Autonomy is an essential psychological need, and the three parts of autonomy described in the book are perceived locus of control, volition, and perceived choice. I was doing some random YouTube browsing as most of us do, and I ran upon this video clip of George Carlin (Yes, he is a comedian so keep that in mind) commenting on the choices we have in our society:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yt49DsfKDMc
The text discusses how under the "Conundrum of Choice" section regarding autonomy that certain choices may not actually satisfy our need for autonomy. It is usually choices that are "either-or" choices (essentially forcing one) coming from an external source that fail to meet our need for autonomy rather than choices about our actions that are self-generated (unforced) and meet the criteria of what is important (values,goals,interests) to us.
Do choices we make every day, or even larger choices provide us with opportunities to meet our autonomous needs, are they meaningless, or do they meet our needs even though they are meaningless?
I think the most glaring example of an 'either-or' choice that fails to satisfy the need for autonomy mentioned in the video (I took the easy way out) is with our political system. In most elections the options are 'Republican' or Democrat'', each of which carry their own set stances on certain issues, some of which you may agree with and some you may not. Voting for a candidate from a "Third Party" (reminds me of race identifications of White, Black, and Other) is a good way to throw your vote away. This seems to be a reason why a lot of people (young people in particular) fail to engage in our political system seeing it as pretty much pointless.
I can think of other examples, but I'll toss it to you guys...Anyone have an example of some 'either-or' (or either-or-or-or-etc, but are all qualitatively similar) or 'meaningless' choices we have that actually have important consequences?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yt49DsfKDMc
The text discusses how under the "Conundrum of Choice" section regarding autonomy that certain choices may not actually satisfy our need for autonomy. It is usually choices that are "either-or" choices (essentially forcing one) coming from an external source that fail to meet our need for autonomy rather than choices about our actions that are self-generated (unforced) and meet the criteria of what is important (values,goals,interests) to us.
Do choices we make every day, or even larger choices provide us with opportunities to meet our autonomous needs, are they meaningless, or do they meet our needs even though they are meaningless?
I think the most glaring example of an 'either-or' choice that fails to satisfy the need for autonomy mentioned in the video (I took the easy way out) is with our political system. In most elections the options are 'Republican' or Democrat'', each of which carry their own set stances on certain issues, some of which you may agree with and some you may not. Voting for a candidate from a "Third Party" (reminds me of race identifications of White, Black, and Other) is a good way to throw your vote away. This seems to be a reason why a lot of people (young people in particular) fail to engage in our political system seeing it as pretty much pointless.
I can think of other examples, but I'll toss it to you guys...Anyone have an example of some 'either-or' (or either-or-or-or-etc, but are all qualitatively similar) or 'meaningless' choices we have that actually have important consequences?
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