Chapter 6
Read chapter 6. Summarize the chapter. What was the most surprising thing you learned? If you had to rate yourself as high, medium, low, on the various psychological needs, what would those ratings be? How do those various levels manifest themselves in your life? Choose one psychological need and discuss how it motivates some of your specific behaviors.
If you had to make a guess, what's the deal with the fish picture? How does it relate to this chapter?
Provide a list of terms at the end of your post that you used from the chapter.
This chapter dicusses the phycological needs of people Its summarizes the three main compontents to psychological needs which are autonomy, competence, and relatedness.I found the most interesting aspect to be the concept behind challenge and feedback. The point that facing a challenge and getting feedback from that challenge is what gives people a psychological experience. That without some sort of feedback from a challenge a person does not necessarly recieve a psychological experience. The best form of feedback is also postive feedback rather than negative feedback. I personally feel that I would rate myself with medium psychological needs. I feel that im good at where I stand on my needs. I don't feel like im being over stimulated and having way too much psychological experiences or that I have low experiences and feel I need to gain more or experience more. I feel like I have control over my choices, that I get the right amount of challenges and feedback during the days, and that I have a good relatedness toward people and that I have a good social connection with others. In feel competence is an important need of psychological needs. I feel that if I wasn't challenged everyday to do something I would have no motivation to do anything and I would be bored in my life. I enjoy having a challenge and I love the feeling of motivation I get to achieve or endure a certain challenge. I need challenges to help me stay movtivated and work hard on goals. If i didn't have challenges and feedback from those challenges I probably would want to do nothing throughout the days and be bored. Challenges encourage me to stive and to achieve things that I didn't think I could do and pushes my brain to work hard and achieve goals. I would have to guess that the fish is escaping the lonelyness of the bowl and is wanting to find those things that can help him achieve his psychologigical needs. His psychological needs are not being met in the fish bowl which has no challenges or other fish to relate to. So he is escapign the bowl to achieve or find those ways to meet his needs.
Chapter 6 talked about the different components that go within our psychological needs. Autonomy, competence, and relatedness all make up the organismic psychological needs. It says that organismic theories stresses that not only does the environment act on the person but the person also acts on the environment, this is called person-environment dialectic. Autonomy is when we want to feel like we are making our own choices ourselves because we want to. The conundrum of choice refers to two different types of choices. One is the environmental event and the personal experience. Environmental event of choice is when someone makes you choose between certain things; whereas the personal experience of true choice is when someone asks you if you want to do something in general. Competence is the psychological need to interact efficiently with everyone and everything. Having positive feedback helps the feeling of competence. Relatedness is the need to belong. When interactions with people insure the likelihood of warmth, care, and mutual concern it is the primary condition for relatedness.
The most surprising thing I learned in this chapter is that autonomy has three different things that go into it. It makes sense but never realized it before. The three things are perceived locus of causality, volition, and perceived choice. Perceived locus of causality is the knowing of the persons source of motivation for different actions they do. Volition is when the person wants to do the activity without being pressured. “Perceived choice refers to that sense of choice we experience when we find ourselves in environments that provide us with decision-making flexibility that affords us many opportunities from which to choose”(p147).
I feel that I would rate myself as medium for autonomy. I feel this way because I do like being able to make my own choices because I want to, but I also don’t mind when people give me options that I have to choose from. There are certain things in life like school where giving students options to do things are better than just letting them decide if they want to do some kind of homework. I would rate myself high for competence because I think that this is one need where most people would rate themselves highly on. I don’t like it when I feel that I don’t know things that other people are talking about. I want to keep learning things and bettering myself so I can keep up with others and what they know. I would rate myself medium in the relatedness area. I am only medium because I do have the need to belong, but at certain times I don’t feel that I need to belong with certain people. When people are doing things that I do not agree with I do not do what they do just so they like me even if they are the ‘cool’ kids.
Competence motivates me to do well in everything I do. For instance, school, I don’t like to get bad grades on assignments and tests so I strive to do my best. I am a waitress and when I do not know something that a customer asks me I feel stupid to say the least, because of this I try to know everything on the menu and all the specials for the night so I will be competent enough for the costumers.
The picture has a lot to do with this chapter. When I look at it and think of this chapter I think of the three psychological needs. I feel that the fish does not have any autonomy because it can only be in the fish bowl it has no other options. The fish also doesn’t have any relatedness because it is the only fish in the bowl and it can’t talk to its owner. It does have the competence that the top of the bowl is open so it can jump out; but it does not know that once it falls into something without water it will likely die.
Terms from chapter used: Psychological needs, Autonomy, Competence,Relatedness, Organismic psychological needs, person-environment dialectic, Perceived locus of causality, Volition, Perceived choice, The Conundrum of Choice, Environmental event, Personal experience of true choice, Positive feedback
Chapter six was over psychological needs. Psychological needs rely on the organismic approach to motivation which is where the person interacts with the environment and the environment affects the person’s interactions. The three psychological needs that were talked about in depth are autonomy, competence, and relatedness. For a person to be truly satisfied, they need high levels of these three things. If a person has high levels of autonomy, they feel like they are in control of their lives. They are doing things because it is something that they enjoy, have interest in, and want to do it; not because someone is forcing them to. If someone feels satisfied in a skill of something that they like to do, then they have a high level of competence for that task. Finally, if a person has a high level of relatedness then that means that they have close relationships; they can depend on their friendships to help carry them through anytime of their life.
To me, the most interesting part in this chapter was at the beginning when the organismic approach was described. I kind of think I always viewed life like the mechanistic theory; that if “the environment acts on the person and the person reacts”. But now that after reading this chapter, I definitely see that life is much more like the organismic approach. We effect the environment just as much it affects us. We need the environment in order for survival (food, water, social support, intellectual support) and the environment in return gives you all of those opportunities. Both you and the environment are constantly changing so both learn to adapt.
I would rate myself having a medium level of autonomy, a high level of competence, and a high level of relatedness. My reasoning for having a medium level of autonomy would be because right now I feel like I control most things in my life. I picked what I school I wanted to go to and what major I wanted to pursue, I have a job to pay for my apartment, utilities, credit card bill, food, and other wants and needs, and I live on my own so I am in control of how I spend my time. But I am not in control of everything I do. I am still in school so I have to do what all of my professors tell me to, my mom still pays my cell phone bill so I have to stay within her limits of talking, being on the internet, and what kind of phone I have, and my dad still makes my car payments so I am driving the car that he bought me. After I graduate, I think my level of autonomy will be higher because that is when I will be in charge of paying for everything and choosing what I do with my life. I believe that I have a high level of competence because I truly enjoy my major (psychology). It is difficult enough to make motivate me to succeed, but not so hard that I am not motivated at all. Relatedness is something that I also feel like I have a high level in because I could not ask for a better social system to rely on. I truly believe that I could not ask for better family and friends. They support me 100% of the time and are always motivating me to be a better person. I have siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents who I know believe in me to become successful so in return I am motivated to become successful. I have not had the best parental guidance growing up, but growing up the way I did has made me realize what I want to do with my life and what I don’t want to do with my life. My family and my friends are my number one motivation to do well in school, to graduate, to find a job that I love, and to work hard at everything I do.
I think that this fish realized that the fishbowl was not exceeding all of his/her psychological needs. He/she needed to be somewhere where he/she could have control in his/her life, feel satisfied with an accomplishment, and to make close friendships.
Terms used: organismic approach, mechanistic theory, autonomy, competence, relatedness, psychological needs
Chapter 6 touched on the three psychological needs. These three needs include autonomy, competence and relatedness. Psychological needs are proactive which means they are thought of as a growth instead of a deficit need because they are motivated to seek challenges. Autonomy is having the choice to do something or the choice of what option to take. There are three experiential qualities of autonomy that include internal perceived locus of causality, volition and perceived choice. For one to have a supportive autonomy motivating style they must be willing to take the perspectives of others into consideration. Competence is the psychological need that must feel effective. Environmental conditions that are needed for competence include: optimal challenge, clear and helpful structure, high failure tolerance from others, positive feedback and perception of progress. Relatedness is the psychological need to successful at creating and maintaining close relationships and bonds with other people. It is through autonomy, competence and relatedness that people fulfill their psychological needs and their well-being increases.
The most surprising thing to me was the section under the heading of ‘What Makes for a Good Day?’ I would say it was more interesting than surprising. I really enjoyed learning about how the different psychological needs effective different aspects of your life and it made me start to think of why I was feeling a certain way throughout the day. It has made me more aware of my emotions and why my emotions are the way they are throughout the day.
If I had to rate myself on the psychological needs of autonomy, competence and relatedness, I would say my ratings would be 5, 7,9. With autonomy, even though I choose to go to college, and I choose to go to class and work every day, I don’t feel as if I have much of a choice due to the alternative choice being even less attractive than the choice of going to class and work. These ratings manifest in my life multiple times a day. The average rating for autonomy shows in my life when I get frustrated about money knowing that I don’t have time to work 30 hours a week but also knowing that if I don’t, I won’t be able to attend college. Another example is getting annoyed with having to go to class but knowing that the other choice is to suffer the consequences when I don’t know the test material. The above average rating for competence shows in my life when I get a good grade in a hard class, when my boss tells me I am doing a good job or when a parent at work is happy about the job I am doing with taking care of their child. The high rating for relatedness shows in my life when I look at my close friends circle. If I didn’t have good relatedness, I would not have many good friends due to not being successful in creating bonds and relationships.
Relatedness motivates a lot of my behaviors. I believe this is because relationships and people’s feelings mean a lot to me. I have a lot of empathy for people and I am a good listener so I am just drawn to people. This motivates my behavior to save time out of my day to chat with my roommates, to call home to my family, to save a certain night to go out to eat with my friends and to dedicate a lot of energy, time and feelings into my relationship with my fiancé. Because I have so much empathy for people every action that I make I am constantly thinking of how that affects others which can be a little frustrating at times.
I believe that this fish is motivated to break free of his fish bowl. This means that the fish is trying to satisfy his psychological needs. I say this because psychological needs are proactive and the fish jumping out of the bowl is definitely being proactive. I believe that out of the three needs, this picture displays autonomy the most. I say this because I feel as if the fish was frustrated with the lack of choice of whether he wanted to be in such a small bowl or not.
Psychological needs, autonomy, competence, relatedness, internal perceived locus of causality, volition, perceived choice, optimal challenge, clear and helpful structure, high failure tolerance from others, positive feedback, perception of progress
Chapter six focuses completely on psychological needs. There are three basic psychological needs. These include autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Autonomy is pretty much control. We as humans like to decide what we want to do, when we do it, how we do it, and when to stop. We like to determine our own actions and not be controlled by others or the environment. We want freedom to make our own goals and achieve them. Competence is feeling good about oneself. As humans, we need to feel proud of ourselves and feel like we can be effective in our environment. We don’t like to feel worthless or fail. We like to succeed and feel as if we matter to the world. Relatedness is being involved and being wanted by others. As humans we like to belong with other people in social interactions. We want friends, relationships, and family. We like to feel loved and needed by other people. If someone fulfills all of these needs, they are psychologically in a state of well-being.
The most surprising thing I learned is how much competency affects us as humans. Every time I do something to better myself I think of the long-term goal, but now that I look at it, it didn’t just better be for the future, but bettered me for now and increased how I feel about myself. It’s interesting to learn the reason for doing your own behaviors that you never really understood before. Overall, it’s surprising to think how much the little things I do to better myself really improves my emotions and how I feel about myself day to day.
If I were to rate myself on the three levels of psychological needs, I would rate myself high for autonomy medium to high for competence, and medium to high for relatedness. I would rate myself high for autonomy because I am somewhat of a control freak and have to be in control of everything in my life. I do everything for myself and don’t like much help. I would rate myself on a medium to high level for competence because I feel pretty good about myself and what I do, but I know I could still do much better and learn a lot more and make myself a lot more useful in my free time. Lastly, I would rate myself on a level of medium to high for relatedness because I feel like I have a lot of friends and acquaintances, but from moving to a new town where I don’t know many people, that level has went down a bit because I’m not around as many of the same friends and family members as I used to be and have to make new friends.
When looking at the psychological need for relatedness I see that it motivates me to be different than I usually am. Normally, I can be pretty shy because I’m used to having a lot of close friends around all of the time and never have really had to step outside my group and meet new people, but I see that has changed since moving to a different town and going to a different school. Now that I don’t know as many people I force myself to be more outgoing and meet new people. I initiate conversations with people I normally wouldn’t. This is because I feel that need for relatedness.
I would guess the fish isn’t happy with his environment and is jumping out looking for a better life. It has to do with this chapter because his psychological needs probably aren’t being met in an empty fish tank. The fish doesn’t have high autonomy because he can’t control anything he does with his life, doesn’t have high competence because he can’t really achieve anything, and definitely doesn’t have high relatedness because there are no other fish to interact with. All in all, the fishes psychological needs aren’t being fulfilled so he is trying to escape to get his needs fulfilled.
Terms used from chapter: Autonomy, Competence, Relatedness
Children run around playing and trying things because they have a need for competence. They want to play on their own terms and do things the way they want/when they want because they have a need for autonomy. What activities, skills, and values they learn are given to them by the important people in their lives because they have a need for relatedness.
We want to decide when we want to do things, how to do them, and if we want to do them at all. We don’t want the environment or other people to decide for us. We would like our time to be spent as we see fit; to have the ability to use our interests, preferences, wants, and desires to dictate our behaviors. This is our need for autonomy.
