PSYB30
PERSONALITY
Prof. Marc A. Fournier
Week 8
Self-Determination
Week 8 in Perspective
The Origin TheoriesEvolution & Socialization
Level I. Personality Traits / Dispositions
Week 4. History & Controversy of Trait Concepts
Week 5. Contemporary Trait Taxonomies
Week 6. Heritability & Continuity
Level II. Characteristic Adaptations
Week 1. Introduction
Week 2. Human Evolution
Week 3. Gender, Society, & Culture
Week 7. Goals & Strivings
Week 8. The Self & Social Cognition
Week 9. Stages of Life-Span Development
Level III. Integrative Life Stories
Week 10. Life Scripts & Life Stories
Week 11. Myth & Narrative
Week 12. Conclusion
Overview of Week 8 Lectures
Part I. Humanism
Part II. Self-Determination
Part III. Goals & Self-Concordance
Overview of Part I
Humanistic Approaches to Psychology
Rogers Fully Functioning Person
Maslows Self-Actualizer
Humanism
An optimistic view of the person as inherently good
Views the human being as rational, purposeful, and
autonomous, capable of creativity and experiencing
deep and profound insights into reality
The 3rd force of psychology, a viable viewpoint on
human nature that is distinctive from both
psychoanalysis and behaviorism
Carl Rogers (1902-1987)
The organism has but one basic tendency and
strivingto actualize, maintain, and enhance
the experiencing organism. (Rogers, 1951)
The Organismic Valuing Process (OVP)
Humans have a fundamental capacity to perceive
the growth-relevant implications of their
experiences and choices
The Fully Functioning Person
Openness to Experience
Existential Living
Self-Trust
On Becoming a Person
Positive Regard
Conditions of Worth
Conditional Positive Regard
Client-Centered Therapy
Unconditional Positive Regard
Empathic Understanding
Reflection
Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)
SELF-ACTUALIZATION
ESTEEM
BELONGINGNESS & LOVE
SAFETY
PHYSIOLOGICAL
Being-Values or Meta-Needs
Higher-order needs that emerge once the
deficiency motives have been satisfied
e.g., truth-seeking, beauty-seeking
Self-reinforcing
Peak Experiences
Following peak experiences, individuals feel:
at the peak of their abilities
integrated, whole, and unified
creative, self-confident, flexible
spontaneous, expressive, innocent
Flaws with Maslows Hierarchy
Priority of Needs
Ordering of Needs
Definition of Needs
Summary of Part I
Humanistic theories underscore the idea that the
supreme motivator for human behavior is the
striving to actualize and perfect the self.
The question is then whether the persons
environment facilitates or frustrates his or her
attempts to satisfy this fundamental human need.
Overview of Part II
Self-Regulation
Basic Psychological Needs
Need Satisfaction & Subjective Well-Being
Decis Free-Choice Paradigm
Students solve a series of puzzles
Control Conditionno monetary rewards
Experimental Condition$1.00/puzzle solved
Those students in the experimental condition spent
significantly less time playing with the puzzle during
a free-choice period than did those students in the
control condition
Intrinsically Motivated Behaviors
Occur in the absence of any apparent external reward
Are undertaken out of interest (i.e., self-determined)
Are optimally challenging for the individual
Are based on psychological needs
Needs & Need Satisfaction
Basic Psychological Needs
Autonomy, Competence, & Relatedness
Growth-Promoting Contextual Factors
Autonomy Support, Structure, & Involvement
Growth & Well-Being
Needs are nutriments essential to a
living entitys growth, health, and integrity
(Deci & Ryan, 1991)
Plants need water, sunlight and specific minerals;
growth, health, and integrity are compromised when
any one of these nutriments is withheld or unavailable
People need autonomy, competence, and relatedness;
satisfaction of these psychological needs facilitates
growth and promotes a sense of well-being
Internalization
External Regulation
Acting in accord w/extrinsic rewards & punishments
Introjection
Acting in accord w/partially internalized extrinsic contingencies, which
are experienced as self-esteem-related feelings (anxiety, guilt)
Identification
Acting in accord w/fully internalized (but compartmentalized) extrinsic
contingencies, which are consciously endorsed & personally valued
Integrated Regulation
Acting in accord w/fully internalized extrinsic contingencies, which
have been unified w/other identifications, values, & needs
Self-Determination
Authenticity, we suggest, is a descriptor for behavior
that is an expression of the true self and for which one
accepts full responsibility. When an action is endorsed
by its author, the experience is that of integrity and
cohesion the experience is one of being true to ones
self. Authenticity is thus self-determination.
(Deci & Ryan, 1991)
A Daily Diary Approach
Reis, Sheldon, et al. (2000):
Between-Person (Trait) Comparisons
Why is this person/group of people happy
when this other person/group of people is not?
