Self-Determination Theory and work motivation

Question 1

What are intrinsic and extrinsic motivations according to Porter and Lawler (1968)?

Answer 1

• intrinsic motivation: when people do something that they find interesting; derivespontaneous satisfaction from it
• extrinsic motivation: doing something for the reward connected to doing it (activity is instrumental)

Question 2

What did the model of Porter and Lawler (1968) suggest for workplaces to maximize job satisfaction?

Answer 2

• increasing both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation by making job
  
  • more interesting (intrinsic rewards)
  • making extrinsic rewards contingent on performance
• basic assumption is that these motivations add up on each other
  
  • however, early studies found that tangible extrinsic rewards diminished intrinsic motivation and verbal rewards increased intrinsic motivation
  • thus intrinsic and extrinsic motivation can be positively and negatively interactive… these effects are accounted for in Cognitive Evaluation Theory (CET)

Question 3

According to CET. What diminishes and what enhances intrinsic motivations?

Answer 3

External factors, such as:

• tangible rewards
• deadline
• surveillance
• and evaluations

diminish feelings of autonomy, (loss of perceived locus of control (PLOC) - undermine intrinsic motivations

• providing more choice options about task engagement tend to increase feelings of autonomy (intrinsic motivatin)

Apparently,

• feelings of autonomy and competence tend to increase internal motivation
  
  • optimally challenging tasks were intrisically motivating
  • verbal rewards increase sense of competence
  • negative feedback tends to diminish intrinsic and extrinsic motivation (undermining effect)

Question 4

What are some problems (5) of CET?`

Answer 4

The undermining of intrinsic motivation was a very disputed finding.

1. most CET studies were don in the lab instead of ind real organisations
2. CET was difficult to integrate in the popular expactancy-valence approaches (Vroom e.g.)
3. many work tasks are not intrinsically interesting so enhancing intrinsic motivation is not always possible
4. most people work to earn money so rewarding with money seem practical and appealing
5. seemed to suggest that managers should focus either on increasing intrinsic motivation or extrinsic ones

Research on how intrinsic motivation may become autonomous (internalised) led to self-determination theory (SDT) - a way in which extrinsic motivation can become autonomous

Question 5

What are the main types of motivation, central to SDT?

Answer 5

• Autonomous motivation: drives behaviour that is done with the sense of volition, having choice
  
  • Dworski (1988): autonomy means endorsing ones behaviour at the highest level of reflection
  • intrinsic motivation is an example of autonomous motivation
• Controlled motivation: acting with a sense of pressure; that one has to do it
  
  • use of extrinsic rewards was found to induce controlled motivation
• SDT says that these types of motivation differ in underlying regulatory processes and their accompanying experiences
  
  • behaviour can have different degrees of both types of motivations

Question 6

Please explain what the autonomy continuum in SDT is and which role extrinsic motivation plays in it.

Answer 6

It is a continuum from amotivation to autonomous motivation. In between are the different extrisinc motivational stages, varying in degrees of controlled and autonomous motivation.

External motivation can be internalised in which it becomes partly serving an autonomous motivation, it becomes self-determined, chosen.

The four stages are:

1. external motivation
   
   • the most controlled type of external motivation
2. introjection
   
   • a regulation that has been taken in but is not yet accepted as his own. E.g.
     
     • contingent-self-esteem. pressure to act in a certain way to feel worthy
     • ego involvement: pressure to act in way to buttress their fragile egos
     • this form of motivation is relatively controlled
3. identification
   
   • identified regulation: people feel greater freedom and volition because behaviour is more congruent with personal goals and identities
     
     • internal PLOC
     • nurses understand the importance of bathing their clients for their well-being and agree with it even though the task may not be seen as pleasent or interesting
4. and integration
   
   • with integrated regulation people have a full sense that the behaviour is part of who they are, thus is completely self-determined.
   • this form of external motivation is completely voloitional/autonomous
   • it is, nevertheless, not intrinsic motivation because the person is not intrinisically interested and enjoying the behaviour but considers it instrumental for their personal goals

Question 7

How does SDT define needs and why are they important to consider?