Autonomy-supportive motivational strategies try to use a person’s intrinsic motivational resources; their personal interests, competencies, and preferences. To motivate people to engage in an uninteresting task, an autonomy-supportive approach would try to communicate the value and importance of the behavior that is trying to be produced. These explanatory rationales encourage intrinsic motivation and increases internal perceived locust of causality. Autonomy-supportive motivation styles stress the importance of working collaboratively with the unmotivated person in order to get them to perform a task. Studies show that the results of an autonomy-supportive motivational strategy are higher engagement, improved learning, and better performance. With these things comes improves psychological well-being.
On the other hand, controlling styles attempt to motivate a person using external motivational resources like rewards, punishments, deadlines, and consequences. People who employ this type of motivational style often use criticism to encourage people. They also do not explain the value of the behavior and the reason they are trying to get that person to engage in it.
People have a need to develop their skills and further their potential. This is our need for competence. We want to overcome challenges and succeed in our endeavors because it fulfills our psychological need for competence and makes us feel satisfied and happy. A key concept of competence is the idea of flow. When we do an activity that gives us a feeling of flow, our competencies are perfectly matched with the challenge and it is a pleasurable experience. If an activity is too challenging for our skill level we experience feelings of incompetence and anxiety. If the activity is too easy for their skill level, people become less engaged in the activity, and experience boredom. But the worst is when skill level and challenge level are both extremely low. This situation puts motivation and cognition at their lowest levels, which causes our competence to suffer the most.
People also feel a need for relatedness; a need to interact with others, form friendships, as well as romantic relationships. People need to feel that others care for them, that they care for others, and that they share the interests and values of other people in order for them to be happy. It is interesting to note that people who are lonely often do not lack social interaction; they see people on a regular basis. What they lack is an intimate reciprocal relationship with others that fulfills their need for relatedness.
I would probably rank the highest in autonomy; I find my life has given me much flexibility in my decision making. When I run into a task that I am not motivated to perform, I have strong support from family and friends who employ autonomy-supportive motivation styles to get me to do the essay I don’t want to write, the dishes I don’t want to do, or to go workout. For example, I did not want to do the dishes today and when I expressed this to my roommate she did not criticize me but understood and offered to help me get started. We even spoke about why they needed to get done. This example illustrates the features of an autonomic-supportive motivational style: non-critical, help when the person is stuck, and communication about the value of the uninteresting task.
I feel a high sense of relatedness to the people in my life. I have many close friends and a healthy relationship with my family members that is reciprocal and supportive of my personal growth. I do not lack in high quality relationships and genuinely feel that people care about my welfare and that I am well liked.
I feel a moderate sense of competency from some of the tasks I perform, and out of the three this is certainly the lowest. I am not completely satisfied with the quality of my school work and even though I often feel it is not at the correct challenge level I do not perform as well as I should. There is a pervasive feeling that I lack the motivation, not the skill, to excel. As far as my competency as an athlete, I believe that I am adequately challenged but really need to perform at skill level that is more consistent.
I think the fish picture is about the fish jumping out of the bowl in order to fulfill his need for relatedness. Seeing as it was the only fish in the bowl, it must have been quite lonely. It could also be interpreted as overcoming challenges and fulfilling the psychological need of competence. If I were in a fish bowl, I think I might see it as a challenge to escape.
Autonomy, relatedness, competency, reciprocal, psychological needs, flow, internal/external perceived locust of causality, autonomy supportive strategies, controlling strategies, and explanatory rational.
This chapter explains to us the psychological needs we have that motivate us to accomplish certain things. There are three psychological needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. These three needs provide us with positive emotions, optimal experience, and healthy development. Psychological needs are understood as growth rather then deficit which are physiological needs. Physiological needs are reactive; we have to have those things in order to survive: food, water, ext. Where psychological needs are important to our motivated behavior. The three psychological needs that I presented earlier are discussed as organismic. This means they are alive and in active exchange with the environment.
The thing I found most surprising was how Autonomy works with us as humans. Autonomy is the psychological need to experience self-direction and personal endorsement in the initiation and regulation of ones behavior. I never really realized how much autonomy affected me in my everyday life. I always want things to go my way and if they dont of course it is going to put a damper on my mood and how I conduct myself the rest of the day. I learned that perceived autonomy has three experiential qualities: internal perceived locus of causality, volition, and perceived choice over ones actions. I found it interesting that we act in a very bipolar sense and that things effect us differently when we are initiated to do something either externally or internally. I read because I have to do a book report for a class and want to get a good grade on it. Im not reading out of fun or pleasure for myself but am externally motivated to get a good grade, therefore I read the book.
If I rated myself on the three psychological needs I would rate myself medium in autonomy, medium at competence, and high in relatedness. Why I am more on the medium levels of autonomy and competence is because although I like to have things my way i also like having someone else in charge with me. Im definitely not a follower so autonomy is still important to me but I also like to have direction. Competence is if I'm good at something then I like it. I agree with this, but I also like to try new things and can always improve my skills. Relatedness is where I would score highest in. I like to do things where I'm with people I love. So even if I am not doing something I necessarily like, ill be driven to do it if my friends are present.
Relatedness motivates me differently then autonomy or competence would. Autonomy is where I could be intrinsically motivated to do something in order to take charge. Competence is when I'm motivated to play tennis because I perceive myself as good at it. Relatedness is different though. I'm motivated to go to a group setting on campus not because I personally am interested in the event occuring but because I have people that want me to come and it is fulfilling my need to be with people.
I think the fish is jumping out of the bowl out of the psychological need for autonomy. He is in there all alone so it cant be for relatedness inless he is trying to get into another bowl filled with more fish. I think the fish is seeking the psycholigal need of competence just like the little girl who was skipping rocks was. the fish is developing skills in jumping over time and then gets to the point where the fish is actually a good jumper. By the time he feels he is strong enough he wants to feel free so he tries to jump out of the bowl completely.
Terms: Psychological needs, Autonomy, Competence, Relatedness, Organismic, Internal Locus of Causality, and Volition
Chapter 6 is about our psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness, and how they motivate us to engage in certain behaviors, or not engage in those behaviors if that behavior does not meet these needs. There are two assumptions in an organismic approach to motivation (which is what these three need are sometimes referred to) and they are that people are inherently active and the environment acts on the person as well as the person acting on the environment. There is a person-environment dialectic where the person engages in the environment in order to express themselves and be active and the environment either encourages or discourages a person from engaging in specific behaviors. For example, if a person wants to satisfy a need for relatedness and call one of their friends to hangout but their phone is dead, the environment has kept that person from engaging in a behavior that they were motivated to do. Affordances are what the environment allows you to do. Autonomy is the psychological need to feel that we have some control over our behavior. The environment gives us different levels of ability to express our autonomy. For example, in a class where due dates are chosen by the students, the environment allows those students to feel some level of autonomy. It is not always important that we actually have autonomy as it is that we feel like we do. There are three qualities that go into perceived autonomy. Perceived locus of causality refers to an individual’s understanding of the causal source of his/her motivational actions. Volition is an unpressured willingness to engage in an activity and perceived choice is the sense of choice we experience in environments that allow us to make decisions and provide us with many opportunities. As long as people feel as though they have a choice and multiple opportunities, they will satisfy the need for autonomy. An autonomy-supportive motivating style supports autonomy while a controlling motivating style interferes with autonomy. Autonomy support takes the other person’s perspective and values personal growth opportunities, while control pressures the other person toward compliance and targets a prescribed outcome over process. Autonomy support acknowledges and accepts failure or negative expressions, while control asserts power to silence negative expressions and failure. It is impossible to learn something without failing once in awhile, and autonomy support style recognizes this, while the control style does not. The control style also does not explain why it is necessary to engage in an uninteresting task, and just expects a person to do it. There are many benefits from the autonomy support motivational style, such as intrinsic motivation, mastery, positive emotions, self worth, self regulation strategies, and life satisfaction. Another need is competence, which is our psychological need to be effective in the environment. The environmental conditions that affect our need for competence are optimal challenge and flow, which is a state of concentration on a task that we enjoy so it makes us lose track of the time we engage in that behavior for, interdependency between challenge and feedback, structure, and failure tolerance. Relatedness is our third psychological need and it is our need to establish close emotional bonds with others. We will be motivated to perform many behaviors just because our friends are engaging in them, and this comes from our need of relatedness. We need autonomy, competence, and relatedness daily to be happy and satisfied with our lives.
What surprised me the most about this chapter was learning about how much autonomy affects our motivation levels. Once I started thinking about it, I realized that I am much more motivated to read, study, and do the homework for classes where I feel like I have some control. In rigidly structured classes, I become annoyed with the strictness of it and it causes me to want to do less work in the class. I would rate myself as medium for autonomy, high for competence, and medium for relatedness. I feel like I make a lot of my own decisions, since I am no longer living with my parents, but at the same time they pay for my school and rent so I am not completely on my own by any means. I also have to do school work the way the professors want it to be and have it done when they want it done. I have a high need to feel competent, which motivates me in engaging in many of my behaviors. I hardly ever procrastinate because I like the feeling of getting homework done, I run 5-6 miles a day because I want to be in shape, and I spend a lot of time on my job (8th grade basketball coach) because I want my team to improve and succeed and be a competent coach. I rated myself as medium for relatedness because I have a great group of friends who I love hanging out with, but I also do not need to be around people all the time and often enjoy doing things on my own.
I think the fish realizes that he is not satisfying his psychological needs because he has no control about what he does everyday since it is a small bowl, he has no competence because he is unable to experience activities to find out what he is competent in, and he has no relatedness since he is the only one in the bowl. Once he realized he was not meeting any of these needs, he jumped out.
Terms used: Autonomy, competence, relatedness, organismic approach, person-environment dialectic, affordances, perceived locus of causality, volition, autonomy-supportive motivating style, controlling motivating style, flow.
Autonomy, relatedness, and competence are the three main organismic psychological needs that one seeks out in an environment. Autonomy is the need to have control over your environment. We prefer being able to make our own decisions and to possess freedom over our own behavior. It’s also beneficial to feel that we are performing tasks due to our own motivation instead of environmental forces. This level of autonomy in an environment can be real or perceived. The perceived locus of causality is the degree to which we believe we are responsible for our own actions. This level can vary from situation to situation. Volition refers to the freedom we feel to perform behaviors in our environment. When we feel that we have different options and the freedom to make our own choices, we have a high level of perceived choice. These three components work together to produce autonomy. An environment that is highly autonomous is conducive to motivation and is more beneficial than a highly controlling atmosphere. I would score myself as having a medium level of autonomy. I tend to prefer situations where I’m in control, but if that’s not possible I’m comfortable with “going with the flow”.
Competence is also a psychological need. Competence refers to the degree that we feel we are an effective member of our surroudings. When we feel competent, we will become completely absorbed in what we’re doing and find that time passes quickly. We will also seek optimal challenges as opposed to activities that we may find easy. An environment that is structured will lead to clarity, clear goals, and competence. I would rate myself as having a medium to high level of competence. I enjoy finding activities that I find difficult but absorbing.
Relatedness is our psychological need to feel emotional connections, bonds, and attachments with those around us. Relatedness is key for internalization to occur. I found this part of the chapter to be the most interesting. Internalization is the process by which we accept outside ideas, morals, and concepts as our own. For this to occur we must feel extremely connected with the others in our environment. For instance, when we’re young we have much of the same values as our parents. This is because they are the people we feel the most connected to in our environment. As we become teenagers we make our own friends and feel that we relate less to our parents. During this time, our values may shift and we tend to value what our friends think is important. I would rate myself as having a medium to high level of relatedness. I value my relationships with those around me, but I also enjoy being alone.
I would score myself as having a medium level of autonomy. I tend to prefer situations where I’m in control, but if that’s not possible I’m comfortable with “going with the flow”. I would rate myself as having a medium to high level of competence. I enjoy finding activities that I find difficult yet absorbing. Although I enjoy these activities, I don’t have a high failure tolerance. I would also rate myself as having a high level of relatedness. I value my relationships with those around me. I think all of these levels manifest themselves in my job. My work environment is highly autonomous at times, but during certain events it must be tightly controlled. Although I prefer working during the automous times, the events where it must be controlled don’t bother me enough to quit. It is also very beneficial to be competent, because much of the time there is a low tolerance for failure. Overall, my favorite part about work is my coworkers and the people I meet. This aspect of my job provides me with the high level of relatedness that I enjoy.
My level of relatedness is oftentimes the main reason I stay at my job. I prefer to take classes that aren’t online because I look forward to class room interactions. I also use my weekends off to visit with friends or family that I don’t get to see very often.
I think the fish is leaving his fish bowl because it isn’t providing him with any of his psychological needs. His environment doesn’t provide him with any freedom of decision or choice. He’s not being challenged and he has no one to interact with and feel related to.
Terms: Autonomy, perceived autonomy, internal perceived locus of causality, volition, perceived choice over one's actions, competence, optimal challenge and flow, structure, failure tolerance, relatedness, internalization
I think that the fish bowl is a great way to represent chapter 6. To me, it appears as though the fish has met all of his psychological needs, especially, the ones we discussed in class: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. And because of this, the fish has become extremely intrinsically motivated to go and explore the world. He has become more self-directed and has raised his self-worth to be more than just a whole life in a boring old bowl. He is finally geting a chance to learn, grow, and become him. It is very symbolic to any person finding their way in life, at least for a short amount of time, and really meeting their psychological needs.