Within-Person (Day-to-Day) Comparisons
Putting aside the question of how generally
happy I am, what accounts for why I am
happier on some days than on others?
Predictors
Trait Predictors
Self-Determination (measure of choiceful behavior)
Effectance (multidimensional self-esteem inventory)
Connectedness (attachment & loneliness-reversed)
Day-to-Day Predictors
Recall 3 activities and rate:
Autonomy (their reasons for doing it)
Competence (how effective they felt doing it)
Relatedness (how closely connected they felt to others)
Prediction of Well-Being
t
(Between-Person)
Self-determination
1.39
Effectance
2.00*
Connectedness 1.54
(Within-Person)
Lagged effect 5.22***
Todays autonomy
4.98***
Todays competence 6.92***
Todays relatedness
2.46*
Well-Being = (PA + Vitality) (NA + Symptoms)
Summary of Part II
According to Deci and Ryans (1991), humans have
basic needs to feel choiceful (autonomous), capable
(competent), and connected to others (related).
Satisfying these needs has consequences for growth,
health, and integritypeople feel happier when their
needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness
have been satisfied.
Overview of Part III
Personal Goals
Organismic Congruence
Content of Goals & Reason for Goals
Personal Goals
A personal goala relatively chronic attempt
to bring about some outcome/set of outcomes
within ones life (Sheldon, 2004, p.96)
A recurring cognitive image or representation
that serves as a standard & instigator with
respect to behavior
Personal Goals
Range from abstract (find spiritual meaning)
to concrete (get an A+ on the psyb30 final)
Persistent over time & across contexts
Can be conscious or unconscious
Organismic Congruence
The extent to which ones personal goals allow
one to meet organismic psychological needs,
or are irrelevant to such needs, or are
incompatible with those needs
Two types of congruence:
The content of goals (i.e., What do you want?)
The reasons for goals (i.e., Why do you want it?)
The Content of Goals
What you want mattersall goals are not equal.
Kasser & Ryan (1993, 1996) distinguished b/n:
Intrinsic (actualizing) goals
Intimacy
Community feeling
Self-acceptance or personal growth
Extrinsic (distracting/detracting) goals
Financial or material success
Physical attractiveness
Social popularity
The Content of Goals
Kasser & Ryan (1993) asked participants to rate four
different domains of life aspiration
(self-acceptance, affiliation, community feeling, financial success)
and correlated these rating to well-being indices.
(self-actualization, vitality, depression, anxiety)
Intrinsic goal seekers evidenced greater self-reports
of well-being and less psychopathology in clinical
interviews than extrinsic goal seekers.
The Content of Goals
Kasser & Ryan (1996) asked participants to rate their
intrinsic (intimacy, growth, community) and extrinsic
(money, beauty, popularity) goal aspirations.
Factor analyses of the aspiration ratings revealed two
underlying components of variation
Intimacy, growth and community clustered together
Money, beauty, and popularity clustered together
suggesting that intrinsic and extrinsic goal contents
are empirically distinguishable categories with
reliable associations to well-being indices.
The Reasons for Goals
Why you want what you want matters quite a lot, too.
Self-concordance (Sheldon & Elliot, 1999) is the
feeling that ones goals are internally caused.
Think of a goal. Why do you pursue it?
because of the enjoyment or stimulation which the goal
provides you (intrinsic motivation)
because you endorse it freely and value it wholeheartedly
(identified motivation)
because you would feel ashamed, guilty or anxious if you
did not pursue it (introjected motivation)
because because somebody else wants you to or because
the situation seems to compel it (external motivation)
The Reasons for Goals
Sheldon & Elliot (1999)participants took part in a series of
longitudinal (i.e., semester-long) studies in exchange for extra
course credit. Each of the studies had a similar design.
Early in the semester participants listed several personal goals
they would be pursuing during the semester as well as their
reasons for pursuing each goal (goal self-concordance).
At varying times during the semester, participants rated their
effort into and progress toward each goal, as well as completed
questionnaires concerning their subjective well-being and their
need satisfaction (autonomy, competence, relatedness).
The Reasons for Goals
Longitudinal path model predicting well-being from
self-concordant goal pursuit and organismic need
satisfaction (Sheldon &Elliot, 1999)
Summary of Part III
A personal goal is a relatively chronic attempt to
bring about some outcome/set of outcomes within
ones life. Goals instigate behavior.
Personal goals should be congruent with organismic
needsconsequently, we should think about both
what we want and why.
We should prioritize intrinsic goals over extrinsic
goals, and we should choose goals that are selfconcordant.
Summary of Week 8 Lectures
Self-determination theory holds that all individuals
need to feel choiceful, capable, and connected to
others. Satisfying these needs is necessary for
individuals to grow and to thrive.
Goals can be evaluated in terms of their consistency
with basic needsi.e., their organismic congruence.
Goals should have intrinsic goal content and the
feeling of internal causation.
