Publications

Perceiving autonomy support-or encouragement to be oneself-from a romantic partner or other close relationship partners has been shown to yield a variety of psychological health benefits, but it is less clear how perceiving autonomy support from partners is linked to physical health. In two studies we examine the associations between receiving autonomy support in romantic relationships and diastolic blood pressure, an important indicator of cardiovascular health. Results of a longitudinal study found support for a model in which autonomy supportive romantic relationships are linked with lower diastolic blood pressure. Whereas Study 1 showed general longitudinal effects, Study 2 revealed the importance of receiving autonomy support from partners during times of conflict. Implications of the findings will be discussed in the context of self-determination theory.

In the quest to identify the key sources of subjective well-being, self-determination theory (SDT) has proposed that three basic psychological needs—autonomy, competence, and relatedness—are fundamental to well-being across cultures. To understand their influence on well-being, we analyzed data from European Social Survey on 27 European countries ( n = 48,550) using structural equation modeling with alignment invariance that allowed us to get comparable indicators across the countries. Both across Europe, and within each of the 27 countries, SDT’s basic psychological needs—both when examined alone and when examined together—were strongly related to key indicators of well-being (happiness, life satisfaction, and meaning in life) and a key indicator of ill-being (symptoms of depression), even controlling for demographic factors and socio-economic position. Moreover, basic needs substantially and sometimes fully mediated the effects of socio-economic position on well-being, underscoring their status as crucial to human well-being.

Social neuroscience involves the use of neuroscience methods to study how the thoughts, feelings, and behavior of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. Progress in social neuroscience depends upon the advancement of methods that enable researchers to examine the neural and broader biological bases of social psychological phenomena. This chapter introduces continuous-wave functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) as an emerging neuroimaging technique in social neuroscience. After a brief review of fNIRS principles, it demonstrates the utility of fNIRS for social neuroscience by identifying well-established patterns of neural activity when people make self- and other-referential judgments. Consistent with previous work using other neuroimaging methods, participants exhibited greater medial prefrontal activity when rating trait adjectives with respect to themselves relative to adjectives with respect to their friends. The chapter closes by reflecting upon the ways in which fNIRS may be best used to advance social neuroscience.

In 2016, almost three and a half billion people, or 46 % of the world population, have an internet connection (internetlivestats 2016).The number of mobile phone users is even higher: more than four and a half billion people own a mobile (or smart) phone (statista.com 2016).Interactive technology is ubiquitous, influencing the daily practices of many people all over the planet.Technology especially permeates the lives of young people whereby those aged 8-18 years spend more time on electronic screens than they do with their parents or at school (Rideout et al. 2010).Although interactive technologies afford conveniences and efficiencies, the overall contribution of this technology to wellbeing has been a topic of ongoing debate.Some highlight how new technologies inform, liberate and enrich our lives, whereas others suggest that the new technologies too often impoverish our experiences and self-regulation of behaviours, distracting us from relationships and compromising health-promoting activities such as physical activity and sleep.These concerns come at a time when researchers are identifying increases in mental illnesses like depression and anxiety particularly for young people (Sawyer et al. 2012).Some people are asking: now that we have all this new technology why aren't we happier?The fact is that much of today's technology was not designed with an explicit focus on wellbeing, nor was it informed by knowledge about the conditions that facilitate it.In fact, we often do not understand the impact of new technologies on wellness until well after they come to market, as we see how people use or abuse new devices and applications.Yet with careful forethought and design, there is the possibility of using designing technology to foster well-being.Well-designed programs and devices can augment people's physical and metal wellness and, given the sheer numbers of people who use interactive technologies, do so at a scale that traditional "on the ground" interventions cannot capture.Yet if technology is to be recruited in an effort to improve worldwide wellbeing, then we need new partnerships between psychologists, social scientists, designers and engineers.A broadening in the interdisciplinarity of technology design will enable us to both better understand the psychological and behavioural impact of new technologies and applications, and to develop basic expectations for their design and implementation.

The medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) plays an important role in representing semantic self-knowledge. Studies comparing semantic self-judgments with judgments of close others suggest that interpersonal closeness may influence the degree to which the MPFC differentiates self and other. We used optical neuroimaging to examine if support for competence, relatedness, and autonomy from relationship partners moderates MPFC activity during a personality judgment task. Participants (N = 109) were asked to judge the descriptive accuracy of trait adjectives for both themselves and a friend. Participants who reported lower need fulfillment with their friend showed elevated activity only in the self-judgment condition; in contrast, participants who reported higher need fulfillment with their friend showed similarly high levels of MPFC activity across the conditions. These results are consistent with the idea that the MPFC differentially represents others on the basis of the need fulfillment experienced within the relationship.

While evidence suggests that interventions based on self-determination theory have efficacy in motivating adoption and maintenance of health-related behaviors, and in promoting adaptive psychological outcomes, the motivational techniques that comprise the content of these interventions have not been comprehensively identified or described.The aim of the present study was to develop a classification system of the techniques that comprise self-determination theory interventions, with satisfaction of psychological needs as an organizing principle.Candidate techniques were identified through a comprehensive review of self-determination theory interventions and nomination by experts.The study team developed a preliminary list of candidate techniques accompanied by labels, definitions, and function descriptions of each.Each technique was aligned with the most closely-related psychological need satisfaction construct (autonomy, competence, or relatedness).Using an iterative expert consensus procedure, participating experts (N=18) judged each technique on the preliminary list for redundancy, essentiality, uniqueness, and the proposed link between the technique and basic psychological need.The procedure produced a final classification of 21 motivation and behavior change techniques (MBCTs).Redundancies between final MBCTs against techniques from existing behavior change technique taxonomies were also checked.The classification system is the first formal attempt to systematize self-determination theory intervention techniques.The classification is expected to enhance consistency in descriptions of selfdetermination theory-based interventions in health contexts, and assist in facilitating synthesis of evidence on interventions based on the theory.The classification is also expected to guide future efforts to identify, describe, and classify the techniques that comprise self-determination theory-based interventions in multiple domains.