This chapter and lecture has been my favorite one so far because it was really easy to relate to and it was extremely interesting to see "behind the scenes" of what gives me "that edge" every now and then. it was also extremely fun learning the method behind Kim's madness and realizing why it is that i actually learn more in these style of classes than any other class. This chapter described three basic psychological needs that represents an organismic approach. According the book, all humans need autonomy. That is the psychological need of feeling self-directed and having personal initiation and regulation of one's behavior. I thought it was extremely neat how the book incorporated "intrinsic motivation" in with this chapter, saying that when autonomy is reached, a person becomes intrinisically motivated, which is well known to be the best form of motivation. Autonomy is what most of the lecture was on and it was very interesting learning how Maclin tries to always support autonomy in her classrooms inorder to ensure the best results. The the next need the book talked about was competence. Which in essence, is the psychological need to understand and feel as though "you can do it." The book says that inorder for a person to feel competent they must have a challenge and actually learn something, instead of going through the motions. It was fun loooking back at all the times that i have had an "aww i get it now" moment or times when i have felt like i could do anything in the world after acheiving a hard task and seeing what was actually going on in my brain at those moments. The last psychological need is called relatedness. Relatedness refers to humans' needs to interact with others and feel as though they belong. on page 161 the book says, " we all want others to understand us for who we are as individuals. and we want others to accept and value us." This quote really hit home with me and i think it is a very big part of relatedness that i, as an individual, try to meet the most. If i had to rate myself on these three psychological needs i would give myself a high on autonomy, medium on competence, and medium on relatedness. I say this because i feel very self-directed but feel as though I have so much more learning and adventure seeking to do left, all the while meeting new, life-long friends. Because i gave myself a high for autonomy, it motivates me in my daily life very often. I strive to find and always keep a sense of "me" whether that means, staying in while my friends go out or joining a club i'm really passionate about even though I know no one in it, I always try to follow my dreams and regulate my behavior accordingly.
Terms used: Autonomy, competence, relatedness, organismc approach, autonomy-supportive, psychological needs, intrinsic motivation.
Chapter 6 is about our psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. There are two approaches to motivation; organismic and mechanistic. Organismic approach is when organisms adapt, change and grow as a function of the environment. The mechanistic approach is when the environment acts on the person and the person reacts (a one way relationship). Autonomy is the desire of choice and decision making. If we experience a choice by others, no autonomy is involved whereas if it is a true choice, we will experience autonomy because it reflects our values, goals and interests. With competence, we have a need to be effective in interactions with the environment and exercise our skills to seek master optimal challenges. With competence, it is important that we receive structure and positive feedback otherwise we have a fear of failure. Relatedness is the need for close emotional attachment with others. All three of the psychological needs work together. Autonomy support enhances engagement because it involves and satisfies our need for autonomy. Structure enhances engagement and therefore, satisfies competence. And involvement enhances engagement because it satisfies our need for relatedness.
One thing I never thought about is the aspect of choice.and how it interacts with volition. Volition is the unpressured willingness to engage in an activity. If one feels that they made a choice for themselves, it will be meaningful and they will experience autonomy. However, if they are given a choice by others , they will feel forced to engage in the behavior, therefore not experiencing any autonomy. For example, if a coach tells a player to shoot 100 free throws before they can leave practice, they will engage in the activity just to get it over with and feel coerced into doing this. However, if a player chooses to shoot 100 free throws everyday to better their game, they will experience autonomy and their choice will reflect their goals.
I think that I rate competence as high, autonomy as medium and connectedness as low. These levels influence my life when it comes to school work. I have the need to be effective and exercisemy capacities to master optimal challenges. I have difficulty taking on another challenge before I receive performance feedback. I need structure to complete assignments so I do not fail the assignment(failure tolerance). Because of my need for structure, I follow rubrics that are given so I have clear goals for the assignment. My assignment is then compared to past performance, and the evaluation of the teacher. Autonomy also comes into play when completing school work. I usually do the assignment well before the due date by choice. Therefore, I have chosen to do this to reflect my goals. I don’t like to work under pressure (controlling motivation style) so my willingness to complete my homework is free (volition).
I think the fish isn’t meeting his psychological needs. He can never achieve autonomy because he is restricted on his choices. He is in a controlling environment in which he has to live in the same fish bowl, eat when his owner feeds him and swim around his bowl. He has competence in achieving his goal of jumping out of the bowl, but will die without water. He cannot achieve relatedness because he is the only fish in the bowl.
organismic-mechanistic-autonomy-competence-connectedness-volition-failure tolerance-controlling motivation style
Chapter 6 dealt with psychological needs and how it relates to motivation. People are naturally active and the environment acts on the person or the person acts on the environment. Psychological needs are intrinsic motivators that can be seen in autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Autonomy is the ability to make a choice, decide to participate in something or not participate in something; basically determining your own actions. Perceived motivation or what you think you have control over deals with perceived locus of causality (feeling like you have control of motivation), volition (feeling free), and perceived choice over ones action (flexibility, picking own deadline). Autonomy is not always supported, especially in a controlling environment. Controlling behavior would be the opposite of this, would include pressure toward a certain outcome, and use certain language as “have to” or “do it”. An Autonomy-supportive behavior would be one that would encourage you to make your own choice, through certain language, promote values, and nurture inner motivation. Competence on the other hand has to do with mastery of a certain skill or task. The more challenging the task, the harder the skill and the more likely flow is to occur, as long as it’s not too hard. Flow is the ability to concentrate on a task from a holistic approach, I think of it as “in the zone”, being so into something that you don’t even realize what is going on around you because you are so focused. Failure is also part of competence, when we fail at something we learn from it and grow from it. The third psychological need discussed in this chapter was relatedness, which is the need to create a close emotional bond, attachment, or relationship with people. In order to achieve relatedness one needs two things, caring and liking. To make sure you start your day off right, have a slice of autonomy, a side of competence, a helping of relatedness and some psychological nutrients!
The most surprising thing I learned was about the power of autonomy supportive behavior in learning and lack of autonomy supportive behavior. I thought about how autonomy supportive behavior can be used to make people more creative, make their own choice, and have a sense of independence. Controlling behavior can really inhibits learning to certain extents and models a way that does not support one to be independent or creative.
If I were to rate myself on these psychological needs, I would rate myself as high for autonomy, high for competence, and medium for relatedness. My autonomy rating would come from the fact that I am very independent, I feel that I make my own choices, speak my mind, support myself, and if I don’t feel something is not right I say something about it; I am not afraid to advocate for myself in certain situations. I think this comes from being raised to be very independent and my main groups of friends are all autonomy supportive. For competence, I rated myself this way because I am one of those people who very much has a need to master skills. If I don’t get it the first time I am persistent and will work till I do understand it or master the task. I’m always looking for ways to further my knowledge even it is useless knowledge or trivia. For relatedness I gave myself a lower rating because I am perfectly fine with being by myself or with a group of people. Of course everyone wants friends or to be able to share something with someone, but I’m okay with splitting my time 50/50 with myself and friends or family. I would say competence motivates a lot of my specific behaviors, especially when it comes to school. I don’t like the feeling of not knowing something so I do my assignments, readings, blogs, or whatever it is. If I don’t know something I look it up and make sure I know the definition. I guess the fear of not knowing something when I should is what makes me want to be more competent.
I think the fish is just having a good day b/c the fish just ate some autonomy, competence, relatedness psych. nutrient rich fish pellets and decided to explore so he/she jumped out of the fish bowl not knowing that they couldn’t breathe out of water and now it’s going to be a bad day! No, I think the fish jumping out of the bowl definitely relates to psychological needs. He or she made the choice to jump out of the bowl, a choice derived from autonomy. However, the fish was not competent enough to know that it would not be able to breath out of the water. Having no one in the bowl, the fish is looking for relatedness. So by jumping out of the bowl the fish is trying to meet those needs.
Terms: Autonomy, competence, relatedness, perceived locus of causality, volition, perceived choice, flow, supportive-autonomy behavior, controlling style, failure, care, like.
In chapter six, we learned about the three biggest psychological needs under intrinsic motivation. The first one being autonomy. This is our desire to be the one making our own decisions and regulate our own behavior. It discusses the difference between an autonomy-supporting motivating style and a controlling motivating style and how each of these would apply to the four ways of supporting autonomy. Autonomy support is defined as something that helps to identify, nurture and develop another's inner motivation while a Control is a behavior to pressure another towards compliance with a prescribed way of thinking, feeling or behaving. When you apply these two styles to the four ways of supporting autonomy, the four ways being Nurtures Inner Motivational Resources, Relies on Informational Language, Promotes Valuing, Acknowledges and Accepts Negative Affects, you notice that only through autonomy-support can you help someone find interest in things and feel good about themselves when doing them. Autonomy-supporting motivational style helps to encourage initiative, understand the purpose of uninteresting tasks and communicate negative affects. Controlling motivational style, instead, leads to a reliance on extrinsic motivators, rigid communication, and ignoring of negative affects. Autonomy is important to feel in control of yourself and that around you. Competence is another major psychological need. People need to feel that they can be effective in their environment. The more they are able to complete tasks and master skills the better a person feels about themselves and their environment. The last major psychological need is Relatedness which is the need to make bonds with other people. Together these three needs, when satisfied, can improve the overall well-being on an individual. I found it surprising that autonomy was so high up on the list. I suppose it is something that you take for granted. It is important to make your own decisions but I will admit I live a blessed life and I didn't realize how important autonomy really was to me. I would relate myself high on all three psychological needs. I find all these things to be very important in my life. Without autonomy I would feel uneasy in life. Its reassuring to know that you are the one calling the shots in your own life and so nothing I do is something I do for someone else. Competence is also high because I strive to succeed because it is important to me to be good at something and have the skills to master anything I want and this helps me feel good about my life. Relatedness is also high because without relationships and bonds with other people life is a lonely world. I try my best to maintain good relationships with all close to me because I know without them I would be a lonely mess. I would say competence motivates most of my behavior. I am one of four children and I always feel the need to do well and master new skills because I want to stand out. I want to be known as someone who is smart and capable and have nothing hold me back. In both work and school I try my best to master whatever I am working on so that I can feel good about myself. My only guess about the fish is its showing autonomy. Its doing what it wants and it made the decision to jump out of the bowl and take control of its life.
Psychological Needs, Autonomy, Competence, Relatedness, Intrinsic Motivation, Autonomy-Support Motivating Style, Controlled Motivational Style, Supporting Autonomy Strategies.
Chapter 6 discussed three psychological needs that are important for motivation. Autonomy was the first and this was our desire to have control over our choices and flexibility when making these choices. For example, we like to have an internal locus of causality, volition, and perceived choice over our own actions. These three components make up our autonomy. The chapter did point out that there is a difference between “the environmental event of being offered a choice, and the personal experience of choice” (p. 147). This means, for example, that if a teacher gives you the option to write a 15 page paper or to take a 200 point test, neither are going to be a good option. This either-or type of choice does not benefit our need for autonomy because we feel like our choice is pressured. Autonomy requires “unrestricted choice” (p. 147). The chapter then discussed autonomy-supportive motivating styles and controlling motivating styles. Basically, autonomy-supportive motivating style means that, the person identifies and nurtures another person’s “inner motivational resources”; meaning that they will value this person’s interests and personal growth. A controlling motivating style, however, occurs when the person pressures the other into complying with their thoughts, feelings, or certain behaviors. A controlling person would then tell the other person “do this, because I said to”. The controlling person does not offer reasons or explanations for why the person should perform that behavior, they simply demand it. The chapter also discussed the two other psychological needs for motivational health, which are competence and relatedness. Competence is our need to “interact effectively with our surroundings and this desire is applied to all aspects of our lives” (p. 154). We want to develop skills and improve our talents and potentials in order to satisfy our need for competence. This requires structure and high failure tolerance. Failure tolerance means that the situation must allow for failure so that the person may grow and especially, learn from the failure. Failure is a way to learn from our experiences and improve for the next time. If we feel like failure will result in humiliation and no learning then this will not meet our need for competence. The third psychological need discussed in this chapter was relatedness. Relatedness is our need to “maintain warm, close, and affectionate relationships with others” (p. 161). We also expect our relationships to be reciprocal; that is, we want the other person to want to form these same close relationships with us as we do with them. We need to have close emotional bonds and attachments with others. This requires that we feel that the other person truly cares about our well-being. This need benefits our well-being by making us more resilient to stress and decreases our psychological difficulties. The key thing to note here is that our need for relatedness can only be satisfied if we perceive that the other person cares about our well fare, likes us and also that the relationship be centered on the person caring for our “true self” and that we are able to express this true self to the other person and that they like it.
One interesting and surprising thing I learned from this chapter is that when people feel lonely, it is not that they don’t have relationships with others; it is that these relationships are not meaningful enough. These people lack close and intimate relationships. I found this interesting because I think when I feel lonely I FEEL as if there is no one close to me that I can confide in. This perception of lacking close and meaningful relationships is exactly why the need for relatedness is so important to our health. The example about marriage was a good way to show that just because we have “close” relationships, doesn’t necessarily mean that they are emotionally satisfying. I guess this just made me think about the next time I am feeling lonely, maybe I should try to improve or replenish some of my relationships with others.
