Application Of Self-determination Theory Research Articles

Understanding consumer motivations in online social brand engagement participation

PurposeThrough the lens of self-determination theory (SDT), the purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of autonomous and controlled motivational regulations in driving consumer participation in social brand engagement (SBE) practices. In addition, the moderating effects of cognitive effort and consumer demographic variables (age and gender) are examined.Design/methodology/approachThe proposed model is tested by employing a quantitative survey design consisting of 832 consumers with prior experience in engaging with brands on social media. The respondents were conveniently interviewed using online questionnaire. The model estimation was done through structural equation modelling with AMOS 23.0.FindingsThe findings indicate that intrinsic, integrated, introjected and external motivational regulations significantly influence consumer participation in SBE activities, whereas identified regulation does not. Furthermore, while age and gender presented mixed interaction effects on the paths examined, cognitive effort does not moderate the influence of autonomous and controlled motivational regulations on SBE participation.Research limitations/implicationsThis study employed a cross-sectional survey to explore consumer motivation and cognitive effort in SBE practices. As an exploratory study, the findings may be limited and not conclusive, which could limit the generalisation of the results reported.Practical implicationsThis study demonstrates a need for retailing managers to understand customers’ varying intentions or needs in participating in online SBE activities As a result, retail managers need to adopt social media strategies that could elicit interest and curiosity on the part of the customer to excite them to participate in the brand social interactions.Originality/valueThis research contributes to the conceptual understanding of SBE through the application of SDT, and contends that cognitive effort does not moderate consumer participation in SBE practices. Also, the mixed findings resulting from the moderation test of age and gender sheds light on specific types of regulated motivations that are either moderated or not in relation to these demographic variables.

Self-Determined to Write: Leveraging Interest, Collaboration, and Self-Direction Through a Journalistic Approach

Becoming a proficient writer is a core competency for effective communication and central to college and career readiness for learners. Despite broad adoption of more rigorous standards and a push to incorporate writing across the curriculum, the majority of U.S. students across different grade levels fall short of grade-level expectations in writing. This study applies self-determination theory in the design and developmental research of an approach that integrates journalistic interviews and writing practices into typical middle school student English language arts/social studies curricula. In this mixed-methods study, 53 sixth grade students in rural (omitted for review) participated in journalistic learning once per week. The 36-week program applied self-determination theory to build dynamic opportunities for individual interest, collaboration, and self-direction, catalyzing students’ self-determined motivation to write. Findings suggest students experienced regular opportunities to learn and apply skills in collaboration and self-direction and were prepared and satisfied learning those skills. On both quantitative and qualitative data, students reported positive perceptions and attitudes, high levels of individual interest and intrinsic motivation to engage and persist in journalistic research and writing, a flow experience in the writing process, high levels of autonomy to be self-directed, competency for critical thinking, and relational support from their teachers and peers as a result of their participation in journalistic learning. Comparing results from the early phase with results at the end, effects all trended in the positive direction with greater exposure and experience in the program.

College women’s physical activity, health-related quality of life, and physical fitness: a self-determination perspective

ABSTRACTThis study applied self-determination theory to examine Chinese college women motivational profiles and their association with physical activity involvement, health-related quality of life, and physical fitness. 292 Chinese college women completed questionnaires assessing relevant psychological constructs and physical activity involvement. Their physical fitness was measured based on the China National Fitness Test Program including body shape, pulmonary function, and body fitness. A two-step cluster analysis determined the profiles that resulted from the interactions among motivation variables reflecting the degree of self-determination. Four distinct clusters of college women were identified: low self-determination/high control, low combination, high combination, and high self-determination/low control. There were significant differences among the clusters in physical activity involvement (p < .01, η2 = .11), health-related quality of life (p < .01, η2 = .18), and physical fitness (p < .01, η2 = .04). Findings support the importance of developing self-determination in Chinese college women’ physical activity, fitness and health-related quality of life.

