The "What" and "Why" of Goal Pursuits: Human Needs and the Self-Determination of Behavior
TL;DR: Self-Determination Theory (SDT) as mentioned in this paper maintains that an understanding of human motivation requires a consideration of innate psychological needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness, emphasizing that needs specify the necessary conditions for psychological growth, integrity, and well-being.
Abstract: 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.
Citations
More filters
TL;DR: This review considers research from both perspectives concerning the nature of well-being, its antecedents, and its stability across time and culture.
Abstract: ▪ Abstract Well-being is a complex construct that concerns optimal experience and functioning. Current research on well-being has been derived from two general perspectives: the hedonic approach, which focuses on happiness and defines well-being in terms of pleasure attainment and pain avoidance; and the eudaimonic approach, which focuses on meaning and self-realization and defines well-being in terms of the degree to which a person is fully functioning. These two views have given rise to different research foci and a body of knowledge that is in some areas divergent and in others complementary. New methodological developments concerning multilevel modeling and construct comparisons are also allowing researchers to formulate new questions for the field. This review considers research from both perspectives concerning the nature of well-being, its antecedents, and its stability across time and culture.
8,243 citations
TL;DR: The authors describes self-determination theory as a theory of work motivation and shows its relevance to theories of organizational behavior, which has received widespread attention in the education, health care, and sport domains.
Abstract: Cognitive evaluation theory, which explains the effects of extrinsic motivators on intrinsic motivation, received some initial attention in the organizational literature. However, the simple dichotomy between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation made the theory difficult to apply to work settings. Differentiating extrinsic motivation into types that differ in their degree of autonomy led to self-determination theory, which has received widespread attention in the education, health care, and sport domains. This article describes self-determination theory as a theory of work motivation and shows its relevance to theories of organizational behavior. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
5,816 citations
Cites background from "The "What" and "Why" of Goal Pursui..."
...…motivated behavior can become autonomous, together with research on individual differences in causality orientations (Deci & Ryan, 1985b), led to the formulation of self-determination theory (SDT) (Deci & Ryan, 1985a, 2000; Ryan & Deci, 2000), which incorporated CET but is much broader in scope....
[...]
...Specifically, Deci et al. (1994) found that a ‘meaningful rationale’ is one of the important factors that facilitates integrated internalization, and Latham, Erez, and Locke (1988) found that it facilitates goal acceptance....
[...]
...Many studies guided by SDT have provided support for this perspective (see Deci & Ryan, 2000, for a review)....
[...]
TL;DR: Authentic Leadership Development (ALD) as mentioned in this paper is an emerging field of research in the field of leadership development, with a focus on transforming, charismatic, servant, and spiritual leadership perspectives.
Abstract: This Special Issue is the result of the inaugural summit hosted by the Gallup Leadership Institute at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2004 on Authentic Leadership Development (ALD). We describe in this introduction to the special issue current thinking in this emerging field of research as well as questions and concerns. We begin by considering some of the environmental and organizational forces that may have triggered interest in describing and studying authentic leadership and its development. We then provide an overview of its contents, including the diverse theoretical and methodological perspectives presented, followed by a discussion of alternative conceptual foundations and definitions for the constructs of authenticity, authentic leaders, authentic leadership, and authentic leadership development. A detailed description of the components of authentic leadership theory is provided next. The similarities and defining features of authentic leadership theory in comparison to transformational, charismatic, servant and spiritual leadership perspectives are subsequently examined. We conclude by discussing the status of authentic leadership theory with respect to its purpose, construct definitions, historical foundations, consideration of context, relational/processual focus, attention to levels of analysis and temporality, along with a discussion of promising directions for future research.
3,866 citations
Cites background from "The "What" and "Why" of Goal Pursui..."
...Most similar to our view is Ilies et al.’s (2005) model, the theoretical foundations of which are likewise anchored in part by the work of Kernis (2003) and Deci and Ryan (1995, 2000)....
[...]
TL;DR: The Meaning in Life Questionnaire (MLQ) as mentioned in this paper is a 10-item measure of the presence of, and the search for, meaning in life, which was developed to measure the emotional well-being of counseling patients.
Abstract: Counseling psychologists often work with clients to increase their well-being as well as to decrease their distress. One important aspect of well-being, highlighted particularly in humanistic theories of the counseling process, is perceived meaning in life. However, poor measurement has hampered research on meaning in life. In 3 studies, evidence is provided for the internal consistency, temporal stability, factor structure, and validity of the Meaning in Life Questionnaire (MLQ), a new 10-item measure of the presence of, and the search for, meaning in life. A multitrait-multimethod matrix demonstrates the convergent and discriminant validity of the MLQ subscales across time and informants, in comparison with 2 other meaning scales. The MLQ offers several improvements over current meaning in life measures, including no item overlap with distress measures, a stable factor structure, better discriminant validity, a briefer format, and the ability to measure the search for meaning.
3,066 citations
Cites background from "The "What" and "Why" of Goal Pursui..."