If I had to rank myself on the 3 psychological needs I would say that I am high in the competence and relatedness areas. I am a very competitive person, I have been an athlete all my life and I have always wanted to be the best at whatever I do. I definitely agree with the flow chart that showed how having too much of a challenge and not enough skills can cause anxiety. When I feel like I am not good enough to do some task I get instantly frustrated and anxious. Same goes with when I have maybe too much competence in a task; it definitely becomes boring then. I experience my flow when I am studying or reading and sometimes when I am on a run. I also think I would be high on the relatedness need because I am a BIG people person. I feel lonely if I don’t wake up and have someone to talk to. Also, my close relationships are a big focus in my life, especially my relationships with my family. I feel like these relationships get me through tough times and also support me when I am successful. They are my biggest fans and I really need that. For autonomy I would say I rank probably fairly high because I really can’t stand to do things that I don’t want to do. I am a person who, if I don’t want to do something, I won’t. I like to have options and choices that I can make on my own, I am almost always the leader in any situation and I am not easily influenced by others. I like the control and decision making to be in my hands because I don’t like to think about my fate being at the hands of someone else. For me, if I am ever feeling low on relatedness that would be the most detrimental to my motivation and well-being. I think that if I were low on the other two, I would rely on my relationships for support. But if I for some reason were low on relatedness, I wouldn’t have anywhere else to turn, and thus my emotions and motivation would be way down.
Competence motivates my behaviors in big ways. In school for example, I like when the teachers post the student’s grades from the tests (with their ID #’s of course) because I find A LOT of satisfaction when I know that I got the highest grade in the class. OR if I didn’t get the highest grade, it really motivates me to try much harder the next time to be at the top. I also rely on competence when I feel less competent at something. I will literally give up if I feel like failure would be embarrassing or detrimental to my self-concept. I like to know, either that I will succeed or at least know that if I don’t do as well or if I fail that I can learn something from the experience and get better for the next time. That relates to the “failure tolerance” point that was made in chapter 6.
When I looked at the fish jumping out of the bowl, I thought that she might be looking to satisfy her need for relatedness. She was all alone in that fish bowl and she probably felt lonely and wanted to create meaningful relationships with other fishies She could also be trying to satisfy her need for autonomy. Maybe she doesn’t want to be in that fish bowl so it motivates her to jump out and chose her own place to swim! It could also symbolize her need for competence because maybe she looked at jumping out as a challenge and she wanted to see if she could do it. Maybe as she’s in the air she experiences flow….untill she dies from no water of course. (that last one might be a stretch!)
This chapter discusses psychological needs which are autonomy, relatedness, and competence. People need autonomy, they like to have a choice and decision making flexibility. We want to experience self direction and personal endorsement. The Self-determination theory says that person acts on the environment and environment acts on the person. The perceived autonomy defines the subjective experience by internal perceived locus of causality (what are the sources of our motivations and understanding why this person or this situation motivates us to do certain thing or engage in certain behavior); volition is the feeling of freedom in specific situations, something what we really want to do, enjoy to do this. And finally perceived choice over one's actions is when we can decide what or how we want to do something in certain situations, for instance in class when teacher gives you this choice of what topic you can write about. Supporting autonomy is when we nurture inner motivational resources. In turn, control autonomy is when there is a pressure from another person that prescribed our way of thinking, feeling, and behaving. There are some benefits from autonomy support: motivation, development of self worth, learning, creativity, better task performance, and in general psychological well-being, school/life satisfaction.
Today, we were talking in class about the differences between supportive and control autonomy and I was thinking what type autonomy does my schools have. And I have to say that I definitely see the difference between the school system in Europe and U.S. Here, school gives you more freedom and choice and back home, basically since middle school, thru high school until college, teachers enforce you how you study. They do not explain why but just “Do it because I said so.”
The second psychological need is competence. The biggest thing in this psychological need is optimal challenge and flow (the task not too easy and not too hard and flow is when we are doing something and do not even realized how fast the time is passing by, like reading, cooking, something what people love to do.) Interdependence between challenge and feedback, structure and failure tolerance are important things in competence. Making errors help in learning, motivate you.
The last need is relatedness. We, humans need interactions with other people. We have a need of building close relationship.
Iif I would have to rate myself on variance of those three psychological needs it will be: high competence, medium autonomy, and low relatedness.
I do need of competence to finish some task and have this optimal challenge. Something what s too easy for me is getting boring and not interesting to continue doing it, and something what is too hard makes me stop doing it and I become unmotivated to finish the task. I like to have a structure of certain things that I have to get done and follow it. Also, to have a positive feedback whether from teacher, parent, or coach makes me not give up and do my best.
Competence: how does it motivate my specific behavior? For instance, when I get positive feedback from my coach at practice I will put extra effort to do it better next time. But also if I fail the test that also motivates me to work hard and prepare better for the next one.
The fish is feeling lonely being in a bowl by herself, so she wants to get out and find some other fish and interact with them. That is a need of relatedness. Also, maybe that fish needs the autonomy; she wants to have a choice where she wants to stay/live.
Terms:
autonomy, person-environment dialectic, supporting autonomy, control autonomy, nurture inner motivation, competence, relatedness, perceived autonomy, internal perceived locus of causality, volition, perceived choice, failure tolerance.
Chapter six is mainly about three psychological needs. These three needs are autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Autonomy is basically the amount of choice we have in a decision. The more of a choice in a decision the more autonomy you will have. However you can have too much choice which can cause someone stress. You have to have the right amount of autonomy. Competence is how much we know and can perform something. It is very common in people to strive to be competent. Relatedness is interacting with other human beings. Everyone needs social interactions to be happy. If you have the perfect amount of each of these three things you will have a great day. Too much or too little of these needs may result in unhappiness. Autonomy is one of the more important psychological needs. The conundrum of choice is the difference between the environmental event and personal experience. The environment may offer you a choice but it may be two things that you do not want to do. Either way you chose you lose. When you have a true choice you are more satisfied and will actually feel like you got to decide your fate.
The most surprising thing I learn was about having a good day. I never really thought about why I have my good days and why I have my bad days. To have a good day you need the perfect amount of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. I thought that was pretty interesting. Each one of these things has to work together and they must fulfill your need for these three things in order for you to have a good day. Now after reading that section in the chapter, I will always think about the situations that have fulfilled each one of my needs to make me have a good day.
I think I would have a medium level of autonomy. I like to make decisions and have my own say, but I also like to have some direction. It’s hard for me to just decide on what to do. I like to have options and if I don’t have options I usually get pretty stressed out. If there is a project for a class and you can do whatever you want I panic. I need a little bit of direction. However, I still have picked out the most important things in my life. Like school, jobs, etc. I have about a high level of competence. I also feel like I have a high level of relatedness. I like to be around people and I usually need their acceptance. I also try to not disappoint my family or friends. I have always wanted their approval and the few times I have not received their approval I experience a lot of stress. Luckily I have a great social circle and it is not easy to disappoint. Because of my need for approval with my family I have always been the “good girl” I have never purposely tried to do something to get out of their good graces. This has motivated me to do everything that they want me to do and when I do something they don’t want me to do it hurts me just as much as it hurts them. Both of my siblings don’t specifically search out to not disappoint my parents but I’ll do anything they ask because I just want to make them proud. With this I have made most of my decisions on what my parents would want me to do.
I think that the fish realized that inside the fishbowl he is not getting any of his psychological needs satisfied. He has no other fishy friends so there is no relatedness. He does not have any autonomy because he only gets to swim in that tiny fish bowl. He probably has the least amount of autonomy and so he feels the only choice he has is to jump out of his bowl even though that will more than likely result in his death.
Terms: Psychological needs, autonomy, competence, relatedness, conundrum of choice, personal experience of true choice.
The chapter talked about the major psychological needs. The chapter mainly covered the three organismic psychological needs—autonomy, competence, and relatedness. It starts out by explaining that the organismic approach to motivation is one that knows the environment is always changing and that the motivation must have the ability to adapt to the environment. This is what creates the two-way dialect between the environment and the person. Any of these needs can be met with encouragement or frustration. The first need that was mentioned was autonomy and this one had the greatest detail. Our autonomy is our need to reach a behavior through our personal interests and our need to provide ourselves with a general direction in which to go. There were three experiences that went along with our need for autonomy. The first was perceived locus of causality. That is our personal understanding for why we are motivated to do a certain task or action. The second was volition. This is our need to feel free. It is high if we feel free and low if we feel like we are forced to do something. The third was perceived choice. This one basically means we want to be able to freely make a choice and not be pushed in a specific direction. It was said that not all choices promote autonomy though. The book then went on to describe how autonomy can be supported or discouraged. The types that were talked about were autonomy-supportive and controlling motivational styles, nurture inner motivational resources, rely on informational language, provide explanatory rationales, acknowledge and accept negative affect, and moment-to-moment autonomy support. The book then described that some other benefits come from autonomy support such as the need for competence and relatedness and intrinsic motivation and so on. The more autonomy support one has then the happier one is.
The second organismic psychological need that was talked about was competence. This is our need to be able to interact with our surroundings and be able to use the skills or talents and overcome optimal challenges. We mainly get our competence from positive feedback and how we are progressing. We get a large amount of competence when we get into a flow or when we lose track of time and get really involved in an activity. The best way to get flow is to have the right amount of optimal challenge or the right amount of personal skills and opportunities for challenge. Relatedness is the last organismic psychological need that was talked about. Relatedness is the need for relationships and to be emotionally involved in a relationship. The book talked about the differences of exchange relationships (business) and communal relationships (emotional). If all of these work together at a high level then they create a sense of engagement. And if all of these are high then it will create for a good day.
I would say I need a medium level of autonomy, a medium level of competence, and a low to medium level of relatedness. I like to do things that interest me but I also like to follow direction so that’s why autonomy is medium. I also like to have an environment that I am somewhat familiar with but I can also branch out and try new places so that explains the medium level of competence. I say low to medium on relatedness because I like the people that I do and I am very shy around anyone else until I get to know them but I feel like it might be moving to a medium as I get older. I do have my close friends though so maybe I’m not looking at it correctly.
I think the fish picture shows that the fish wants more relatedness in his life with another fish so he or she is trying to find that other fish to develop a communal relationship.
Terms from chapter: organismic psychological needs, autonomy, competence, relatedness, perceived locus of causality, volition, perceived choice, optimal challenges, flow, exchange relationships, communal relationships, and engagement.
Chapter six was, overall, an interesting read. It started out with autonomy, which covers a great deal of information as a psychological need. There are three psychological needs that all people have, autonomy being one, along with competence and relatedness. Autonomy helps us explain our need to have control over ourselves and situations throughout our life. If we consider autonomy in a particular setting such as a doctor’s office, we see moment to moment autonomy support. When we sit down one on one with a doctor many times it comes down to the doctor’s decision of how much autonomy they give verse how controlling they speak. By allowing open ended questions and allowing the patients to talk so the doctor can listen helps convey autonomy. We feel more comfortable and less stressful when able to have more control and others listen carefully to our needs or problems in this situation. Autonomy is important to growth and satisfaction of our psychological needs. As we look to our current jobs and future work performances, autonomy and having more control over our environment ultimately leads to positive benefits. Our self-worth increases efficacy and helps to lower stress. One study I found revealed the more control in the workforce ultimately lead to decreased stress levels, compared to workers with a more controlled environment. Another psychological need of relatedness shows how we bond and engage in social relationships. The last psychological need in competence surprised me by discussing optimal challenge. They talked about kids who felt the most pleasure doing optimal challenged words when working on anagrams. This really grabbed my attention and helped me understand how it relates to me. If something is too easy, I get bored. If something is too hard, I get overcome with frustrations doing it. There is typically this mediation between the two that the most pleasure is found in performance. The final psychological need of relatedness shows how we bond and engage in social relationships.
I would rate myself as medium on autonomy. I like to have control of things which give me a sense of gratification. Controlling my own decisions and gives me those positive benefits of engagement and self- worth. However, I understand and accept that in school and at work there is only so much autonomy I am allowed. That is just part of life and something I am able to cope with fine. Having others control certain actions doesn’t always frustrate me, and my need for autonomy in certain instances doesn’t need to be at an ultimate high. Competence, I would rate myself as medium as well. I like that optimal level we learned about because that’s what makes me feel best. I like to be challenged in certain things, and others do discourage me. As a former basketball player I can relate to the flow and where I stand on personal skills and the challenge of the situation so I am able to stray away from boredom and in turn find an enjoyment anytime I participate in this activity. Relatedness, on the other hand, I would rate myself as high. When I interact with others I want similar components to who I am. Socially I engage in activities and behaviors with people who I strongly relate to. My family and friends are able to motivate how I act because of how close we share things like similarities.
A specific need that motivates my behavior is relatedness, where I have the highest psychological need.
I have always wanted to have many friends, but am strongly motivated to interact with those who have always been closest to me. By creating socials bonds with my friends and sharing various personality traits, they affect my life decisions and motivate me to act upon their decisions. Without these close relationships I share with those closest to me, I would have a hard time coping with my psychological need for relatedness.
I would guess the fish in the picture trying to escape because it symbolizes all three psychological needs. There is no control in a small fish bowl, so it lacks autonomy. There is no competence because it is bored and has nothing to do. It is unable to relate to other fish and feels a need for a close social bond that it is forced away from.
Terms used: psychological needs, autonomy, competence, relatedness, moment to moment autonomy, self-worth, growth, social relationships, optimal challenge, flow, social bonding.