Connections in the classroom: Separating the effects of instructor and peer relatedness in the basic needs satisfaction scale

When applying self-determination theory to educational settings, evidence suggests that the basic psychological need of relatedness is actually multi-dimensional, which could result in differential influences on intrinsic motivation. Thus, this study proposes a modification to the operationalization of relatedness. The relatedness items from the adapted Basic Satisfaction Needs at Work scale were altered so that items asked students to separately report the amount of connection they feel with their instructors and peers, as opposed to the original items that asked them to more broadly reflect on people in their course. College students (556 female, 321 male) completed a questionnaire assessing their basic psychological needs, including the two new relatedness subscales, motivation, and academic outcomes. Results of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses revealed that the original relatedness scale should, in fact, be treated as two-dimensional. In addition, of all the basic psychological needs, instructor relatedness was most predictive of student interest/enjoyment in the course and self-reported effort. Conversely, peer relatedness did not significantly predict any outcome variables. Study implications, limitations, and areas for future research are discussed.

Choosing to Regulate Emotions: Pursuing Emotion Goals in Autonomy-Supportive and Controlling Contexts.

We applied self-determination theory to emotion regulation and tested the potential effects of autonomy-supportive and controlling contexts on the pursuit of emotion goals. In four experimental studies (N = 242), participants viewed a fear-eliciting film clip or emotion-eliciting pictures and were prompted to pursue emotion goals with either autonomy-supportive or controlling instructions. Participants in both conditions were equally likely to engage in emotion regulation when directly instructed to do so. However, when they were allowed to spontaneously choose whether to regulate emotions or not, participants in the autonomy-supportive contexts were more likely than those in the controlling ones to independently pursue emotion goals. The latter also engaged in more defensive processing of emotion-eliciting stimuli than the former. These results indicate that people are more likely to pursue emotion goals of their own accord when the context in which they pursue them is autonomy supportive, rather than controlling.

Empowered to Break the Silence: Applying Self-Determination Theory to Employee Silence.

The paper studies how leaders can break employee silence. Drawing upon self-determination theory, we argue that empowering leadership can activate employees’ intrinsic motivation such that employees are more willing to break the silence at work; furthermore, the effect is stronger when employees have high (vis-à-vis low) levels of job autonomy. We collected time-lagged and multi-source data in a large company to test our hypotheses. The results show that intrinsic motivation mediates the relationship between empowering leadership and employee silence. That is, empowering leadership can reduce employee silence through enhancing their intrinsic motivation. Furthermore, this mediation effect will be stronger when employees have high levels of job autonomy. This paper contributes to the literature on leadership, employee silence, and job design characteristics.

How Is Motivation Generated in Collaborative Consumption: Mediation Effect in Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation

Collaborative consumption, often associated with the sharing economy, is an emerging consumption pattern that emphasizes sharing the right to use the same units of goods or services rather than owning them. This study proposed a more comprehensive definition of collaborative consumption and five distinctive characteristics of collaborative consumption, and based on that, it explored the internal mechanism of motivation about participation in collaborative consumption of users by applying self-determination theory. The empirical research was conducted using bicycle sharing users’ survey data to test the research model. Data were analyzed by structural equation model approach using partial least squares path modeling and multi-level regression model approach. The results reveal that, for extrinsic motivations, perceived economic benefit and convenience had significant positive effect on perceived usefulness, and perceived usefulness as a mediator significantly affected the user’s intention to participate. For intrinsic motivations, sustainability, sense of belonging and trust had significant positive effect on enjoyment, and enjoyment as a mediator significantly affected the intention to participate. The findings suggest the important role of perceived usefulness and enjoyment in self-determination theory. This paper offers recommendations for stakeholders based on model results to promote sustainable development of collaborative consumption.

