Self Determination Theory
Self-determination theory seeks to explain the conditions under which human beings flourish and thrive. The words “self-determination” in the name convey the most important idea of the theory: that our mental health is at its best when we feel like we have autonomy in our lives: the ability to choose what we do or at least, how we do it.
SDT is among the boldest theories in psychology because it makes claims about what humans need. To call something a “need” is to say it has the utmost importance for an organism. Psychological theories rarely refer to needs, so SDT is unusually audacious. Although many of us use the word “need” casually and inaccurately in everyday life (for example, I often think I need caffeine to function properly) SDT reminds us that we don’t choose what we “need” to survive. Scientists can tell if something is a psychological need by objectively observing both: 1) that people’s wellbeing suffers when they are deprived of it; and 2) that people’s wellbeing thrives when they are given it. Crucially, it can be demonstrated that something is a “need” regardless of whether the person wants it or not.
SDT claims that humans have only three psychological needs (SDT does not seek to explain physical needs): 1) Competence – we need to feel we can do things effectively; 2) Autonomy – we need to feel that what we do fits with our own interests and values and so that if it were up to us, we would choose to do what we do; and 3) Relatedness – we need to feel that we care for, and are cared for by, others.
SDT popularised the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is the desire to do something that comes from the satisfaction of doing the activity itself. For example, I’m intrinsically motivated to read about new plot developments in the Star Wars universe. I like the imagining, the wondering, and playing with memories of previous stories and films that I’ve enjoyed. I don’t need anyone to tell me to do it or make sure it gets done. The activity itself is enjoyable to me. Extrinsic motivation is the desire to do something because of the consequences that will occur (or not occur) from doing it, rather than the act itself. I am extrinsically motivated to do most of my administration tasks. I don’t do them because I find them interesting or important. I do them mainly to avoid accusations of neglect or incompetence, and because I get paid to do them. I would definitely not do them if I did not get paid. I should point out that intrinsic or extrinsic motivation is not a fixed, unchanging quality of an activity. I can be intrinsically motivated to read about Star Wars in the hour before I go to bed and not be intrinsically motivated to read about Star Wars in the middle of my Saturday basketball game. Similarly, just because I find it intrinsically interesting to read about Star Wars doesn’t mean anyone else would (although in this particular case that’s unlikely because Star Wars is so awesome). However, there are some general characteristics of activities that have intrinsic motivation potential: activities that are novel, challenging or aesthetically pleasing are more likely to generate intrinsic motivation than other kinds of activities.
But, (a) isn’t most of what we spend our time doing extrinsically motivated and (b) is that bad? The answers are (a) “yes” and (b) “it depends”. SDT argues that yes, most of what we do as adults is extrinsically motivated, but people vary significantly in how much autonomy they see themselves having, which makes a difference to their enjoyment and satisfaction. At one end of the continuum, behaviour is externally regulated: it is performed simply to satisfy an external demand or obtain a reward. When performing tasks with such low autonomy, the person feels controlled and alienated. The next level of autonomy is introjected regulation. Introjection is where other peoples’ rules and beliefs become part of our stream of thinking but rather than integrating them as our own values, we experience them as obligations and demands. Extrinsically motivated behaviour that is driven by introjected regulation is performed to avoid guilt and anxiety, or to “pump ourselves up”, but feels pressured and uncomfortable. When extrinsically motivated behaviour is consciously valued as personally important, it is regulated through identification. The behaviour is experienced as voluntary, performance is better and we persist longer. The most autonomous form of extrinsically motivated behaviour is fully integrated into the individual’s values and belief system. The difference each form of motivation makes can be seen in the behaviour of school children. The more students are externally regulated, the less interested and less effort they make toward their study and the more they blame others (e.g., their teachers) for poor school results. Students whose studying is motivated by introjection work harder, but feel more anxious and cope worse with failure. The best functioning students’ studying is regulated by identification: they show more interest and enjoyment in school, give more effort, and cope better with setbacks
SDT argues that from birth, we have a natural tendency to be active, explore, experiment and play without needing others to train us to do this. However, our homes, schools, workplaces and other social groups can either nurture and grow our intrinsic motivation, or crush our spirits, depending on how the people and systems around us respond to our behaviour.
