No abstract is provided for this article.
The concepts of self-regulation and autonomy are examined within an organizational framework. We begin by retracing the historical origins of the organizational viewpoint in early debates within the field of biology between vitalists and reductionists, from which the construct of self-regulation emerged. We then consider human autonomy as an evolved behavioral, developmental, and experiential phenomenon that operates at both neurobiological and psychological levels and requires very specific supports within higher order social organizations. We contrast autonomy or true self-regulation with controlling regulation (a nonautonomous form of intentional behavior) in phenomenological and functional terms, and we relate the forms of regulation to the developmental processes of intrinsic motivation and internalization. Subsequently, we describe how self-regulation versus control may be characterized by distinct neurobiological underpinnings, and we speculate about some of the adaptive advantages that may underlie the evolution of autonomy. Throughout, we argue that disturbances of autonomy, which have both biological and psychological etiologies, are central to many forms of psychopathology and social alienation.
As the dust settles upon a decade of developing faster, better, cheaper satellites, NASA's Small Explorer (SMEX) Project has been one of constant change. The project manager, mission manager, and lead subsystem engineer of yesteryear may find themselves out of date should they ignore the budget constraints/changes over the past decade. Yesterday's fiscal reporting and cost tracking processes are seldom valid today, and even less likely to be valid tomorrow.
Although the existence of a set of physical needs is well accepted within biology, the question whether humans have a parallel set of psychological needs has been more controversial within the psychological landscape. The identification, characterization, and study of basic needs has been central to the research agenda of Basic Psychological Needs Theory, one of SDT’s six mini-theories. In this chapter, we provide an in-depth characterization of the nine criteria that characterize the basic needs for autonomy, relatedness, and competence: essential, psychological, pervasive, universal, inherent, distinct, content-specific, directional, and explanatory. We elaborate on the theoretical and research implications of these criteria and provide a selective review of this rapidly growing body of empirical work. We conclude that basic needs provide a universal and parsimonious framework to account for people’s growth and flourishing as well as their stagnation and problem behavior, while also accounting for the growth-conducive versus toxic effects of different environments.
No abstract is provided for this article.
Using tests to compare nations, states, school districts, schools, teachers, and students has increasingly become a basis for educational reform around the globe. Although tests can be informative, high-stakes testing (HST) is an approach to reform that applies rewards and sanctions contingent on test outcomes. Results of HST reforms indicate a plethora of unintended negative consequences, leading some to suggest that HST corrupts educational practices in schools. Although there are many accounts of these negative results, SDT supplies the only systematic theory of motivation that explains these effects. In what follows we describe the motivational principles underlying the undermining effects of HST on teachers and learners alike.
Objective. Test whether physicians' counseling patients for smoking cessation with an autonomy supportive rather than controlling style would increase patients' active involvement in the counseling session and increase maintained abstinence. Design. Randomized trial of 27 community-based physicians using two interview styles, with observer ratings of patient active involvement and assessments of patient smoking status at 6 months, 12 months, and 30 months. Patients. Adult smokers: 336 recruited; 249 for final analyses. Intervention. Physicians used an autonomy- supportive or controlling interpersonal style, randomly assigned within physician, to briefly counsel patients about smoking cessation, using the National Cancer Institute's 4-A's model. Measurement. Patient active involvement was rated from audio tapes of the interviews. Continuous abstinence came from self-reports at 6 months, 12 months, and 30 months, CO validated at 6 months or 12 months and at 30 months. Results. Physician style did not have a significant direct effect on smoking cessation but did significantly increase patient active involvement in the interview. Active involvement, in turn, increased smoking cessation. Structural equation modeling confirmed a theoretical model in which the intervention positively predicted patient active involvement after controlling for patient reports of wanting to stop smoking, and active involvement significantly predicted continuous abstinence after controlling for previous quit attempts. Conclusions. Although physicians' autonomy- supportive style while counseling smokers to quit did not have a direct effect on smoking cessation, it increased patients' active involvement in the counseling session which in turn increased continuous abstinence over 30 months. Further research should clarify the direct effects of physician interpersonal style on health outcomes.
Some of the best current work on the development of motivation is presented in this fortieth volume of the Nebraska Symposium on Motivation. The diverse approaches for conceptualizing and studying motivational development psychology that extends the traditional area of achievement motivation. Some major themes emerge: the conceptualization of the self, the internal and external factors that affect development of motivations, and the choices that result from one's motivations. Richard Ryan's opening chapter places the entire work in context by describing historical and theoretical perspectives on developmental and psychosocial models used to understand motivation. Mihaly Csikszentmihaly and Kevin Rathunde also focus on intrinsic motivation, but with a greater focus on flow, the experience of full involvement with an activity. Susan Harter discusses the roles of the I-self and the me-self research models. Jacquelynne S. Eccles stresses the link between the social contexts of family and school and the motivational constructs related to achievement and choice of activity. Laura L. Carstensen maintains Eccles's focus on the importance of choice of activity, but concentrates on the later stages in life when social contact declines as a result of changing social and emotional motivations. The volume concludes with a summary analyzing the contributors' descriptions of the diverse but complementary aspects of developmental processes and theory.
Training in mindfulness, classically described as a receptive attentiveness to present events and experiences, has been shown to improve attention and working memory. Both are key to long-term memory formation, and the present three-study series used multiple methods to examine whether mindfulness would enhance episodic memory, a key form of long-term memory. In Study 1 (N = 143), a self-reported state of mindful attention predicted better recognition performance in the Remember-Know (R-K) paradigm. In Study 2 (N = 93), very brief training in a focused attention form of mindfulness also produced better recognition memory performance on the R-K task relative to a randomized, well-matched active control condition. Study 3 (N = 57) extended these findings by showing that relative to randomized active and inactive control conditions the effect of very brief mindfulness training generalized to free-recall memory performance. This study also found evidence for mediation of the mindfulness training-episodic memory relation by intrinsic motivation. These findings indicate that mindful attention can beneficially impact motivation and episodic memory, with potential implications for educational and occupational performance.