Chapter 6 summarized the psychological needs competence, relatedness, and autonomy. Autonomy is the ability to decide what we do and what we want to do. Therefore, its a choice we desire and we choose to regulate this behavior. This psychological need is all about having the freedom to choose our own path or direction in life. Autonomy has three qualities that are used to define the experience: perceived locus of causality, volition, and perceived choice. Perceived locus of causality is understanding the source of one's actions where they be external or internal. Volition is the choice to engage in an activity. It centers on those who freely make their own decisions. Lastly, there is perceived choice which is when an individual is presented with various opportunities in their environment and has the choice of which they prefer. However, we learned in this chapter about the conundrum of choice. This term questions whether supervising the choices given to people will provide a sense of autonomy or intrinsic motivation or not. In addition we learned about benefits of autonomy supportive behaviors. For instance, autonomy supportive behaviors within a classroom would be encouraging effort, increase class attendance, and provide a sense of mastery for the individual. Competence is the desire to be effective in interactions we have within our environment and master challenges within this environment. Competence is about providing some sort of challenge that leaves us with a feeling of achievement. Along with competence, comes the term "flow." Flow refers to a state of concentration or absorption in a certain activity. For instance, for me this experience happens to me when I am on Skype with my friends or chatting away on Facebook or the phone. In addition, there is relatedness which is the need to establish close emotional bonds with other people. What I found most surprising was all the different terms within the autonomy section. I didn't realize all the ways that it could be broken down. If I were to rate myself on my needs I would say that all of them rank equally in my life. I think I do desire a high sense of autonomy, however I do enjoy forming close relationships and attachments with people so that could make me high in relatedness. Nevertheless, I do enjoy achieving my goals and tackling tough challenges which relates to the psychological need of competence. As I stated, these levels probably manifest my life on a fairly equal level, depending on the given context I may desire one more than the other. An example of how relatedness relates to my life is when I studied abroad for a year in New Zealand. I was away from all of my family and friends whom I had close attachments to, but since they couldn't be there I was motivated to seek others to fill this void while I was away. In addition, another example of relatedness is when I left home and moved up to college by myself. I did not know many individuals at UNI but was motivated to form close friendships and bonds with those who were in the same position as me. Lastly, I feel the deal with the fish is the need for competence. I feel jumping out of the bowl was a challenge that it mastered. However, it could represent autonomy and the power of "freedom" and "choice" the fish has.
Terms used: Autonomy, competence, relatedness, perceived locus of causality, perceived choice, volition, conundrum of choice, flow, autonomy-support, controlling behaviors, optimal challenge
Chapter 6 goes into detail describing the three psychological needs and why they are important to developing our well-being. These psychological needs are autonomy, competence and relatedness. Autonomy is the sense of self-direction and freedom, or volition. This means that we have a sense of control in our environment. The environment that we are in can either support autonomy or it can be a controlling environment where we feel pressured toward compliance. There are numerous benefits from autonomy such as motivation, engagement, development, learning, performance, and well-being. Another psychological need is competence. Competence is the ability to interact with the environment in such as way that we feel optimal challenge and receive feedback to gage our abilities. This can be positive and increase our competence or it can be a failure that encourages us to keep going and try harder in order to increase competence. Ideally we want to experience flow with the environment so that our personally skill level correlates with the proper challenge level. Lastly, humans strive for relatedness. We need to form close, meaningful relationships with those around us in order to support our psychological well-being. These types of relationships are referred to as communal. When these three psychological needs are meet we feel good and have more positive emotions.
The most surprising thing I learned was that how important autonomy is to our well-being. From our discussion in class, this seems to be the most neglected trait in our current education system. If we could somehow find a way to incorporate autonomy into learning, the benefits would more than out number that of the controlling environment we often find ourselves in on a daily basis.
If I had to rate myself on the three psychological needs I would say I am medium of autonomy and high on competence and relatedness. The reason I would say I am medium on autonomy is I do not have lots of opportunities for choice in school. Teachers have set assignments and do not try and incorporate room for personal interest. I would also rate myself high on competence. I feel that I am challenged both at work and school and that I have adequate skills in order to complete a variety of tasks. Lastly, I would rate myself high in relatedness. I recently read a book that a teacher recommended to me called Strength Finder 2.0 and relatedness was one of my top strengths. I enjoy being around people and I am always up for meeting people at different social settings. It is also very important for me to strengthen the close friendships that I have.
I think that the fish represents breaking free from a controlling environment into an environment that supports autonomy. The fish is refusing to remain in the lonely environment that it resides in with hopes of gaining new opportunities for growth and relatedness.
Terms used: psychological needs, autonomy, competence, relatedness, volition, flow, and communal relationships
Chapter six discusses psychological needs, which are identified in the chapter as growth needs. Psychological needs There are two approaches to psychological needs: organismic and mechanistic. The organismic approach states deals with human interactions with their environment including adaptation, growth, and change. Mechanistic approach states that the environment acts on a person and the person reacts in a automatic or predictable way. The three types of organismic psychological needs introduced were autonomy, competence, and relatedness. The need for autonomy deals with the need to feel in control of what we do, how we do if, and when we do it. In other words, we have a need to determine how we spend our time. The three qualities of autonomy are perceived locus of control, volition, and perceived choice over one’s actions. Perceived locus of control involves determining why you are motivated to do something, so it involves determining the causality of the motivation. Volition deals with how free you feel when doing a task. Perceived choice deals with the idea that people feel like they have a choice when the environment offers opportunities for various choices and flexible decision making opportunities. Competence is the need to interact effectively with our environment, reflecting the desire to grow, display our skills, and seek optimal challenge. Relatedness relates to the need to belong and the desire for social interaction. We want others to acknowledge us and accept us. Personally, I have a very high need for autonomy because I need to feel like I am in control of every aspect in my life. Autonomy is a huge part in my college life. For example, I get to choose what classes I want to take, options for the time and days I want to take certain classes, what my major is, and if I want to attend class or not. I am actually more productive when I have less restrictions and more autonomy. In high school, I didn’t academically do as well because I was told what classes I was going to take, what time my classes were, and would be penalized for missing any classes. Competence is also highly rated in my life, I am interested in things that I succeed and understand and find things I’m not competent in frustrating. For example, I lack competence in math, therefore I avoid math as much as possible. Relatedness is low in my personal life. I feel the need to connect with family members and enjoy socializing with people, but competence and autonomy are much more important to me. I also enjoy traveling a lot which makes it harder to truly connect with individuals other than family members. I believe that one I start my career and am settled in one place that my need for relatedness with increase.
The information that I found to be the most surprising/interesting thing that I learned in chapter six was how to motivate people by being autonomy supportive. The chapter mentioned that in order to be autonomy supportive, an individual must take other peoples perspectives into consideration and value personal growth opportunities during activities. An autonomy supportive motivating style nurtures motivational resources, relies on informational language, provides explanatory rationale, acknowledges and accepts negative affect. Nurturing motivational resources involves nurturing the expressed interests, preferences, and psychological needs of others. Relying on informal language deals with issues such as poor behavior, motivational problems, and poor performance as solvable problems. Providing explanatory rationale provides individuals with the reasoning for the task by explaining the worth, importance, and meaning of the task. Providing explanatory rationale makes people realize that the task isn’t a waste of time, increasing their motivation to complete the task. Acknowledgement and acceptance of negative affect involves listening to the negative affect of others and working with them to solve the negative affect. In other words, you listen to the concerns that people have with a task and work with them on how to solve the conflict/concern.
In regards to the picture of the fish, I believe that the fish is expressing autonomy. The fish is expressing the need for autonomy by deciding that he/she is going to jump out of the fish bowl when he/she feels like it, and because the fish feels like jumping out of the fish bowl. In regards to autonomy, I believe that the fish could also be expressing volition because the fish isn’t pressured and is still willing to engage in the behavior of jumping out of the bowl, expressing a free feeling. Perceived choice could also be tied into the picture because the bowl environment is allowing the fish flexible decision making, the fish can either stay in the bowl or leave the bowl.
Chapter six described the psychological needs of a person. The three most important needs are autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Autonomy is a person’s desire to make their own decisions, do things on their own time, and how they want to do it. The book goes into detail about exerting autonomy in a situation such as supporting autonomy and controlling autonomy through four different ways. By using supporting autonomy we can conduct a productive need fulfilling environment. Many times controlling autonomy pushes people away and decreases their motivation to accomplish something. Next, competence is we perceive our effectiveness in society. We want to accomplish an optimal challenge and receive a flow that continues our drive doing a certain activity. On the other hand, we do not want to outweigh our challenge with our skills creating boredom, or over challenge our skills to create anxiety. Feedback is also important in competence. When we experience good feedback, we are more likely to continue the activity because it fulfills our psychological need. Relatedness is the need to feel accepted and enjoyed by other people. We want to have friends, social interaction, and feel the need of belonging. In order to fulfill this need, we need intimate interactions with people and not merely social interactions. These three needs are important to us because they determine how great of a day we have by giving us psychological nutriments that are essential for a good day.
The most surprising thing to me was when they discussed how students want to be back at school instead of watching TV. I felt the same way this summer. I was ready to come back to school, not to see my friends, but to start classes and start learning again. I found it interesting that other people have the same desire and that there is really psychological need behind that reasoning.
I would rate myself for high in autonomy, medium in competence, and high in relatedness. I tend to be very stubborn and insistent on how, when, and why I do something. I am not a fan of people directing me on how something should happen or why it should happen. I am also very independent on my thinking, and usually like to have control of a situation. For competence, I rate myself as medium because I enjoy a good challenge and am persistent to figure it out, but it has to be something I am interested in or that matters. Other times, when things are too overwhelming or isn’t interesting, I tend to give up on the situation. I rate myself high in relatedness because my favorite part of the day is meeting new people. I strive to make friends and establish a bond with people in some way. Reflecting back, I find that many of my best days deal with people that I am intimate with whether it is a simple conversation with someone I haven’t seen for awhile or actually hanging out with that person.
Relatedness influences my actions a lot. I am a huge people person and love the interaction with people. I often find myself joining too many organizations, or signing myself up for way more than I can handle because I love the idea of getting to know more people. I also enjoy building the bond with people, so I continue to find ways to relate to others.
I think the fish in the picture acquired all his psychological nutriments during the day. He was over excited and jumped a little father than planned.
Terms: Psychological needs, autonomy, supporting autonomy, controlling autonomy, competence, flow, optimal challenge, feedback, relatedness, psychological nutriments.
Chapter 6 was about these three psychological needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. A psychological need is an inherently interesting and enjoyable activity we do. When an activity satisfies our psychological needs, we feel enjoyment and interest. Autonomy is the need to experience self-direction and personal endorsement in the initiation and regulation of one’s behavior. When an individual seeks to be autonomous he or she wants to decide for themselves how they should spend their time. Behavior is autonomous when interests, preferences, and wants guide our decision-making process to engage in or not to engage in a particular activity. There are three subjective qualities within the experience of autonomy. First, there is internal perceived locus of causality, which is an individual’s understanding of the causal source of his or her motivated actions. Then there is volition or feeling free, which is an unpressured willingness to engage in an activity. Lastly, there is perceived choice over one’s actions, which implies that we have choice over our actions. Competence is the psychological need to be effective in interactions with the environment, and it reflects the desire to exercise one’s capacities and skills. One experience that follows competence is flow, which is a state of concentration that involves a holistic absorption in an activity. When people are doing an activity that they enjoy doing, they often will experience flow and may not realize how much time has gone by because they are enjoying themselves so much. Relatedness is the need to establish close emotional bonds and attachments with other people, and it reflects the desire to be emotionally connected to and interpersonally involved with others in warm, caring relationships. This is what makes us feel as if we belong. There are three psychological nutriments that make for a good day. They include daily autonomy, daily competence, and daily relatedness.
The most surprising thing that I learned was the difference between autonomy-supportive and autonomy-controlling people. I was surprised when I was reading this because I had never thought of there being two types of autonomy used to motivate people. For example, autonomy-supportive people say and do the following: listen carefully, encourage effort, ask others what they want to do, respond to questions, and acknowledge the others’ perspective. On the other hand autonomy-controlling people say and do this: show/tell correct answers to problems, use commands, should/must/have to statements, ask controlling questions, and seem demanding.
I would rate myself as high in autonomy, medium in competence, and medium in relatedness. I would say I am high in autonomy because I do not like deadlines or schedules. I like to do things in my own time and how I want. That is not always possible in college. There are a lot of assignments and tests due at specific times, and you must follow your schedule otherwise you will get behind in your classes. I rated my competence as medium because I like to exercise my skills and feel successful when I do well on something, whether it is on a test or high performance at work. I rated myself as medium in relatedness because I like to spend time and interact with people, whether it is my friends, family, or co-workers. The reason I did not rate myself as high in relatedness is because there are times when I enjoy have alone time. Competence motivates me when I do not do something to the best of my abilities, such as when I do not have high performance at work. Since I like to be good at what I do, I do not like to fail. When I fail I am motivated to fix my mistake, and do better the next time.
I think the fish picture relates to this chapter because since the fish is trapped in a tiny fish bowl it does not have autonomy to spend it’s time how it may want to if it was in a bigger area, such as a pond. The fish also does not have any other fish to spend time with in its’ bowl so the fish is not experiencing relatedness.