Motivation and participation in daily and social activities among adults with spinal cord injury: Applying self-determination theory

BackgroundIndividuals with a spinal cord injury (SCI) report decreased participation in daily and social activities. Self-determination theory (SDT) posits that individuals’ need satisfaction and frustration predicts participation in health-related behaviours and this relationship is mediated by their motivation. ObjectivesThis study explored the role of psychological needs and motivation in relation to participation in daily and social activities among adults with SCI. It was hypothesized that: a) need satisfaction and need frustration were positively associated with autonomous and controlled motivation, respectively, which, positively and negatively predicted participation in daily and social activities; b) autonomous and controlled motivation mediated the need satisfaction/frustration and participation relationship, respectively; and c) need frustration was positively related to amotivation, with no relationship between amotivation and activity participation. MethodsIn this cross-sectional study, adults with SCI (N = 131) completed a questionnaire regarding their need satisfaction/frustration, autonomous and controlled motivation, amotivation, and participation in daily and social activities. ResultsNeed satisfaction was positively related to autonomous motivation (β = 0.29, 95%bias-corrected confidence interval (bCI): [0.04, 0.67]) and need frustration to controlled motivation (β = 0.28, 95%bCI: [0.09, 0.55]). Autonomous motivation was positively associated with six participation categories: autonomous indoor, autonomous outdoor, family role, health, social life, and work/education. Autonomous motivation also mediated the relationship between need satisfaction and all six participation categories; whereas, neither controlled motivation nor amotivation mediated the relationship between need frustration and participation. ConclusionsThis study found that SDT provides a meaningful framework for understanding participation among adults with SCI.

MOTIVATION IN LEARNING MUSICAL INSTRUMENT IN THE CONTEXT OF SELF-DETERMINATION THEORY

The relation between motivation and education is a subject of numerous different researches. In spite of that there is a lack of overall concept giving a solid theoretical foundation for building motivation of learning musical instrument. The aim of the article is to fill the gap presenting an overview of a Self-determination theory (SDT) as an approach to building a stable motivation in music education. As a contemporary macro theory of motivation SDT examines the nature and sources of human motivation. Article describes the key components of the theory- notion of basic psychological needs, the concept of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Relation of motivation with autonomy, competence and relatedness is also discussed. The study puts accent on transformation of the extrinsic into intrinsic motivation, the stages of that process and the application of Self-determination theory in musical education. Results are presented as the basis for future research in the field focusing on perspectives for creating a model for building a stable motivation of learning musical instrument.

What motivates the engineers to patent? A study at the Chinese R&amp;D laboratories of a European MNC

Corporate R&D engineers, being usually the initiators of a patent, are important contributors to the patenting performance of their employers. Hence, patenting motives of R&D engineers encompass an interesting and promising research field. However, the literature on patenting motivation of the engineers in the corporate context is scarce. We apply self-determination theory on human motivation to investigate patenting motives of a sample of local R&D engineers in China employed by a European-based multi-national corporation. Factor analysis reveals four groups of motives: “reward and recognition”, “reputation and promotion”, “making a contribution” and “interest and sense of achievement”. The results of multiple hierarchical regression show the influence of working climate on “making a contribution” and “interest and sense of achievement” motivation factors. Implications for patent management are discussed.

Personalized Motivation-supportive Messages for Increasing Participation in Crowd-civic Systems

In crowd-civic systems, citizens form groups and work towards shared goals, such as discovering social issues or reforming official policies. Unfortunately, many real-world systems have been unsuccessful in continually motivating large numbers of citizens to participate voluntarily, despite various approaches such as gamification and persuasion techniques. In this paper, we examine the influence of personalized messages designed to support motivation as asserted by the Self-Determination Theory (SDT). We designed a crowd-civic platform for collecting community issues with personalized motivation-supportive messages and conducted two studies: a pair-comparison experiment with 150 participants on Amazon's Mechanical Turk and a live deployment study with 120 university members. Results of the pair-comparison study indicate applicability of SDT's perspective in crowd-civic systems. While applying it in the live system surfaced several challenges, including recruiting participants without interfering with general motivations, the collected data exhibited similar promising trends.