Answer 7

• SDT considers the satisfaction of needs as the fuel that powers intrinsic motivation and internalisation
  
  • the three most relevant needs in this regard seem tobe:
    
    • need of competence
    • need of autonomy
    • and need of relatedness (connection to coworkers)
  • “the degree to which these needs are satisfied will determine how well external motivations are internalised (so integration instead of introjection)
  • SDT defines needs as universal necessities
• needs are improtant because increasing internalisation and intrinsic motivation will lead to better work outcomes:
  
  1. persistent and maintained behaviour change
  2. effective performance (particularly for cognitive flexibility and creativity)
  3. job satisfaction
  4. positive work-related attitudes
  5. organisational citizenship behaviour
  6. psychological adjustment and well-being
• positive relation between staifaction of needs and work engagement and well-being

Question 8

What role does the social context play for internalisation of behaviour.

Answer 8

• autonomy-support is the most important factor in predicting identification and integration (autonomous behaviour)
  
  • three specific factors led to more internalisation:
    
    1. presenting a meaningful rationale for doing the task
    2. acknowledging that people may not find the task interesting
    3. emphasis on choice rather than control
  • the more of these factors were present the more internalisation (e.g. integration rather than introjection)
  • autonomy seems to be the most important need for internalisation. autonomy support fall in two categories:
    
    1. specific factors in social contexts. e.g. choice and meaningful positive feedback
    2. and interpersonal ambience (e.g. organisational climate or managers interpersonal styles)
  • finally, people do not necessarily require structures, limits and contingencies for to maintain intrinsic motivation but they are essential for internalisation, because this is what gets internalised

Question 9

What are the three general causality orientations relevant for STD?

• they index the degree to which one has a certain orientation toward intiation and regulation of beaviour

Answer 9

1. autonomy oriented:
   
   • tendency to experience social contexts as autonomy supportive and to be self-determined
   • positively related to: self-actualisation, self-esteem, ego development, satisfying interpersonal rellationships
2. control oriented
   
   • tendency to experience social contexts as controlling and to be controlled
   • positive relation to: public self-consciousness, Type A behaviour pattern, defensive functioning, high importance of pay etc.
3. impersonal orientation
   
   • tendency to be amotivated
   • related to external locus of control, self-derogation and depression

Question 10

Please summarize what we have learned about SDT so far.

Answer 10

• SDT distinguishes between amotivation (not having an intention to act) and motivation.
  
  • withhin motivation there are autonomous (intrinsinc and internalised extrinsic motivation) and controlled motivation (external regulation/pressure ad introjected motivation)
    
    • degree of controlled motivation determines the degree to which one feels coerced or seduced into doing something
  • type of motivation concerns ones relation to an activity. Almost state-like motivational concepts)
    
    • motivation is predicted by
      
      • aspects of the social environment (e.g. work climate, autonomy supporting activities)
      • individual differences in causality orientations e.g.
        
        1. autonomy orientation
        2. controlled orientation
        3. impersonal orientation
  • concept of basic psychological needs of competence, autonomy and relatedness that influence the degree of internalisation

Question 11

What is the one feature that distingishes SDT from most other work related theories?

Answer 11

• most theories see motivation as a unitary concept that differs in amount, not in kind
  
  • e.g. cybernatic approach, expectancy-valence approach (Vroom), even Porter and Lawler (1968) saw intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation as additive
• SDT focuses on the relative strength of autonomous vs controlled motivation, not on the total amount of it
  
  • autonomous motivation seems to facilitate effective performance and well being
  • controlled motivation seems to decrease effectiveness (especially when it involves creativity)

Question 12

What are differences and similarities between SDT and Goal-setting Theory?

Answer 12

• Locke and Latham’s (1990) goal setting theory of motivation says that goal representations are efficient causes of behaviour
• and that performance will be maximised when:
  
  1. people set specific, difficult goals with high valence
  2. they know which behaviours lead to that goal and feel competent to do these things
• theory has a lot of empirical support
• difference to SDT: they do not differentiate types of motivations, charactersitics of goals are predictors of work outcomes not characteristics of motivation
  
  • SDT says that autonomous motivation is better predictor of of performance on heuristic tasks
  • however, types of motivation do not differ in outcome of algorithmic tasks
• SDT maintains that differentiating motivations is a means of relating characteristics of tasks and interpersonal environment, plus individual differences to types of performance and well-being
• both approaches see a meaningful rationale as important for internalisation or “goal acceptance”in goal-setting theory

Question 13

What is the difference between heuristic and algorithmic tasks?

Answer 13

In Algorithmic work the process is defined and the end product is expected. We follow a set of instructions down a single pathway to one conclusion. By definition there are no surprises unless the algorithm breaks down and the result is unexpected. Heuristic work is the opposite, because there is no algorithm for it. We devise ideas and strategies, experiment and create hypotheses until a solution is found.