Terms: psychological needs, autonomy, competence, relatedness, internal perceived locus, volition, flow
Chapter six focuses on the Psychological Needs of Autonomy, Competence, and Relatedness, which are considered “growth” needs (rather than “deficit” needs like hunger, thirst, etc.) because they motivate exploration and challenge seeking. In order for a person to experience “engagement,” or a synthesis of the three Psychological Needs being met, motivation techniques such as offering autonomy support (by allowing others to work in their own way and to “nurture” intrinsic motivation), providing a structure/scaffolding/framework to help guide others toward their own success (fostering competence), and nurturing the need for relatedness by sharing our time, interest, and emotional support.
The most surprising/interesting thing from the chapter is that “relatedness” is as equally important a psychological need as autonomy and competence – and that “communal” relationships are necessary to satisfy the need to feel connected (superficial “exchange” relationships don’t cut it). “Emotions such as sadness, depression, jealousy, and loneliness exist as telltale signs of a life lived in the absence of intimate, high-quality, relatedness-satisfying relationships and social bonds” (p. 163). It seems as if this could be the “tipping point” of the depression epidemic.
Of the three Psychological Needs, I rank highest in the area of Autonomy. I am self-driven and feel that I am motivated to do things in order to meet my own personal values, goals, and interests. Even within someone else’s framework, I am able to personalize the task to make it beneficial to my well-being in some way. Coming in a close second would be the need for competence. Like most people, I don’t enjoy participating in tasks that I’m not good at, and while I welcome challenges, I have a tendency to feel defensive or critical in situations where I’m faced with “negative affect.” Luckily, I pick up on things easily, and I’ve learned to let things go if they are too far out of my realm of competence. Staggering across the line in third place is my need for relatedness. This is by far one of my least-met needs. I’ve always been surrounded by friends, but never felt like any of them really “knew/know” me. I wonder if my overwhelming attitude of independence (perhaps stemming from my high sense of autonomy and competence) is intimidating to others, or if “I” see the need for relatedness as a weakness. I am often disappointed that I am so willing of offer so much to others but then don’t receive the closeness/bond/intimacy that I would expect in return or as a result. I then get the attitude of “Well, I didn’t need them anyway!” and become more and more bitter and jaded. Hmm…an interesting analysis there.
I'm not quite sure HOW the picture of the fish relates to this chapter! The fishbowl may be too confining and not offering the fish the challenges it needs to develop a greater sense of competence, but it DOES offer an appropriate amount of structure in order to survive (good luck staying alive outside of the bowl there buddy).
Terms: Autonomy, Competence, Relatedness, intrinsic motivation, communal relationships, exchange relationships, negative affect, intimacy
Chapter six focuses on the Psychological Needs of Autonomy, Competence, and Relatedness, which are considered “growth” needs (rather than “deficit” needs like hunger, thirst, etc.) because they motivate exploration and challenge seeking. In order for a person to experience “engagement,” or a synthesis of the three Psychological Needs being met, motivation techniques such as offering autonomy support (by allowing others to work in their own way and to “nurture” intrinsic motivation), providing a structure/scaffolding/framework to help guide others toward their own success (fostering competence), and nurturing the need for relatedness by sharing our time, interest, and emotional support.
The most surprising/interesting thing from the chapter is that “relatedness” is as equally important a psychological need as autonomy and competence – and that “communal” relationships are necessary to satisfy the need to feel connected (superficial “exchange” relationships don’t cut it). “Emotions such as sadness, depression, jealousy, and loneliness exist as telltale signs of a life lived in the absence of intimate, high-quality, relatedness-satisfying relationships and social bonds” (p. 163). It seems as if this could be the “tipping point” of the depression epidemic.
Of the three Psychological Needs, I rank highest in the area of Autonomy. I am self-driven and feel that I am motivated to do things in order to meet my own personal values, goals, and interests. Even within someone else’s framework, I am able to personalize the task to make it beneficial to my well-being in some way. Coming in a close second would be the need for competence. Like most people, I don’t enjoy participating in tasks that I’m not good at, and while I welcome challenges, I have a tendency to feel defensive or critical in situations where I’m faced with “negative affect.” Luckily, I pick up on things easily, and I’ve learned to let things go if they are too far out of my realm of competence. Staggering across the line in third place is my need for relatedness. This is by far one of my least-met needs. I’ve always been surrounded by friends, but never felt like any of them really “knew/know” me. I wonder if my overwhelming attitude of independence (perhaps stemming from my high sense of autonomy and competence) is intimidating to others, or if “I” see the need for relatedness as a weakness. I am often disappointed that I am so willing of offer so much to others but then don’t receive the closeness/bond/intimacy that I would expect in return or as a result. I then get the attitude of “Well, I didn’t need them anyway!” and become more and more bitter and jaded. Hmm…an interesting analysis there.
I'm not quite sure HOW the picture of the fish relates to this chapter! The fishbowl may be too confining and not offering the fish the challenges it needs to develop a greater sense of competence, but it DOES offer an appropriate amount of structure in order to survive (good luck staying alive outside of the bowl there buddy).
Terms: Autonomy, Competence, Relatedness, intrinsic motivation, communal relationships, exchange relationships, negative affect, intimacy
Chapter 6 discusses the basics of psychological needs (duh) which are autonomy, competence, and relatedness. These needs are different from physiological needs in that they are proactive rather than reactive; physiological needs occur in reaction to a biological deficit whereas psychological needs are growth needs.
The first need, autonomy, is essentially a need for agency. We want to make decisions for ourselves and have flexibility in those decisions. We want those decisions to reflect our own desires and personalities. Perceived autonomy is also important, especially since there are many situations in life where we don't have full autonomy. Someone could have an autonomy-supportive motivating style or a controlling motivating style. People with autonomy-supportive motivating styles nurture others' inner motivational resources, rely on informational language, provide explanatory rationales and acknowledge and accept negative affect in others. There is a multitude of benefits that can come out of autonomy-supportive motivation.
Competence was the next psychological need discussed in the text. It is the need to effectively interact with the environment, to exercise your capacities and skills, and to seek out and master optimal challenges, to paraphrase the book a bit. Flow is important as a state of concentration--the "zone" that people get into when they do something enjoyable and motivating.
Relatedness is the need and desire to be connected with and close to others, and to have positive relationships in one's life. One type of relationships, communal, satisfies the relatedness need because they are close, caring relationships. Exchange relationships--those between people doing business together or simple acquaintances--do not satisfy the relatedness need. There is no "need" to be concerned with the other person's well-being.
When these three psychological needs are addressed in the environment through autonomy support, structure (competence) and involvement (relatedness), the result is engagement, behaviorally, emotionally, cognitively, and vocally. Also, the satisfaction of these three needs together, along with circumstances to a certain degree, tends to result in a "good day" for an individual.
I think the latter item was probably the most surprising thing I learned because I'd never thought about "good days" as being a result of much more than good things happening to you, and/or a lack of bad things going on in your life.
I'm probably medium in autonomy, higher in competence, and highest in relatedness in terms of my own needs. These things are all important to me, but when something impacts my autonomy (e.g., a supervisor makes an "executive decision" about my work schedule), I tend to roll with the punches. Or, in the case of a class led by a professor with a controlling motivational style, I roll my eyes and get on with it. My relatedness need is reflected by the fact that I take special care to cultivate all my close relationships and struggle a lot internally if I experience interpersonal conflict within them. I spend a lot of time keeping in touch with my friends and family and a lot of resources (time, money, patience) on these relationships, often without realizing it.
I like the fish picture. It's playful. So without making up an answer that would sound contrived to me, I'm going to say it could represent the intrinsic motivation and joy of things like play.
Terms used: psychological needs, autonomy, competence, relatedness, autonomy support, organism, perceived autonomy, volition, internal perceived locus of causality, optimal challenge, flow, failure tolerance, engagement, internalization, vitality
The chapter broke down the psychological needs of motivation as competence (the ability to use knowledge efficiently and complete challenges), relatedness (not just social but close inmate bonds), and autonomy (having control over yourself/behaviors).
There was really only one section that made me want to read it again so that I knew that I read it correctly. On page 163 where it talks about that it is the quality of relationships that count and not how many people we know (or friends on Facebook we have). To keep from feeling lonely we require deep personal relationships with someone/people to fulfill our relatedness aspect of our psychological needs.
If I had to rate myself one the three psychological needs, my ratings would be: Autonomy; medium/high. I feel as if I control my own schedule (work and school) and I that I have a say in what I do next as far as a timeline for getting things done. At work especially, I work at my own pace and I do what I need to do but I also determine how much extra I get done in a night. Competence; medium. Academically speaking I think I am challenged enough and that I am producing work that is satisfactory. But as far as side projects go, I would have to rate that a low. The stuff I could do over the summer (drawing, scrapbooking, recording my run times) I just don’t have time to sit down (or jump on the treadmill) and do. There are just other more important things I need to get done so the extra stuff just gets pushed off to the sides. Relatedness; medium/high. Thank goodness for school! Over the summer most of the people I know are out of town or in another part of the country. I also work so much over the summer that I just don’t have the schedule or energy to go hang out at a friend’s house. But during school I see a lot more people on a daily basis and I work less so I have more energy consistently throughout the week.
The one psychological need that motivates some of my specific behaviors would be competence. I used to struggle a lot when I was very young because I didn’t learn the way everyone else in my class did. But because I became so accustomed to working so hard, high school was not as hard as it could have been. Now that I am in college, I see things like writing papers and projects and another challenge to concur. I know I can do a lot of good work because in high school I had to do a lot of similar things that I am doing now. Except I enjoy it a lot more.
The first thought that comes to mind is that the fish isn’t trying to escape from my sister because the bowl was clean and not full of snail babies.
List of Terms: Psychological Needs, Motivation, Competence, Challenge, and Relationships
This chapter was all about the psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Autonomy is the need to experience self-direction and personal choice in the starting and regulating of one’s behavior. Competence is the need to feel effective in interacting with the environment while using one’s capacities while seeking out and mastering optimal challenges. Relatedness is the need to have deep, meaningful relationships with others. When all of these psychological needs are met, one’s psychological nutrients are nourished and a good (I would actually say a GREAT) day is had.
Having just any type of social interaction does not fuel the need for relatedness, nor does just being around other people. The relatedness need is nourished when close emotional bonds are formed with other people. These relationships must be communal (reciprocated), and not exchange, relationships for the need to be quenched.
Autonomy = I would rate myself as being on a medium-high level in this need. I feel like I have high levels of Internal Perceived Locus of Causality and Perceived Choice Over One’s Actions, but I don’t feel very high in Volition most of the time. Part of me would like to just take off and go traveling, but I also feel like I don’t have the choice to do that. I know I ultimately have the choice in matters (there will just be consequences for each decision I make), but my duties and responsibilities (and perhaps my other needs of competence and relatedness, also) keep me from acting in ways that will support Volition.
Competence = I would rate myself as being on a high level in this need. I have had a lot of support for this need growing up. I am also pretty competitive, and definitely seek our and wish to master optimal challenges.
Relatedness = I would rate myself as being on a medium-high level in this need. I am very blessed to have such wonderful family and friends in my life. I honor and respect the relationships I’ve built with others. Even though I feel very high in this need, most of the time I feel like I could always use more emotional bonds to “fill” me up. I am a very emotion-driven person, and wonder if my need for relatedness is weighted more than my other psychological needs, or are the need weights equally distributed? I think I need more relatedness. Time and time again I open myself up to others, hoping for a blooming friendship (or romantic relationship). Is there also the need for failure in order to learn in this need, as with competence? Is that why I continue to seek these bonding relationships, even when I am on a pretty high level already?
If I had to make a guess, I’d say that the fish felt its needs were not being met, and so decided to leave the environment in which it was in, in order to seek out fulfilling those psychological needs. There are no other fishes in the fish bowl, so its relatedness need is not being met; and there are no props in the bowl for the fish to swim in and around to support its need for competence. The fish is exerting its perceived sense of control by jumping out of the bowl in search of meeting its other psychological needs.
Terms used: Psychological needs, autonomy, competence, relatedness, communal and exchange relationships, Internal Perceived Locus of Causality, Perceived Choice Over One’s Actions, Volition, optimal challenges, support
Chapter 6 discussed the different psychological needs: autonomy, competence and relatedness. Autonomy was essentially defined as the ability to make your own choices, regulate your behavior (i.e. how long said behavior lasts, when it starts, etc), and to endorse decisions. The textbook defines it as the need to explore self-direction and personal endorsement in the initiation and regulation of one’s behavior. So essentially what I just said, but in prettier language. Competency is the need to feel useful or good at something. Or according to the textbook, the need to interact effectively with the environment. To help illustrate this, the book talked about optimal challenging. Optimal challenging is the ideal challenge level to experience ‘flow.’ If something was too easy for someone, he or she would be bored or apathetic. If it was too hard, overwhelmed and frustrated. When one’s skill level is correlated to the level of challenge presented by the task, a ‘flow’ experience is felt. Relatedness is one’s relationships with other people such as family, friends, and anyone else in one’s life. In the words of the textbook, “the need to establish close emotional bonds and attachments with other people, and it reflects the desire to be emotionally connected to and interpersonally involved with others in warm, caring relationships.”
I would rate myself as fairly high in all three categories. I absolutely loathe dependency on any other person or not being allowed to make, or at least contribute to making, decisions. I work much better on my own without being nagged or pushed into accomplishing something. For example, in class today Dr. Maclin mentioned that we have more ‘perceived autonomy’ than most classes. This seems to be affecting me quite a bit, as I find myself actually reading the entirety of the material, in depth, and NOT twenty minutes before a blog post is do. Also, the fact that we got to pick a book for our report was especially exciting for me as I had just recently bought The Help, but was unsure when I would get to read it. Which, if any of you were paying attention, was the cause for my exhilaration and excitement upon seeing the list of the possible books in class.