Norwegian municipal rehabilitation services in transition

Background: Intending to meet increased demands of health care services due to the demographic change with an increasing elderly population, Norwegian municipalities along with many other western countries over the last couple of years have increased responsibility for providing rehabilitation services. The services include integrated homebased rehabilitation and institution- based rehabilitation services. The purpose of this study: How have workforces from the primary healthcare services experienced an increased responsibility for somatic rehabilitation? Methods: The study was based on qualitative research methods. We conducted five focus-group interviews with 25 participants with professional backgrounds in nursing, health care practitioner, occupational therapy and physiotherapy. In analysis, we used Systematic Text Condensation. Theory: We applied Self-determination Theory as a theoretical perspective to illuminate the impact of the workers’ experience of autonomy, relatedness and competence on their contribution to the ongoing change in the rehabilitation field. Results: The participants from home-based rehabilitation and institution-based rehabilitation expressed diverging level of self-determination and different opportunities of mobilizing competence. All participants described that more clients needed rehabilitation, and perceived an increased focus on home-based rehabilitation. The participants working in rehabilitation institutions experienced that institution-based rehabilitation services were less prioritized, less autonomy and influence on the daily operations, and that their professional competence was not appreciated. They reported a need for increased competence in rehabilitation among clients, the clients’ relatives and collaborators. They expressed multidisciplinary integration within their team and institution, but less connection to other municipal rehabilitation services. Participants working with home-based rehabilitation experienced being involved in the development of services, and that management and other collaborators appreciated their competence. They expressed affiliation to a larger unit than participants from institution- based rehabilitation. They called for improvements of routines, but perceived improved collaboration with other professionals. The identified differences may possibly be explained by lack of integration of institution-based and home-based municipal rehabilitation services when increasing efforts on developing home-based rehabilitation services. Conclusion: We identified different perceptions of influence and mobilizing of competence between informants from homebased and institution-based rehabilitation services that might influence the workers well-being, enthusiasm and motivation for work. Efforts should be made to ensure integration of institution-based rehabilitation in the ongoing development of municipal rehabilitation services and facilitate development of self-determination and mobilization of competence.

Applying Self-Determination Theory to Redesign an Inpatient Care Team

Applying Self-Determination Theory to Redesign an Inpatient Care Team

Social Comparisons and Need Fulfillment: Interpreting Video Game Enjoyment in the Context of Leaderboards

This study examines how social comparison information provided by video game leaderboards may influence players’ retrospective judgments of autonomy, competence, and relatedness need fulfillment. Participants played a video game and were randomly assigned to receive no postgame feedback or were shown a leaderboard that placed them in the top or bottom quartile of players. Results indicate downward social comparisons increase enjoyment by increasing competence and relatedness perceptions. However, upward comparisons did not have an opposite effect, nor did either type of social comparison influence players’ autonomy perceptions. Implications for applying Self-Determination Theory to video game enjoyment in the context of social comparison feedback is discussed.

The Coping Effects of Proactive Personality and Job Routinization on Customer Mistreatment

Drawing on the transactional theory of stress, the current study conceptualized customer mistreatment as a stressor, and examined how job routinization and proactive personality help employees to cope with the effects of customer mistreatment on emotional exhaustion and work engagement. The interaction of job routinization and proactive personality was explored by applying self-determination theory to the transactional theory of stress. Multilevel analyses of a daily survey of 128 doctors and nurses revealed that job routinization and proactive personality attenuated the effects of customer mistreatment on emotional exhaustion and work engagement. The analyses also showed that, with more proactive personality and high job routinization, the effects of customer mistreatment were minimized.

Prime ministers as leaders: Applying self-determination theory on Australian prime ministers

The leadership capability of Australia’s four Prime Ministers 1996 – 2015 has been widely debated by political commentators, financial analysts and the general public. The success of these senior leaders has been questioned, as has their management of their office, staff, and colleagues. This article will investigate the performances of these four Australia Prime Ministers – John Howard, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott. Self-Determination Theory (SDT) is presented as a framework that could provide guidance on the aspects of leadership that if attended to could result in enhanced performance of political leaders and ultimately security of their position. SDT is also used as a theoretical lens to evaluate the behaviour and provide a comparative assessment of these four Australian Prime Ministers. It is posited that SDT analysis illustrates ways that each of the four Prime Ministers could have performed better and highlights key lessons for current and future leaders around the world.

