Lecture 18: Autonomy

Question 1

What is Deci and Ryan 2012 definition of autonomy?

Answer 1

Autonomy means to behave with a sense of volition, willingness and congruence, this acting according to one’s true feelings.

Question 2

What is the relation between autonomy and attachment, if any, during childhood?

Answer 2

• For ages 1 and 2
• Measure:
  
  • Maternal sensitivity
  • Maternal autonomy support during play
  • Child attachment
  • Child exploration and mastery
• Note: the above relate to the type of attachment the child has.

Question 3

What does McAdams think the mothers should be to the children?

Answer 3

Secure base and safe heaven

Question 4

How do we measure autonomy in children?

Answer 4

Similar paradigm to Strange Situtaion

• Mom play with kids
• Mom’s behaviour is recorded and encoded as well as the child’s

Question 5

How can we measure autonomy in young adults and adults?

Answer 5

• General Causality Orientation Scales
• Describe a situation to the participant
• Give 3 response options and the participant has to pick one
• Score responses
• In total, give 12 different scenarions

Question 6

Give an example of general causality orientation scale situation.

Answer 6

You have been offered a new position in a company where you have worked for some time. The first question that is likely to come to mind is:

1. I wonder if the new work will be interesting?
   
   1. Autonomy
2. Will I make more money in this position?
   
   1. Control response
   2. extrinsic factors (rewards)
3. What if I can’t live up to the new responsibility?
   
   1. impersonal response

Question 7

What is another way to measure autonomy?

Answer 7

To rank how likely you are to respond a certain way.

Question 8

What are the three orientations

Answer 8

• Autonomous
• Controlled
• Impersonal

Question 9

What are the scores and category of responses?

Answer 9

• Autonomy response: 68
• Control responses: 62
• Impersonal responses: 40

Question 10

What is the description of an autonomous behaviour?

Answer 10

• Initiated and regulated volitionally based on an awareness of one’s needs and integrated goals
  
  • Unrelated to Big 5 traits

Question 11

What is the description of a controlled behaviour?

Answer 11

• Initiated and regulated by controls in the environment:
  
  • rewards
  • how one “should” or “must” behave
• Unrelated to Big 5 traits

Question 12

What is the description of an impersonal behaviour?

Answer 12

• Are those whose initiation and regulation are perceived to be beyond intentional control.
  
  • Correlated with Neuroticism
  • Low Social Dominance

Question 13

When Krostner first started teaching at McGill, he quickly found out that not all the students were autonomous. How did he notice?

Answer 13

• Found 3 types of students
  
  • 10 who had controlled behaviour
    
    • Needed guidance in the assignment and a lot of feedback
    • Wanted to know exactly what the professor wanted
  • 2 autonomous
  • 3 impersonal behaviour
    
    • Didn’t submit the assignment
    • Didn’t organize themselves

Question 14

What is the hallmark of autonomy?

Answer 14

Integrated functioning

Question 15

What is integrated functioning?

Answer 15

• hallmark of autonomy
• Integration of 3 areas:
  
  • Personality
  • Emotional
  • Social
• It is the coherence and unity in one’s personality and experience.

Question 16

What is Personality integration?

Answer 16

• Trait consistency
• Attitude-behaviour consistency
• Implicit/explicit motive consistency
  
  • Autonomous since implicit and explicit motive align

Question 17

What is emotional integration?

Answer 17

• Learn how to cope and deal with negative emotions and negative life experiences
• Learn how to integrate negative aspects of oneself
• Attachment helps deal with negative emotions/experiences
• High in autonomy they are able to recall negative and positive memories and experiences

Question 18

What is Social Integration?

Answer 18

• High autonomy is related to:
  
  • fit better generally
  • intimate relationships
• Autonomy and social interactions are complementary

Question 19

Describe the study that looked into social interactions and autonomy.

Answer 19

• College students record interactions with peers across 1 week
  
  • Record interactions that last 10 min or more
    
    • Quality
    • how much was disclosed
    • Honesty of you and the other(s)
• Results:
  
  • Autonomy was independent of interaction quality but a predictor of the quality of social experiences
• Conclusion:
  
  • Autonomy neither negates nor conflicts with the human need for relatedness. Rather, it allows for more open and honest interpersonal experience.

Question 20

What makes an interaction intimate?

Answer 20

• Self-disclosure
  
  • But only with people that we know pretty well

Question 21

What is the definition of pseudo-autonomy?

Answer 21

“To resist influence or coercion; to defy an authority or to seek freedom in a new place. To strive for independence.”

This is Henry’s Murray definition of autonomy.

Question 22

Explain Koestner’s and Losier’s study on reactive autonomy and reflective autonomy.

Answer 22

• Study 1:
  
  • 100 women, 50 men
  • Results:
    
    • Reactive and reflective are uncorrelated
    • Sex differences: men more reactive
    • Reactive positively correlated to Control orientation
    • Reactive positively correlated to E and O. Negatively correlated to A
    • Reflective no correlations with Big 5
• Study 3:
  
  • Reflective vs Reactive + Qulity of social interactions
  • Results:
    
    • Reactive’s quality with authority -0.37
    • Reflective’s quality with non-authority 0.26

Question 23

Describe the results of Koestner’s study on Reactive and Reflective autonomy and their reliance on experts.

Answer 23

Pseudo Autonomy (Reactive) don’t want to follow when the experts really know what they are doing.

Question 24

Does autonomy relate to attachment?

Answer 24

yes

Question 25

How can we measure autonomy?

Answer 25

With the General Causality Orientations (autonomous, controlled, impersonal).

Question 26

Is autonomy similar to:

independence?

individualism?

non-conformity?

Answer 26

No to all 3. Autonomy has to do with the integration of personality, emotions and social skills.