Question 14

Please relate the Action Regulation Theory to SDT.

Answer 14

• primarily popular in Germany, influenced by the cybernetic approach
• states that maximum motivation and action results from decision latitude (which is another term for autonomous motivation)
  
  • decision latitude allows workers to set their own goals
• however, it considers a variety of variables to contribute to a single motivation variable (does not differentiate autonomous and controlled motivation)
• SDT sees decision latitude (autonomy) as just one factor supporting autonomy, but e.g. interpersonal style of manager is also very important

Question 15

Please relate Kanfer’s task-specific motivation to SDT.

Answer 15

• similar to action regulation theory
• interaction of motivation and individual differences as basis for predicting performance
• motivation is characterised as two cognitive resource allocation processes:
  
  1. distal.
     
     • mechanisms such as utility to a person, instrumentality of putting effort into something
  2. proximal.
     
     • factors such as self-monitorng and self regulation. important if task is complex or requires sustained effort
• its a unitary conception of motivation (affected by distal and proximal factors)
• not well equipped to predict types of performance )alogirthic or heuristic)
• does not consider effects on well-being
• SDT is less concerned with how a goal is attained but rather on predicting types of performance and well-being

Question 16

Please relate Job Characteristics Theory to SDT.

Answer 16

• Hackman and Oldham (1980) argued: the most effective way of motivating people is through designing jobs optimally
  
  • facilitating higher internal job motivation (closely related to autonomous motivation but does not distinguish introjected, identiified and integrated forms of internalisation, so it can’t assess negative consequences of introjected motivation)
• they say that internal motivation is increased by designing jobs that :
  
  1. provide variety, involve completion of a whole (as opposed to do just a small part), and
  2. have positive impact on other people’s lives
  3. grant freedom and discretion to employee
  4. meaningful performance feedback
  • acording to them, the degree of growth need determines the impact of these characteristics
• SDT says that these characteristics tend to increasse autonomous motivation. differs in three major ways:
  
  1. SDT does not focus only on job characteristics like constructive feedback and freedom of choice to increase autonomous motivation, also interpersonal style of manager is helpful
  2. SDT doesn’t focus on growth needs but on causality orientation as an interindividual factor
  3. this theory only considers internal motivations. not the interplay between between internal and controlled motivation

Question 17

Please relate the needs and motive theories of Maslov, Herzberg and Alderfer to SDT.

Answer 17

• like SDT these theories predict that satisfaction of needs is related to enhanced well being and performance
• the difference is that SDT also focuses on regulatory processes, so not only what energises behaviour but also how it is directed
  
  • SDT is also empirically developed and did not originate in theory first

Question 18

Please relate Kelman’s theory of internalisation/identification to SDT.

Answer 18

• Kelman (1958) postulated that a person’s attitude-related behavior is either
  
  1. compliant and short-lived or
  2. enduringly influenced by others
  • but only if:
    
    • person identifies with the other
    • behaviour is value-congruent
• SDT focuses not on identifying with person but with values and behviour as a means of internalising behaviour
• SDT sees this identificuation as either controlled motivated(performed for the other person’s approval) or autonomously motivated (endorsing the behaviour of that person because of seeing its personal importance for himself)…so either introjection or ientification in SDT terms
  *

Question 19

Please relate the theories of organisational commitment to SDT.

Answer 19

• O’Reilly and Chatman (1986) and Kelman (1958) distinguish three forms of organisational commitment:
  
  1. identification withh the organisation
  2. internalisation of organisation’s value
  3. compliance
• compliance would be related to external regulation
• internalisation and identification feres to the internal motivations
• In another theory of commitment Allen and Meyer (1996) specified three types of commitment
  
  • affective commitment
    
    1. identification with,
    2. emotional attachment to
    3. and involvement in the organisation (theoretically most aligned with autonomous motivation)

Question 20

What is the relation of autonomous and controlled motivation with organisational citizenship?

Answer 20

• organisational citizenship are voluntary behaviours that are not directly recognised by the formal reward structure but do promote organisational effictiveness
• evidence that autonomous motivation promotes volunteering, other prosocial behaviour and even recycing (this even more than intrinsinc motivation)
  
  • parental autonomy support increased need satisfactioon of their kid for relatedness, competence and autonomy
  • conditions that diminish autonous motivation also decrease prosocial behaviour (mandatory volunteering prigramms rob people of their self-determination)
• OCB can be enacted for impressionmanagement reasons (introjected motivation) or altruistic reasons (most autonomous)
  *

Question 21

What is the relationship of satisfaction - performance - type of motivation?