You 'have' to hear this: Using tone of voice to motivate others.

The present studies explored the role of prosody in motivating others, and applied self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000) to do so. Initial studies describe patterns of prosody that discriminate motivational speech. Autonomy support was expressed with lower intensity, slower speech rate and less voice energy in both motivationally laden and neutral (but motivationally primed) sentences. In a follow-up study, participants were able to recognize motivational prosody in semantically neutral sentences, suggesting prosody alone may carry motivational content. Findings from subsequent studies also showed that an autonomy-supportive as compared with a controlling tone facilitated positive personal (perceived choice and lower perceived pressure, well-being) and interpersonal (closeness to others and prosocial behaviors) outcomes commonly linked to this type of motivation. Results inform both the social psychology (in particular motivation) and psycho-linguistic (in particular prosody) literatures and offer a first description of how motivational tone alone can shape listeners' experiences. (PsycINFO Database Record

Applying Self-Determination Theory to Adolescent Sexual-Risk Behavior and Knowledge: A Structural Equation Model [Formula: see text

National health priorities identify adolescent sexual-risk behavior outcomes as research and intervention targets for mental health. Reduce sexual-risk behavioral outcomes by applying self-determination theory to focus on decision-making autonomy. This study examined late adolescents' recollections of parental autonomy support/sexual-risk communication experiences and autonomy motivation as predictors of sexual-risk behaviors/knowledge. A convenience sample ( N = 249) of 19- and 20-year-old university students completed self-report questionnaires. Structural equation modeling with latent variables examined direct/indirect effects in the hypothesized model. Parents contributed uniquely through sexual-risk communication and/or autonomy support to late adolescents' autonomous motivation. The final model evidenced acceptable fit and explained 12% of the variation in adolescent sexual-risk behavior, 7% in adolescent autonomous motivation, and 2% in adolescent sexual-risk knowledge. Psychiatric mental health nurses should conduct further research and design interventions promoting parent autonomy support and adolescent autonomous motivation to reduce sexual risk-behavior and increase sexual-risk knowledge.

Narrative mapping and motivation in Adiga’s The White Tiger

Self-Determination Theory (SDT) has been applied to several disciplines except literary analysis. This paper interprets Adiga’s The White Tiger (2008) through this lens. This application aims at investigating the pros and cons of SDT for literary interpretation. The close reading of the novel is done through Altman’s narrative mapping. SDT scrutinizes Balram’s, the protagonist’s, actions through motivational and behavioral justifications, and narrative mapping opens enough space to examine his changes from a single character/action unit to other ones. Attending to both personal and public dimensions of Balram’s life, SDT provides psychological and scientific justifications for his behavior and reveals how his motivations are influenced by cultural forces. The application of SDT and narrative mapping shows both are conducive to a better appreciation of the novel. However, the aesthetic and rhetoric motivations of Balram’s linguistic behavior remain unaddressed by both SDT and narrative mapping.

Positive mindset and entrepreneurial outcomes: the magical contributions of psychological resources and autonomy

This paper applies self-determination theory (SDT) and psychological capital literature to examine the impact of psychological capital and autonomy on a number of entrepreneurial outcomes including entrepreneurs’ income, satisfaction, meaning in life, and commitment to the entrepreneurial career path. The results from two studies reported in this paper support the proposition that a positive mindset (consisting of psychological resources) and a feeling of autonomy are essential for entrepreneurial success. We also found that entrepreneurs’ satisfaction mediates the effects of psychological capital, autonomy, as well as their interaction effects on commitment. In addition, the effects of psychological capital and autonomy on satisfaction were also moderated by level of income. The results have implications for entrepreneurship training and support interventions. The implications for research are also discussed.