Impact of SDT (practical, knowledge)
A sound theory of human motivation ought to be extremely influential and that is indeed the case for SDT. The original paper by Ryan and Deci (2000) has been cited 9733 times by other scientific papers in the Scopus data base – a citation rate higher than 99% of all other published papers. There are now hundreds of studies of SDT.
Similarly, the implications of SDT are wide-reaching, as you would expect. Here are just some of the research findings in just some of the major areas of application.
Health
SDT predictions are repeatedly borne out in the health behaviour of individuals. In experiments, children offered a choice (i.e., supporting their autonomy) about which vegetables they ate, ate significantly more vegetables than those offered no choice. In a study of chest pain patients, the extent to which they took responsibility for their own behaviour and saw their doctors as autonomy-supportive predicted the extent to which they improved their diets and exercise. Breast cancer survivors do more moderate to vigorous physical activity when they have autonomous motivation to do so whereas when they have externally-controlled motivation they worry more about their cancer and experience more depression. Organ transplant patients who are autonomously self-regulated do more of their physical rehabilitation exercises.
Social and professional support or pressure influences the quality of individuals’ motivation, and in turn, their behaviour, in line with SDT. Health workers can support their clients’ autonomy by: accepting their clients’ personal choices to change or not; providing choice about ways to change; encouraging clients to examine their own motivations and goals for changing; and minimising the use of external rewards or controls (e.g., making access to desired services or help contingent on doing a task the client does not see as important). Counsellors who are careful to support clients’ autonomy achieve smoking quit rates almost three times higher than those who don’t, greater improvements in diet, cholesterol levels, diabetes self-management, and physical exercise. Dental hygienists who support clients’ autonomy achieve greater increases in their clients’ dental care practices. To the extent that nursing home staff (and friends and families) support residents’ autonomy, residents experience less depression, more vitality and more life satisfaction. Outside professional settings, friends and family support can make a big difference. Women lose more weight (when that is their goal) when friends and family support their autonomy, but lose less when friends and family are controlling or directive.
Parenting
When parents are autonomy-supportive rather than controlling, children do better in a wide range of vital areas: children are better at managing their emotions, thoughts and behaviour; they’re better able to concentrate for longer and delay gratification (i.e., wait for things they want and not be so driven to act on impulses); they are more positively engaged in school, perform better in their academic work, and have better psychological health and wellbeing. When parents are less supportive of autonomy, their adolescent children are more likely to aspire to have wealth, fame, and image (i.e., extrinsic sources of reinforcement), compared to wanting affiliation, growth and community. Higher extrinsic aspirations are associated with risk-taking and drug use. SDT makes an important distinction between autonomy and independence: they are not the same, and it is autonomy rather than independence that is good for children’s psychological health. Willingness to ask parents for help and support positively predicts wellbeing and parents who are loving and supportive encourage both self-reliance, and needing others.
Controlling parenting is associated with children being more physically aggressive and having poorer peer relationships. Although controlling parenting includes blatant behaviours such as giving frequent directives, criticism, using language like “have to” and use of threats, punishments and arbitrary rewards, it can also take more subtle forms like giving more attention and affection than usual (parental conditional positive regard, PCPR) or withdrawing attention and affection (parental conditional negative regard, PCNR). Children of parents who use PCNR have more difficulty managing their emotions and feel more resentful toward their parents. Children of parents who use PCPR learn to suppress their emotions but also have a greater tendency to lose control of their emotions at times when suppression fails. PCPR and NCPR can be seen as providing the child with a conflict between meeting his/her need for autonomy and his/her need for relatedness (with the parent).
SDT is not simply another “parent-blaming” psychological theory. It recognises and studies the influences on autonomy-supporting versus controlling parenting styles. Parents tend to become more controlling when their children have difficult temperaments, when their children have difficulties with academic performance, when they have little social or partner support, when they themselves were parented in a controlling way, when under financial pressure or experiencing other life stressors, and when they held unrealistically high standards combined with harsh self-criticism for not meeting these standards.
