psychological needsfor
example, the need for achievement, for intimacy, or for control.
The idea is that needs are learned, and some people develop
stronger needs than others. Because SDT maintains that the needs
for competence, relatedness, and autonomy are basic and universal, the individual differences within the theory do not focus on the
varying strength of needs but instead focus on concepts resulting
from the degree to which the needs have been satisfied versus
thwarted. Specifically, within SDT there are two general individual difference concepts, causality orientations and life goals.
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Causality Orientations
Causality orientation are general motivational orientations that
refer to (a) the way people orient to the environment concerning
information related to the initiation and regulation of behavior, and
thus (b) the extent to which they are self-determined in general,
across situations and domains. There are three orientations: autonomous, controlled, and impersonal. Development of a strong autonomous orientation results from ongoing satisfaction of all three
basic needs. Development of a strong controlled orientation results
from some satisfaction of the competence and relatedness needs
but a thwarting of the need for autonomy. And development of the
impersonal orientation results from a general thwarting of all three
needs. According to SDT, people have some level of each of the
three orientations, and one or more of these can be used in making
predictions about various psychological or behavioral outcomes.
Consistently, the autonomy orientation has been positively related
to psychological health and effective behavioral outcomes; the
controlled orientation has been related to regulation through introjects and external contingencies, to rigid functioning, and diminished well-being; and the impersonal orientation has been
reliably associated with poor functioning and symptoms of illbeing, such as self-derogation and lack of vitality.
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Mindfulness
SDT has always maintained that the development of integrated,
autonomous functioning depends on awareness. Recently SDT
researchers have begun to incorporate that idea through studies of
mindfulness, defined as an open awareness and interested attention
to what is happening within and around oneself (Brown & Ryan,
2003). Mindfulness has been associated with autonomous motivation and with a variety of positive psychological and behavioral
outcomes. Accordingly, promoting mindfulness or awareness has
been theorized to be a central element in psychotherapy, one that
allows inner exploration, reflective examination of needs and
feelings, and the development of a more autonomous orientation.
We (Ryan & Deci, 2008a) address this matter more fully in our
paper on psychotherapy within this special issue.
Applications
Finally, as we said earlier, there has been a surge of activity in
applying SDT to many of lifes domains. In this special issue we
are pleased to have papers summarizing some of the research
applying SDT concepts to the important topics of close relationships (La Guardia & Patrick, 2008), parenting (Joussemet, Landry,
& Koestner, 2008), education (Guay, Ratelle, & Chanal, 2008),
work (Gagne & Forest, 2008), well-being and health (Miquelon &
Vallerand, 2008), sport and exercise (Wilson, Mack, & Grattan,
2008), and sustaining our planet (Pelletier & Sharp, 2008). These
applications are inspiring in terms of the quality of research
supporting them, but perhaps more importantly because they demonstrate that comprehensive theorizing, when backed by a tradition
of strong empirical testing, can actually lead to improvements in
social practices and the betterment of individuals and the collectives in which they are embedded.
Resume
La theorie de lautodetermination est de nature empirique et concerne la motivation, le developpement et le bien-etre de letre
humain. Elle porte davantage sur les types de motivation que sur
son ampleur et elle cible en particulier la motivation autonome, la
motivation basee sur le controle (extrinse`que) et le manque de
References
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