Self-determination theory (SDT) maintains that an understanding of human motivation requires a consideration of innate psychological needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness. We discuss the SDT concept of needs as it relates to previous need theories, emphasizing that needs specify the necessary conditions for psychological growth, integrity, and well-being. This concept of needs leads to the hypotheses that different regulatory processes underlying goal pursuits are differentially associated with effective functioning and well-being and also that different goal contents have different relations to the quality of behavior and mental health, specifically because different regulatory processes and different goal contents are associated with differing degrees of need satisfaction. Social contexts and individual differences that support satisfaction of the basic needs facilitate natural growth processes including intrinsically motivated behavior and integration of extrinsic motivations, whereas those that forestall autonomy, competence, or relatedness are associated with poorer motivation, performance, and well-being. We also discuss the relation of the psychological needs to cultural values, evolutionary processes, and other contemporary motivation theories.

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The "What" and "Why" of Goal Pursuits: Human Needs and the Self-Determination of Behavior

There appears to be general agreement among social psychologists that most human behavior is goal-directed (e. g., Heider, 1958 ; Lewin, 1951). Being neither capricious nor frivolous, human social behavior can best be described as following along lines of more or less well-formulated plans. Before attending a concert, for example, a person may extend an invitation to a date, purchase tickets, change into proper attire, call a cab, collect the date, and proceed to the concert hall. Most, if not all, of these activities will have been designed in advance; their execution occurs as the plan unfolds. To be sure, a certain sequence of actions can become so habitual or routine that it is performed almost automatically, as in the case of driving from home to work or playing the piano. Highly developed skills of this kind typically no longer require conscious formulation of a behavioral plan. Nevertheless, at least in general outline, we are normally well aware of the actions required to attain a certain goal. Consider such a relatively routine behavior as typing a letter. When setting this activity as a goal, we anticipate the need to locate a typewriter, insert a sheet of paper, adjust the margins, formulate words and sentences, strike the appropriate keys, and so forth. Some parts of the plan are more routine, and require less conscious thought than others, but without an explicit or implicit plan to guide the required sequence of acts, no letter would get typed.

From Intentions to Actions: A Theory of Planned Behavior

Evidence is reviewed which suggests that there may be little or no direct introspective access to higher order cognitive processes. Subjects are sometimes (a) unaware of the existence of a stimulus that importantly influenced a response, (b) unaware of the existence of the response, and (c) unaware that the stimulus has affected the response. It is proposed that when people attempt to report on their cognitive processes, that is, on the processes mediating the effects of a stimulus on a response, they do not do so on the basis of any true introspection. Instead, their reports are based on a priori, implicit causal theories, or judgments about the extent to which a particular stimulus is a plausible cause of a given response. This suggests that though people may not be able to observe directly their cognitive processes, they will sometimes be able to report accurately about them. Accurate reports will occur when influential stimuli are salient and are plausible causes of the responses they produce, and will not occur when stimuli are not salient or are not plausible causes.

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Telling more than we can know: Verbal reports on mental processes.

It is argued that (a) social identification is a perception of oneness with a group of persons; (b) social identification stems from the categorization of individuals, the distinctiveness and prestige of the group, the salience of outgroups, and the factors that traditionally are associated with group formation; and (c) social identification leads to activities that are congruent with the identity, support for institutions that embody the identity, stereotypical perceptions of self and others, and outcomes that traditionally are associated with group formation, and it reinforces the antecedents of identification. This perspective is applied to organizational socialization, role conflict, and intergroup relations.

Social Identity Theory and the Organization

THIS PAPER is concerned with the nature of the tutorial process; the means whereby an adult or \"expert\" helps somebody who is less adult or less expert. Though its aim is general, it is expressed in terms of a particular task: a tutor seeks to teach children aged 3, 4 and 5 yr to build a particular three-dimensional structure that requires a degree of skill that is initially beyond them. It is the usual type of tutoring situation in which one member \"knows the answer\" and the other does not, rather like a \"practical\" in which only the instructor \"knows how\". The changing interaction of tutor and children provide our data. A great deal of early problem solving by the developing child is of this order. Although from the earliest months of life he is a \"natural\" problem solver in his own right (e.g. Bruner, 1973) it is often the ease that his efforts are assisted and fostered by others who are more skilful than he is (Kaye, 1970). Whether he is learning the procedures that constitute the skills of attending, communicating, manipulating objects, locomoting, or, indeed, a more effective problem solving procedure itself, there are usually others in attendance who help him on his way. Tutorial interactions are, in short, a crucial feature of infancy and childhood. Our species, moreover, appears to be the only one in which any \"intentional\" tutoring goes on (Bruner, 1972; Hinde, 1971). For although it is true that many of the higher primate species learn by observation of their elders (Hamburg, 1968; van Lawick-Goodall, 1968), there is no evidence that those elders do anything to instruct their charges in the performance of the skill in question. What distinguishes man as a species is not only his capacity for learning, but for teaching as well. It is the main aim of this paper to examine some of the major implications of this interactive, instructional relationship between the developing child and his elders for the study of skill acquisition and problem solving. The acquisition of skill in the human child can be fruitfully conceived as a hierarchical program in which component skills are combined into \"higher skills\" by appropriate orchestration to meet new, more complex task requirements (Bruner, 1973). The process is analogous to problem solving in which mastery of \"lower order\" or constituent problems in a sine qua non for success with a larger jjroblcm, each level influencing the other—as with reading where the deciphering of words makes possible the deciphering of sentences, and sentences then aid in the deciphering of particular words (F. Smith, 1971). Given persistent intention in the young learner, given a \"lexicon\" of constituent skills, the crucial task is often one of com-

The role of tutoring in problem solving

For many years, Roger Brown and his colleagues have studied the developing language of pre-school children--the language that ultimately will permit them to understand themselves and the world around them. This longitudinal research project records the conversational performances of three children, studying both semantic and grammatical aspects of their language development. These core findings are related to recent work in psychology and linguistics--and especially to studies of the acquisition of languages other than English, including Finnish, German, Korean, and Samoan. Roger Brown has written the most exhaustive and searching analysis yet undertaken of the early stages of grammatical constructions and the meanings they convey. The five stages of linguistic development Brown establishes are measured not by chronological age-since children vary greatly in the speed at which their speech develops--but by mean length of utterance. This volume treats the first two stages. Stage I is the threshold of syntax, when children begin to combine words to make sentences. These sentences, Brown shows, are always limited to the same small set of semantic relations: nomination, recurrence, disappearance, attribution, possession, agency, and a few others. Stage II is concerned with the modulations of basic structural meanings--modulations for number, time, aspect, specificity--through the gradual acquisition of grammatical morphemes such as inflections, prepositions, articles, and case markers. Fourteen morphemes are studied in depth and it is shown that the order of their acquisition is almost identical across children and is predicted by their relative semantic and grammaticalcomplexity. It is, ultimately, the intent of this work to focus on the nature and development of knowledge: knowledge concerning grammar and the meanings coded by grammar; knowledge inferred from performance, from sentences and the settings in which they are spoken, and from signs of comprehension or incomprehension of sentences.

Roger Brown

Papers

A First Language: The Early Stages

Plans and the Structure of Behavior

The pronouns of power and solidarity

A First Language

A Study of Thinking.