Also, I love challenges and tend to work best when under pressure or when faced with a challenge of some sort. Mindnumbing tasks I try to avoid as much as possible; those are also the one’s I procrastinate most on during my school career. I hate with an absolute passion putting values into spreadsheets, that’s beyond boring. However, I do enjoy writing and proofreading others’ writing. This is a challenge sometimes, because I want to write clearly and not ramble. I also enjoy mid-level algebra, because while it is challenging I can figure it out, which makes me feel smart. Anything higher than Algebra 2 though, I do not like. At all. In any way, shape or form. It’s frustrating and doesn’t make sense (at least with my teacher for it, whom I did not get along with). Also, the structure is one part of competency I need. I hate, loathe, abhor, dislike, every negative word you can think of, ambiguity. I truly struggle without clear directions. Part of this is that in some classes I only want to do enough to get an ‘A’, but that’s not always the case. If I don’t know EXACTLY what’s required of me, I tend to go above and beyond the call of duty, because I want to be sure I have all my bases covered. That being said, I sometimes tend to put in all my effort into something I THINK is covered by the directions, but the professor or instructor later disagrees. It’s rather a disheartening feeling. I shudder every time a teacher mentions a lack of direction, and am always one to ask questions until I know exactly what is expected of me.
Relatedness is probably the most relevant of the psychological needs to my life. People are who I live for. I tend to put my friends above getting my homework done. That’s not in a ‘let’s hang out and watch a movie’ type of way, but rather in making sure their days went well and having life chats if need be. My friends are the ones who motivate me and truly have made my life enjoyable to live. Some specific behaviors motivated by ‘relatedness’ is my refusal to turn my phone on silent when sleeping; I keep it on so if a friend is in need I can help. I also go out of my way to listen to close friends and to make their lives easier. Also, as I’m a fairly, and by fairly I mean very, bullheaded person, I don’t listen to very many people. My friends, however, remind me to be healthy, save money, and sleep, among various other important things. I can’t really explain much more, but my friends, my close ones, are really at the top of my priorities.
The fish doesn’t really make sense to me. If I had to venture a guess (which I do), I would say that the fish is going stir crazy, because it really isn’t fulfilling any of the psychological needs. It has no autonomy as it cannot decide where it wants to go or what it wants to do (there is nothing TO do). It probably doesn’t feel competent as the extent of its life is swimming in circles. And there is no other fish, or creature for that matter, for it to relate to. Of course, this is all assuming the fish has similar needs to that of a human. Big assumption if you ask me. But I suppose it’s a symbol representing the aforementioned psychological needs and the lack of fulfillment.
Autonomy, competency, relatedness, psychological need, optimal challenging
This chapter focuses on the topic of psychological needs, which promote the willingness to seek out and engage in an environment that we expect will be able to nurture our said needs. There are three different categories of needs that are discussed in this chapter, autonomy, competence and relatedness. These needs sometimes referred to as organismic needs, as it an organism must engage in its environment to receive the necessary things to survive, and the differing theories surrounding them. Autonomy is the psychological need to experience self-direction and personal endorsement in the initiation and regulation of one’s behaviors, aka the ability to make our choices give us autonomy. When not given such choices and put in controlling situations and settings, our autonomy is restricted and sometimes compromised. Competence is the psychological need to be effective in interactions with the environment and it reflects in the desire to exercise one’s capabilities and skills which allows us to seek out mastery of challenges we face. This in turn means that there is a willingness to seek challenges and succeed with positive feedback and perception of progress. Relatedness coincides with human beings need to belong, the desire to for relationships with individuals that may extend to groups, organizations and communities. Relatedness is the need to establish close emotional bond and positive attachments to people. All these needs need to be met in order for an individual person to be happy in their life and environment. Having all these needs met actually equals a good day.
An interesting thing I found while reading this chapter, was actually in the first few pages. I found both theories interesting but more so the mechanistic theory. Mechanistic theory meaning, the environment acts on the person and the person reacts. It hadn’t occurred to be that the environment affects us as much as we affect our environment. I mean I always knew in a way that, but to actually be aware that there is a theory on that sequence of interactions. I see it every day really, now that I step back a bit and watch it unfold. I find it interesting to the extent that the environment influences as such advanced creatures from the simplest things to the more advanced.
As for the rating on my needs, well, for my need for autonomy, well I would probably rate myself on high need for it. I’m a creative person by nature and like the flexibility of making my own choices and decisions on things, especially art and in ways I can express it. Though at the same time when given too much choice I can grow indecisive; like what I want for dinner, when I say ‘I don’t know,’ let’s just say it drives my mother nuts. I do however like flexible choices however need a bit of structure to guide me, especially in school papers and such. For competence, well, I probably rate myself as mid, as I do like challenges, when faced with relatively hard ones they seem to give me grief then sense of achievement and I’m just glad they are over. I find this often with school as I’m challenged constantly by it, but when I succeed I do feel a sense of achievement. However, that’s not always the case; I’m currently facing that competence challenge in a class I’m taking this semester. Relatedness, I would also have to rate myself on mid, as I do desire close warm relationships, I do not require a lot of said relationships. I don’t have a wide circle of friends, but rather I have a few very close-nit unit of friends that I deeply relate to on many different levels, not to mention I have deep sense of relatedness with my family. I’m not a person that needs constant companionship, but I still wouldn’t be happy without that relatedness. As I’ve gone through a point in life that when I didn’t have any of those relationships, it was not a pretty time in my life.
For the specific psychological need, I thought competence would work well in the school setting as I’m currently at school and away from home. My level of competence motivates me to sit down and do my homework right now. I am well aware that I have to put forth the effort to learn or I will learn nothing. The grades I earn are not simply me just flowing through class day to day, but take full attention, note taking and studying. I’ve always had to work at studying and getting my grades, I like to think that it has better benefited me in the end. I’ve learned good work ethic and learned not to procrastinate too badly. Though there are draw backs, and bumps in the road, I have overcome most challenges and felt like I had positive feedback at least from the knowledge I still learned from those classes.
Terms: psychological needs, autonomy, competence and relatedness, organismic needs, Mechanistic theory, motivate
This chapter focused on three main terms and how they relate to psychological needs. These three concepts are autonomy, competence and relatedness. Autonomy refers to having control and self-direction in behavior. This could include deciding when and when not to go to class or read the book. People’s autonomy most often depends on the environment. If the environment is supportive instead of controlling they will feel as if they have more autonomy. One key component of autonomy is that it is okay and important to encounter negative affect. This will lead to more positive outcomes. The second concept is Competence. This refers to an individual’s desire to implement his or her skills and capacities and strive for optimal challenges. Flow is a term that relates to competence. Flow is a state that is defined as having maximum enjoyment, full on concentration and being absorbed in one task. The result can lead to time flying by very quickly. Finally is relatedness. This refers to need to create close relationships with other people. It is very important for the people involved to both be caring and like each other.
The most surprising thing I learned was that people need to be given autonomy. This will lead to better outcomes, especially for children in the educational system.
I would probably rate myself as medium for autonomy. Because I am a college student I get to choose the classes I take as well as the schedule I want. It would be high if I could choose what types of materials I learn, but I prefer having some direction so I am happy at medium! For competence I would probably be high. I really like to push myself and learn as much as I can. I know that next year when I go to graduate school I will need to have the knowledge that I am being taught now so I believe that increases my level of competence. For relatedness I would probably be low. I think I could improve this to medium if I was more outgoing in class and interacted with my fellow classmates. However, in my personal life I would rate myself as high because when I get to know someone I open up completely.
I believe that I am motivated differently for each. When it comes to autonomy if some of it was taken away I know that I would struggle to engage. I perform much better when I get some choice in the matter or I am at least told why I am doing a certain behavior. Relatedness is important to me in the fact that I care about what other people think, but I don’t think it is any more important in my life then the other two. Competence is important because without it, I would probably not be at college!
I believe the fish has been restricted on his autonomy as well as relatedness. There are no other fish with him so he is all alone. He probably is so sick of it that he decides to jump out. Also, he had been stuck in the bowl for quite some time so he wants to explore as much autonomy as possible.
TERMS: Psychological needs, autonomy, competence, relatedness, negative affect, flow, optimal challenges,
Chapter 6 focused on the psychological needs as a driving force behind motivation. These psychological needs are summarized by three focal points; autonomy, competence, and relatedness. I was most interested by what we discussed in class about using all three of these to be an effective teacher. The difference between autonomy supportive and controlling methods of teaching seems so blatantly obvious that it is frustrating to see controlling tactics used in so many of my classes. It's like what I think about my current job; if you treat your subjects like children, they will act as such. If students aren't given some autonomy in learning how are we supposed to desire competence and optimal challenge? Constantly having a guide for my exact behavior and performance is boring. Classes that push students to try out new ways of thinking and interacting in a classroom have a long way to go to find acceptance in the general public, but with the right methodology and research to back it up there could be real changes in the next few decades (though, really, not soon enough). Mainly, the managing of negative affect struck me as a neat thing to try and address as an educator.
I would rate myself as high on need for competence, I enjoy feeling as though I am mastering a skill or ability when I do things. I also love having a structured environment with feedback. For example, classes that offer autonomy are great until they lose their structure. Then, class becomes chaos and it is hard to find a place to stand, much less get quality feedback. I know autonomy is separate from the concepts of structure and feedback, since those relate to competence. In assessing my psychological needs however, they feel intertwined. Autonomy is also fairly high for me, being related to competence. Without some amount of autonomy, it becomes hard to care about the competence factor.
My relatedness would be at a medium level, since I really enjoy interaction with others but I can also do fairly well without it for periods of time. This is a part of my life since I love to talk with my classmates and other people I meet on and off campus, small talk becomes a mood booster that helps me keep a healthy state of mind. This desire for basic human interaction has motivated me to have certain behaviors, such as complimenting strangers or making casual and polite conversation with people around me. Other times, I am motivated to persist in making conversation with this person each time I see them because I would like to make a social bond so that I can have a more communal relationship. Because of my need for relatedness I seek out situations where I can perform these behaviors in an acceptable way.
The fish in the picture obviously has psychological needs that aren't being met. At first, one might say it is looking for other fish in its need for relatedness, but I think that implies too much anthropomorphism. The fish's possible cognitive process probably involves a large need for autonomy and some level of competence. Its bowl is sparse and boring. It is looking for a challenge, something new to escape to. It also desires freedom from its environment, leaping from the bowl to find something else around. All of this relates because this fish probably has psychological needs, just in a smaller way than we do.
psychological needs, autonomy, competence, relatedness, autonomy supportive, controlling, optimal challenge, negative affect, mastering, structure, feedback, social bond, communal relationship.
Chapter 6 was all about the psychological needs of people and focused on three needs autonomy, competence, and relatedness. They begin to talk about the organismic and mechanistic. Organismic needs are how we use our environment to hone our skills, adapt and developing new interests. Mechanistic is how our body automatically interacts with the environment, for instance when it gets hot out our body starts to sweat and when we start to sweat we lose water, which make us to want to search for water.
To begin discussing about the three needs I’ll start with autonomy. Autonomy is the feel that we have a choice and have decision-making flexibility. You can also break autonomy into three other subcategories, which are perceived locus of causality, volition, perceived choice. Perceived locus of causality refers to an individual’s understanding of the causal source of his or her motivated actions. Volition is an unpressured willingness to engage in an activity. Perceived choice refers to that sense of choice we experience when we find ourselves in environments that provide us with decision-making flexibility that affords us many opportunities from which to choose. Then, for the second psychological need is competence, which is everyone’s desire to interact effectively with their surroundings, and this desire connects to all aspects of our lives like school, work, in relationships, and during recreation and sports. And a concept that works in this need, would be challenge and flow. Challenge is something that we do for experience and to get better at. Flow is a state of concentration that involves a holistic absorption and deep involvement. Basically this idea is that we challenge ourselves till we get to a flow that is the task is easier and then we keep challenging ourselves to keep us pushing through our limitations. Last of the needs are relatedness, which means we like to fit in with our peers with social interactions and similar likes and values.
Probably the thing I was surprised about is how true that how much people need autonomy because I believe that if people don’t have any autonomy over things in their life it can make things much more miserable to deal with and the feel that your opinion is crap. I would say I’m between medium and low because some days I feel like nothing can get in my way and that I want to take on every challenge and some days I just want everything to run easy and smooth and just let someone else take care of it. And that days I want to hang out and see everyone, and other days I just need my “me time” and everyone needs to go away. The psychological need I feel is most prevalent in my life is competence and the challenge and flow idea. Because I have an older brother and I feel that if I get a college degree and better job than him I’ve won the never ending battle of which one is the better one. To accomplish that, I challenge myself with doing the best I can on tests and getting to know the material for a class, so I can in the end get my flow and start to get into the routine of everything getting easier. I believe that there could be multiple reasons why the fish is escaping the bowl, for instance maybe he feels like he can’t control the distance of how far he wants to swim. Also, he feels like his bowl doesn’t satisfy his need for competence and wants to find something to challenge him or maybe he hates being alone and so he wants to leave and find another fish he can interact with.
Terms: Organismic needs, Mechanistic needs, autonomy, Perceived locus of causality, volition, perceived choice, competence, challenge and flow, relatedness.
