Psychological Needs

Question 1

What is a psychological need?

Answer 1

-Inherent source of motivation
- Desire to interact with environment to advance personal growth, social development and psychological well-being

Question 2

What is self-determination theory?

Answer 2

• Individuals are actively engaged, oriented for growth in respective to their social contexts
• Macro theory of human motivation and personality
• Concerns innate growth tendencies and innate psychological needs
• Behaviors that are self-motivated and self-determined

Question 3

What are the three psychological needs in an organism/individual?

Answer 3

• Autonomy
• Competence
• Relatedness

Question 4

What does the psychological need depend on?

Answer 4

Its environment
- Is it supportive and provide whats needed?
- Organisms need to be flexible and adapt
- Satisfied or frustrated

Question 5

In what ways can psychological needs benefit people’s life?

Answer 5

• Engagement
  Basis for initiative, paying attention or feeling controlled
• Personal growth
  Going forward in life or regression
  A sense of self-growth, sticking to something
• Intrinsic motivation
  Doing something cuz its fun
• Internalization
• Health
• Well-being

Question 6

What is autonomy?

Answer 6

The psychological need to experience self-direction and personal endorsement in the initiation and regulation of one’s behavior
- Choices, decisions, following their own goals
- Freedom

Question 7

What are the 3 experiential qualities that helps us determine our autonomy?

Answer 7

• Perceived locus of causality
• Volition
• Perceived choice

Question 8

Perceived locus of causality (PLOC)

Answer 8

• Individuals understanding of the causal source of their motivated action
• A continuum
  Personal choice to environmental source

Question 9

Volition

Answer 9

• Unpressured willingness to engage in an activity
• Free vs coerced while doing it or avoiding it
  Subjective feeling

Question 10

Perceived choice

Answer 10

Subjective experience
- Environment where we have decision-making flexibility that gives us different opportunities vs sense of obligation

Question 11

What can influence/support one’s sense of autonomy?

Answer 11

• External events
• Environments
  Is there a deadline?
• Social contexts
• Relationships
  Controlling vs free choice?

Question 12

What are the two motivating styles for autnomy?

Answer 12

• Autonomy support
• Controlling

Question 13

Autonomy Support style

Answer 13

An interpersonal tone of understanding
- Im your ally
- Here to understand and support you and your strivings
- Take the other person’s perspective
- Develop another’s inner motivational resources

Question 14

Controlling Motivational Style

Answer 14

Interpersonal tone of pressure
- Im your boss
- Im here to monitor you
- Im here to change and to socialize you
- Uses social influences techniques
- Gives commands, ask controlling questions

Question 15

What is competence?

Answer 15

The psychological need to be effective in one’s interactions with environment
- Reflects the desire to exercise one’s capacities and skills
- Seek out and master optimal challenges, a willingness

Question 16

What are the key environmental conditions that satisfy or neglect competence?

Answer 16

• Optimal challenge and flow
• Clear and helpful structure
• High tolerance of failure from others
• Positive feedback
• Perception of progress

Question 17

Competence - Optimal challenge and flow

Answer 17

Flow
- State of concentration that involves a holistic absorption and deep involvement in an activity
- Pleasurable experience, leads to repeated behavior
Optimal challenge
- Challenge and skills are moderately high (realistically)
- Involve the need for competence and gets feedback )start the subjective experience of a challenge)

Question 18

Competence - Structure

Answer 18

The amount and clarity of information about
- Environment expectations
- What to do to achieve the desirable outcome
- Support and guidance

Question 19

Competence - Failure Tolerance

Answer 19

• Feelings of failure can motivate avoidance
• Social context can either tolerate failure and error making, or not

Question 20

Competence - Feedback

Answer 20

• Feeling competence involves positive feedback of your skills, effort or evaluations of others compared to you
• Performance feedback
• Setting the stage for challenge

Question 21

What is relatedness?

Answer 21

The psychological need to establish close emotional bonds and attachments with other people
- Looking for opportunities

Question 22

What is the essence of relatedness?

Answer 22

Desire to be emotionally connected to and interpersonally involved in warm relationship

Question 23

Why is relatedness an important motivational construct?

Answer 23

• Humans are social beings
• Function better, more resilient to stress and has fewer psychological difficulties

Question 24

How can the relatedness need be satisifed?

Answer 24

• By bonding with other people
• The other person cares about my welfare and likes me
• Relationships that are caring, liking, accepting (true self) and valuing

Question 25

What is internalization?

Answer 25

The process where an individual transform an externally prescribed regulation or value into an internally endorsed one

Question 26

Are the psychological needs universal?

Answer 26

• Need fulfilment between students and teachers supports assumption that the need is universal
• Cross-cultural nuance; supporting competence is more important in achievement in the west
• Cultural differences; individual and collective
• Norms and values

Question 27

How does the model of flow looks like?

Answer 27

X-axis
- Personal skills and competence
Very low to high
Y-axis
- Opportunities for challenge
Very low- Low- High- Very High
Flow is in the middle
- Anxiety and worry with too high of a challenge and low skill
- Boredom with low challenge and high skill