...pleasant affect, meaning is important, whether as a critical component (Ryff & Singer, 1998) or as a result of maximizing one’s potentials (e.g., Deci & Ryan, 2000; Maslow, 1971)....
[...]
...…American Psychological Association 2006, Vol. 53, No. 1, 80–93 0022-0167/06/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/0022-0167.53.1.80 80 pleasant affect, meaning is important, whether as a critical component (Ryff & Singer, 1998) or as a result of maximizing one’s potentials (e.g., Deci & Ryan, 2000; Maslow, 1971)....
[...]
TL;DR: In this article, the authors proposed a 4-phase model of interest development, which describes four phases in the development and deepening of learner interest: triggered situational interest, maintained interest, emerging (less developed) individual interest, and well-developed individual interest.
Abstract: Building on and extending existing research, this article proposes a 4-phase model of interest development. The model describes 4 phases in the development and deepening of learner interest: triggered situational interest, maintained situational interest, emerging (less-developed) individual interest, and well-developed individual interest. Affective as well as cognitive factors are considered. Educational implications of the proposed model are identified.
3,014 citations
Cites background from "The "What" and "Why" of Goal Pursui..."
...In self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985, 2000; Ryan & Deci, 2000), a person’s ability to satisfybasic psychological needs is a function of his or her valued outcomes, or goals. est for content (e.g., facilitation), then related new content, opportunities, or challenge provides additional…...
[...]
...…Linnebrink & Pintrich, 2000; Molden & Dweck, 2002; Pintrich, 2000), task value (Eccles et al., 1983; Wigfield & Eccles, 1992, 2002; Wigfield et al., 1997), self-efficacy (Bandura, 1986; Schunk, 1981; Zimmerman, 1989, 2000b), and intrinsic motivation (Deci & Ryan, 1985, 2000; Ryan & Deci, 2000)....
[...]
References
More filters
3,593 citations
"The "What" and "Why" of Goal Pursui..." refers background in this paper
...…providing differing perspectives that range from internalization being something that gets done to individuals by the socializing environment (e.g., Mead, 1934) to something that represents the individual’s active transformation of external regulations into inner values (Ryan, 1993; Schafer, 1968)....
[...]
01 Jan 1992
3,437 citations
"The "What" and "Why" of Goal Pursui..." refers background in this paper
...As Maturana and Varela (1992) pointed out, the more autonomous an individual’s actions, the more the individual has specified, processed, and hierarchicalized in an unfettered manner personal needs in relation to environmental affordances....
[...]
TL;DR: In this paper, a hierarchical model of approach and avoidance achievement motivation was proposed and tested in a college classroom and the results indicated that mastery goals were grounded in achievement motivation and high competence expectancies; performance-avoidance goals, in fear of failure and low competence expectation; and performance-approach goals were in ach.
Abstract: A hierarchical model of approach and avoidance achievement motivation was proposed and tested in a college classroom. Mastery, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance goals were assessed and their antecedents and consequences examined. Results indicated that mastery goals were grounded in achievement motivation and high competence expectancies; performance-avoidance goals, in fear of failure and low competence expectancies; and performance-approach goals, in ach.ievement motivation, fear of failure, and high competence expectancies. Mastery goals facilitated intrinsic motivation, performance-approach goals enhanced graded performance, and performanceavoidance goals proved inimical to both intrinsic motivation and graded performance. The proposed model represents an integration of classic and contemporary approaches to the study of achievement motivation. Achievement motivation is a ubiquitous feature of daily life. In the classroom, at the workplace, and on the ballfield individuals strive to be competent in their effortful activities. In the past decade, many theorists have utilized a social-cognitive, achievement goal approach in accounting for individuals' competence-relevant strivings. "Achievement goal" is commonly defined as the purpose of task engagement (Maehr, 1989), and the specific type of goal adopted is posited to create a framework for how individuals interpret, experience, and act in their achievement pursuits (Dweck, 1986; Nicholls, 1989). Achievement goal theorists commonly identify two distinct orientations toward competence: a performance goal focused on the demonstration of competence relevant to others, and a mastery goal focused on the development of competence and task mastery (Ames & Archer, 1987; for similar conceptualizations with different nomenclature see Dweck, 1986; NichoUs, 1984). The adoption of a performance goal is hypothesized to produce susceptibility to a "helpless" pattern of responses in achievement settings (e.g., a preference for easy or difficult tasks, withdrawal of effort in the face of failure, and decreased task enjoyment), whereas the adoption of a mastery goal is presumed to lead to a "mastery" motivational pattern (e.g., a preference for moderately challenging tasks, persistence in the face of failure, and enhanced task enjoyment; Ames, 1992; Dweck & Leggett, 1988; Nicholls, 1989). Most achievement goal theorists conceptualize both perfor
3,412 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors describe the development and validation of a general causality orientations scale, which measures autonomy, control, and impersonal orientations of a person's behavior.
3,379 citations