SDT highlights the importance of parents providing structure to their children’s environment in order to meet their need to develop competence. When a home environment is unpredictable and chaotic, children feel helpless: they feel they can’t control anything, and their need for competence is left unmet. Effective parents clearly and consistently communicate household rules and expectations, and the consequences for breaking rules. They provide meaningful feedback to the child about how well he or she is performing tasks and how to improve, and the child develops competence.
Education
SDT assumes that learning develops naturally, beginning with exploratory play in infancy, and that given conducive conditions, individuals will continue to seek out and develop without the need to micro-manage an individual’s education. There is a wealth of research evidence in support of SDT. Students taught by teachers with a more ‘controlling’ style lose interest and learn less effectively at school. Teachers who are more autonomy-supportive produce students who see themselves as more competent, have higher self-esteem and are more intrinsically motivated to learn. Teachers who are more controlling have students who are less motivated to learn, have lower self-esteem and see themselves as less competent. Autonomy-supportive teachers: provide students with choices and opportunities to take initiative in their learning and to seek out information relevant to their interests in their assignments; they provide rationales for tasks; they listen more; give fewer directives; respond more to student questions; pay more attention to what students want; resist giving answers immediately; are more supportive of students’ initiatives; and take students’ perspectives. Autonomy-supportive teachers give students the opportunity to work out solutions themselves, give hints when students get stuck, and acknowledge signs of improvement and mastery. On the other hand, controlling teachers pressure students to think, feel and behave in particular ways and fail to take students’ perspectives when communicating. They provide answers before students have time to work them out, give more directives, use language like “should” and “have to”, and use closed questions to control classroom conversations.
SDT research has also given much attention to the factors that influence supporting the autonomy of students. In particular, it has highlighted the pernicious effects of standardized grading schemes. In one experiment, grade 5 students were given a reading comprehension task, half of whom were being graded and half whom weren’t. Those who were graded showed less enjoyment of the task and less deep comprehension. Although the students who were graded had equal or better rote memory for basic facts from the text immediately after reading, they had poorer recall when retested a week later. In a natural experiment of 8000 Swedish students, those who were graded in primary school performed worse in grades 7-9 and 12 at high school than those who were not graded. Furthermore, low achieving students who were graded in primary school were less likely to finish high school than those weren’t. According to SDT, too often grades are used as an extrinsic motivator but offer no feedback that can be used to build competence. For grading to be useful it has to be done in an autonomy-supportive context with feedback that helps students improve their performance.
SDT has also highlighted how systemic influences on teachers can support or derail best teaching practice. In one experiment, teachers were tasked with teaching problem-solving skills to a class. Half were told they were responsible for the students meeting high performance standards; the other half were given no such instructions. Those teachers given the ‘pressure’ for their students to perform talked five times more than the other teachers and used more controlling language. Students of the ‘pressured’ teachers completed more problems than students in the other groups but that was because the teachers were more likely to give them most of the solutions! The students of the ‘unpressured’ teachers solved five times as many problems independently.
Work
SDT research into work settings parallels the classroom, where worker satisfaction and performance has been linked to SDT need fulfilment. A “ToMo” index has been developed to measure the “total motivation” of workers, where high scores mean having more intrinsic motivation and identification, and lower introjection and external regulation of behaviour. Companies with higher employee engagement and customer satisfaction have higher “ToMo” scores than competitors. Workers feel more empowered when their jobs involve autonomy, feedback and meaningful tasks and then perform better. When work organizations promote personal growth rather than status, employees feel more able to apply for promotions. During organisational changes or restructures, if managers are more autonomy-supporting, subordinates are more accepting of change. Opportunities for choice, voice, receiving meaningful feedback about competence, perceiving equity and inclusion are conditions that meet basic needs for competence, relatedness and autonomy that enhance engagement, improve job performance and wellbeing. An intervention to increase managers’ ability to support workers’ autonomy was estimated to provide a 3:1 return on investment through saving on costs due to mental health problems.
Similarly, SDT research has exposed workplace practices that are likely to backfire because they make simplistic assumptions about human motivation. For example, an extrinsic reward program to improve attendance and punctuality at an industrial laundry plant temporarily increased attendance in the eligible workers who had punctuality problems, however: a) the increases were not sustained when the program was removed; b) it caused unwanted negative effects on workers who had good punctuality track records: they became less punctual and less efficient.