Answer 21

• generally: a modest positive relation
• autonomous motivation seems to lead to superior job performance and satisfaction on complex, challenging tasks
• controlled motivation leads to comparablle or superior performance for dull, boring tasks but poor job-sattisfaction
  
  • hence, there is a positive relation of performance and satisfaction when the task was complex and the motivation was autonomous
  • but no relation between performance and satisfaction when taks was boring and motivatio was controlled
• impportantly: using autonomous v. controlled motivation (concept) allows for integrating moderators such as job characteristics, context, work climate factors and individual differences through mediating autonomous motivation
• Sheldon and Kasser (1998) concluded: when people are autonomously motivated to achieve their self-generated goals there was a strong relation between goal-attainment and life-satisfaction, when people were controlled in their motivation there wass no relation between performance and life-satisfaction

Question 22

What do the reviseted effects of different types of rewards on each other suggest?

Answer 22

• it is difficult to know how intrinsic and extrinsic motivation can be used together (positivelY0
  
  • because extrinsic rewards seem to diminish intrinsic motivation
• interpersonal work climate seems to be an important moderator
  
  • in an autonomy supportive environment it seems as if extrinsic rewards do not (or less) diminish intrinsic motivation
  • these rewards have to be perseived as fair not to undermine intrinsic motivation
  • controlling elements (e.g. competition) need to be absent
• however, all syudies have examined extrinsic v. intrinsic motivation. Effects of autonomous and controlled motivation (e.g. introjected v. integrated extrinsic motivation) need to be considered.

Question 23

Findings (empirical) of _autonomous ectrinsic motivatio_n at the workplace.

Answer 23

• autonomous motivation (intrinsic motivation and integrated extrinsic motivation) maximises performance, citizenship, trust, commitment, satisfaction, and well being but it has not been considered by I/O psychologists.
  
  • for uninteresting tasks autonomous, extrinsic motivation may lead to most effctive results
  • autonomous work motivation is facilitated through and environment/job that is interesting, challenging, allows choice, autonomy supportive climate and employees being high on autonomous causality orientation
    
    • probably its most effective to focus on improving job characteristics and environment as individuals are hardest to change

Question 24

How can workplaces be enlarged and what is the effect of it?

Answer 24

• can be enlarged horizontally: including more activities and task configuration (more interesting) that peope can take pride in
  
  • horizontal enlargement can increase sense of importance of work as they see how all the processes fit in a greater whole
• or vertically, involves including more planning, decision making and problem solving on the part of the employee (greater autonomy)
  
  • people have greater say , which also conveys a sense of importance of their work
• both things can make work more interesting and challenging, hopefully enhanced intrinsic motivation
  
  • research should investigate their effects on autonomous extrinsic motivation
• Parker, Wall and Jackson (1997) by horizontally enlarging employees had greater engagement with the new roles and greater effort expenditure to achive strategic vision.

Question 25

Three work climate factors that enhance internalisation.

Answer 25

1. by explaining the meaningfulness of the uninteresting task it helped internalise value and regulation of the behaviour
2. people feel resistance toward uninteresting tasks, however, ackknowledgng workers perspective about their resistance and perspectie promoted internalisation. reflecting their feeling
3. relatedness plays a central role in internalisation of values and regulations
   
   • structuring work to allow interdependence of workers and work group identification
     4.

Question 26

What are the (6) propositions for future research to test (by Gagné and Deci)?

Answer 26

1. autonomous extrinsic motivation will be mre effective in predicting persistence on uninteresting but effort-driven tasks, whereas intrinsic motivation will be more effective in predicting persistence on interesting tasks
2. cotrolled motivation will yield poorer perfromance on heuristic tasks than autonomous motivation, but will lead to equal or better performance on algorithmic tasks
3. autonomy-supportive work climates facilitate internalisation of extrinsix motivation, resulting in more autonomous self-regulation of extrinsically motivated behaviour
4. specific aspects of jobs interact with the work climate to influence autonomous motivation for work
5. concrete managerial behaviours that support subordinate’s autonomy in the work place can be identified empirically
6. employees’autonomous causality orientations and autonomy supportive environments will have additive, positive effects on empoyees autonomous motivations and positive work-outcomes