SDT informs the way workplace incentives are provided. The effects of rewards depends on how they’re perceived by the recipients: when they’re interpreted to signal a job well done, they enhance motivation; when perceived as pressure to think, feel or act in a certain way, they decrease motivation. SDT encourages managers to reward staff in recognition of their autonomous achievements, which sends a message of appreciation and implicit feedback that staff are competent. Conversely, dangling carrots to try and make staff work harder or drawing attention to the difference in pay for different levels of output is likely to come across as controlling and possibly undermine collegiality (failing to fulfil staff needs for relatedness).
SDT acknowledges the relative effectiveness of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation at work varies depending on the task. Although intrinsic motivation is a moderate-strong predictor of work performance, pay-for-performance compensation systems increase performance on simple tasks. However, pay-for-performance systems tend to decrease performance of complex tasks. An alternative is to provide a range of compensation choices that are attractive to employees. Allowing employees to choose their compensation package (for example, to exchange part of their salary for increased leave or more health insurance) can increase productivity.
Finally, SDT has lent voice to the ongoing debate on CEO reimbursement by highlighting the dangers of current practice. Paying CEOs in stock options encourages CEOs to take short-cuts that increase stock prices as quickly as possible, including damaging (reducing employee benefits, halting infrastructure development) and unethical ones (hiding losses, inflating profit reports).
How to personally apply SDT
Self-care
SDT brings a wonderful focus to goal-setting for optimal wellbeing. You are well advised to invest your energy into: a) building relationships in which you feel a sense of belongingness and connectedness; b) working at building competence in a zone of optimal challenge – a little more difficult than you’ve previously successfully completed, but not so difficult that you feel overwhelmed; and c) spending more time examining your own values – getting off “auto-pilot” and thinking consciously and intentionally about the kind of person you want to be and how you want to spend your time. As you contemplate these areas, you may see ways that your current environments – whether they be at home, work or other social settings – don’t support yours or others’ efforts to be autonomous, related and competent. In these cases, you may like to consider whether a change in environment is worth experimenting with, or you may like to work on being a positive influence on others.
Influencing others
SDT provides clear guidance, replicated in hundreds of studies, as to the optimal way to influence others. It can be difficult at times under stress, to resist the immediately gratifying tension release of being direct and directive or using bribes or threats to try desperately to get children, partners or co-workers to do what you want them to do. However, if you could choose between: a) a few seconds of partial inner relief and one-off compliance but in the longer term, your loved ones and associates grow less interested in the change you wish to see and more resentful toward you for telling them to make it; or b) a longer, more patient, more indirect road, where you have to sit with your idea of how things could be while others find out for themselves the version of this and the way to accomplish it that best works for them, but you get to optimally facilitate the natural potential for sustained growth and optimal health in those around you…which would you choose?
SDT offers the following ways to support others autonomy and wellbeing, each of which are relevant in the workplace, in helping professions, in teaching, in parenting…and friendship and love:
Practice taking others’ perspectives: work to understand how others think and feel in order to support them to make their own decisions.
Provide other people choices when asking for behaviour change from them, so that they can take ownership of the changing.
When a specific direction needs to be given, provide a rationale that helps the other person see the value you see in the action.
Avoid providing arbitrary incentives for behaviour.
Give people positive feedback about their behaviour that helps them know they are developing competence.
When wanting to give negative feedback, avoid criticism and giving directives; instead invite the other person into brainstorming better solutions to the problematic situation.
When others ask for advice or direction, resist the urge and instead encourage the other person to experiment and explore.
Do what you can to structure environments and tasks so that they are optimally challenging for other people.
May your needs for competence, relatedness and autonomy continue to be met.
This article originally appeared as part of the SA Branch of the Australian Psychological Society’s “seven days of psychology” series for Psychology Week. http://www.7daysofpsychology.com/
References
Ryan, R.M., & Deci, E.L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development and well-being. American Psychologist, 55(1): 68-78.
Ryan, R.M., & Deci, E.L. (2017). Self-determination theory: Basic psychological needs in motivation, development and wellness. New York: Guilford.