This chapter discusses psychological needs and the components that make up our psychological needs. The chapter defines a psychological need as an, “inherent source of motivation to interact within the environment”. According to the chapter within the book, there are three components, which make up our psychological needs; these components are autonomy, competence and relatedness.
Autonomy is discussed in the book as human beings having a desire to make choices and decisions regarding their life. In other words, we want to spend our time doing what we have an interest in. Our perceived autonomy is characterized by three main components, internal perceived locus of causality, volition and perceived choice over one’s actions. Perceived locus of causality is understanding the cause and effect of one’s own actions. Perceived locus of causality can be seen as being both internal and external (internal being the motivational reason underlying an action is out of interest or value, while external is when the underlying motivational reason for an action is due to us interacting with some force within our environment). Autonomy’s second component is that of volition which is the unpressured willingness to perform an activity. This can be seen in both approach behaviors and avoidance behaviors to a certain activity (i.e. wanting to do something you have an interest in, such as exercising, vs. avoiding an activity you do not want to do such as smoking). The third component of autonomy is that of perceived choice, which is when we are placed into an environment that allows us flexibility in making decisions over what we do (being presented with many opportunities for us to choose what we want to do). From here, the chapter moves into different types of motivational styles, such as autonomy support vs. controlling motivational styles. Controlling situations are when an individual is pressured into a choice (or straight up not given one) towards a specific outcome with the individual being extrinsically motivated to achieve that outcome. It is found that this will often deaden intrinsic motivation for an activity (which can be a disadvantage, because intrinsically motivated individuals are often times found to perform better than those in controlling situations). Autonomy-supportive motivating styles often times try to take the other individuals perspective and value personal growth within the activity by trying to intrinsically motivate an individual through their interests.
From here the chapter moves into the psychological need of competence, that is, an individuals desire to interact effectively with their environment. As humans we have a need to want to grow and enhance our skills and talents in order to achieve mastery. From here the book goes into what I believed was the most interesting thing I learned form the chapter and that was the concept of “flow”. Flow is defined as a state of concentration that involves a holistic absorption and deep involvement in an activity. Flow presents itself in a situation where both challenge and skill are at a moderately high or high level. Being over-challenged (too much of a challenge present for the individuals skill level) can present a loss in the feeling in competence and can cause anxiety upon an individual, however, when the task is not challenging enough for an individual who has a high amount of skill at a task they often find themselves very bored with the task. I myself believe that I experience flow on a day-to-day basis with my guitar and piano playing and that is why I find the subject so interesting in order for me to find out how I can get myself to grow as a more skilled musician.
The final psychological need listed in the book is that of relatedness. Human beings are social creatures, so we all have a desire to belong in warm and close relationships with individuals. This is known as relatedness, the need to establish close emotional attachments and become emotionally connected with these individuals. When we as humans do not have this need met we often times exhibit emotional states such as sadness, jealousy, depression and loneliness. The chapter discusses the two types of relationships we can form with individuals, exchange and communal relationships. Exchange relationships are often times relationships between acquaintances or relationships created for business. Communal relationships are relationships between friends, families and romantic partners, who generally care about the welfare and well being of the other individual in the relationship.
If I would have to rate myself as high, medium and low in these three areas of psychological needs I would rate myself as high in autonomy, high in competence and low in the area of relatedness. The reason being is that I like to experience a lot of freedom in my day-to-day experiences (I just don’t see the point in somebody trying to be controlling in my actions as long as I understand the causality of my actions). I feel as though being a musician I also have a high need for competence musically as I strive to achieve a level of mastery in music as it tends to give me a feeling of self-worth. I find that I tend to also have a low level or relatedness, simply because I not only hold a belief that people tend to slow me down in achieving what I want out of life, but I also find that the relationships that I do have with the few individuals that I associate myself with are more than enough for me. Again I would have to say that competence motivates a lot of my specific behaviors. Some days I may feel like I am being too challenged musically and I may have a lot of anxiety within myself for quite possibly the rest of the day or possibly even into the next day. This can tend to create problems in other areas of my life when I feel I am left to go about the rest of the day with high levels of anxiety, however, I still strive for that happiness I get out of playing everyday in order to constantly strive for and experience flow.
I would say that the fish picture relates to the chapter in dealing with the need of autonomy for an individual. The fish seems to be free in making a decision for itself (even though it may lack a perceived locus of causality) and probably did so because it felt high volition and felt free to engage in the action of jumping out of it’s own bowl (once again with a low perceived locus of causality for it’s actions)
Terms used
Psychological Need
Autonomy
Competence
Relatedness
Perceived Locus of Causality
Volition
Perceived Choice
Autonomy-Supportive
Controlling
Flow
Exchange Relationships
Communal Relationships
This chapter talks about psychological needs. They are proactive, growth needs as opposed to reactive biological sustenance type needs from the previous chapter. Psychological needs occur in as organismic theories that adjust to their environment and have interaction between the person and environment in the person-environment dialectic. The first psychological need is autonomy; we want to make our own choices in what we do and how we do it, for how long and at what time. The more details we can control, the more autonomy we have. Only true choices increase autonomy, choices that are between options given by someone else tend to have little or no positive impact on autonomy. People can support autonomy in others by nurturing inner motivations, uses flexible, informational language, explains reasoning behind actions, and accepts negative affect. Competence is the second psychological need; feeling good about oneself and effective performance and interactions with ones environment. Performing in situations where the skill level and challenge level are similar creates a feeling of flow and high competence. Lastly, the third psychological need is relatedness; the need to belong and have meaningful social interactions and emotional bonds. People tend to function better generally when they have close relationships and their need for relatedness is met. The interaction relatedness provides gives access to internalization, internalizing beliefs previously externally held. When all three needs have been met, an individual may be more highly engaged than when they are not satisfied in the psychological need department. Also, an overall good day tends to be had when all three needs are met.
The most surprising thing I read was the study done that showed people having more enjoyment at work than when watching t.v. or during leisure time. The challenge there is what causes that and I suppose it makes sense. If your work or school challenges you, you may end up enjoying it if your skill levels match while there isn’t really skill related with watching t.v.
I would consider myself medium on the scale for autonomy. I didn’t really have a choice in whether or not I went to college and I have a certain set of classes I must take to graduate with the degree I got to choose. There is some choice of classes in that field though that can be limited by scheduling date and times of courses. I can choose what I buy with my (extra) money though I have to work for it and cannot choose when I work or for how long. I have many choices in my life and many things that I cannot choose, as well. For competence, I would rate myself high. Relatedness I would rate myself at medium. My boyfriend lives an hour away and I don’t get to see him as often as either of us would like. My closest friends do not live near to me anymore since going to college and I would rather see them than people I don’t know as well. I choose to spend time with those near me only when I crave company as they are more like exchange relationships.
The fish picture doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. There could be a massive amount of ways to describe it so I’ll just say that his psychological needs were not being met inside his sad little bowl. He gave himself some autonomy; he made the choice to jump out into the unknown looking area around him. He obviously wasn’t getting anything in terms of relatedness and there doesn’t seem to be much to validate his competence in the bowl by himself. So, he jumped out.
Terms: psychological needs, organismic theory, person-environment dialectic, autonomy, competence, flow, relatedness, internalization, engagement, exchange relationship
Chapter six revolves around the idea that the three psychological needs (autonomy, competence, and relatedness) motivate us to fulfill the needs. Autonomy is the need to be in control of one's behavior and actions. Competence involves one's capabilities and skills and the ability to use those to master optimal challenges. Relatedness is need to create relationships or connections with others.
The most surprising aspect of the chapter was that those driven by external rewards or events tend to prefer easy work. I hadn't considered this as one would think that by being motivated to earn something, you wouldn't necessarily opt out for the easier route. However, it made sense that when someone is so driven to earn something, they want to get as soon as possible, which usually involves trying to obtain the reward as easiest as possible.
On a scale for autonomy, I would probably say that I have moderate need for autonomy. I do like to be able to be in control, but I understand when that might not always be possible and that sometimes I just need to take a follower role. This may not be the easiest thing to do sometimes, but I've learned to assess when it's for the better.
On a scale of competence, I would rate myself high. I do pride myself in the skills and abilities that I possess and always look to how I can better myself and improve. When my skills and capabilities are being questioned by someone, I can get pretty offended.
On a scale of relatedness, I would rate myself high. Growing up in a decent size family, I was driven to make create relationships with others. This has continued as I've sought out different organizations on campus that have allowed me to create more connections and network with potential colleagues.
In a more specific look at the need for competence in my life, there are numerous examples of this need motivates my behaviors. I look for feedback in papers and tests as I feel that it offers me the chance to learn from past mistakes and grow as a student. I enjoy tasks that are more structured because I appreciate knowing a more determined route of how I can accomplish something. Although I can be guilty of enjoying that easy assignment, I take great pride when I'm able to accomplish a task that took some time and energy to complete it.
I'm guessing that the fish in the visual isn't having it's organismic psychological needs met. In order to either have more autonomy, competence, or relatedness, the fish feels the need to escape and find a better environment. This environment could bring the fish more optimal challenges for it's competence, interaction with more fish to create communal or exchange relationships for it's relatedness, or more area for the fish to have control over where it can go for it's autonomy.
Terms: autonomy, relatedness, competence, optimal challenges, feedback, communal/exchange relationships
chapter 6 was about psychological needs. Psychological needs promote a willingness to see out and to engage in an environment that we expect will be able to nurture our psychological needs. This section talked about three main psychological needs which include: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Autonomy means that we want the freedom to construct our own goals, we want the freedom to decide what is important and what is and what isnt worth our time. Competence is the environmental condition that satisfies our need for competence is positive feedback and the perception of progress. And Relatedness refers to the need to belong, it is the psychological need to establish close emotional bonds and attachments with other people, it reflects the desire to be emotionally connected and interpersonally involved in warm relationships.
What I learned form this chapter that I found most surprising was that optimal failure produces opportunities for learning because it has its constructive aspects when people identify its causes, and therefore explains why people seek out optimal challenges. If I had to rate my self on psychological needs based on high, medium, or low, I would have to say that I am high for autonomy, medium for competence, and medium for relatedness. I would say I am high for autonomy because I must know what im doing when im doing it and for how long I will be doing it for. I am a control freak when it comes to the activities I am involved in. as for competence I only rated myself medium because im pretty confident in myself, and am not in need for positive reassurance nor am In need for positive feedback from my peers to know im doing a good job. And lastly I rated myself a medium on relatedness because I strive to create close bonds with other people.
If I had to guess why the picture is used, I would have to say it would have to be because, chapter 6 talks about our psychological needs of relatedness. My guess would be that the fish is alone and he/she feels the need to be in contact with species of his own kind.
Terms: competence, autonomy, relatedness.
Chapter 6 is about psychological needs. There are three main psychological needs, sometimes referred to as organismic psychological needs. These three needs are autonomy, competence, and relatedness. The organismic theory of motivation says that the environment is constantly changing and organisms need to be able to adjust and adapt to those changes. The chapter discusses person-environment dialectic. This is where the person acts on the environment and the environment events affect the person. It is a cycle where the environment provides challenges, feedback, goals, relationships that support or frustrate the needs, and provides a context for ongoing development in the person.
The first need the chapter discusses is autonomy. This is the need for choices and freedom. We want to control our own environment and feel that we are acting on things because we want to, not because something in the environment is motivating us to do it. There are three things that work together to define autonomy. A perceived locus of causality says that we believe we are the source of our actions. Volition is how free we feel to do our behaviors versus being coerced. Lastly, perceived choice is simply that. We want to feel that we have the decision-making flexibility to choose what we do. If choices are offered by the environment (other people), it will not be as likely to fulfill our need for autonomy as if we have open choices. An example may be the choice to do a book report or the choice to do a research paper. This will not fulfill our need as likely as if we have a choice to do a report at all. Another concept with autonomy is whether it is supported by the environment and external events/people or controlled. An autonomy-supportive motivating style is when someone helps the person develop inner autonomy. The person will take the other person’s perspective, value growth opportunities, understand and explain rationales, and accept expressions of negative affect. In a controlling motivating style, the person tells them what to do and how to do it. They pressure them towards a prescribed outcome; they do not explain rationales, but instead simple say they should do it just because. They also ignore and over-power negative affect. There are many benefits of autonomy support. They include, but are not limited to: motivation, engagement, development, learning, performance, and psychological well-being.
The second need is competence. This is the desire to feel effective in the environment. We want to feel like we have skills and we seek out and master optimal challenges. There are different levels that competence can take. Flow is used when discussing these and how these levels satisfy our need for competence. If we participate in a challenge and have skills that match that challenge (as long as they are both moderately high), we will feel a sense of competence and enjoyment described as Flow. If our challenge outweighs our skills, we will feel worried and possibly anxious. If our skills outweigh the challenge, or both are very low, we will feel bored. We often will change our challenge level or skill level automatically to match moderately so that we feel flow instead of boredom or worry/anxiety. If we do this, given optimal challenge, flow theory says that any activity can be enjoyed, even if it seems like the most uninteresting one. The feeling of flow satisfies our need for competence and allows us to feel like we are worth something in the world and CAN do things. In order to feel competent, we need positive feedback. We may get this by the task itself, comparing our performance with ours in the past, comparing our performance with the performance of others, or the evaluations made by others.
The third need is relatedness. This is the desire for social interaction and companionship. We desire relationships where people genuinely care for us and our well-being. We need to form close, responsive, relationships that are reciprocal. Everyone has a different level of relatedness need. Some people need it more than others and will have a higher likelihood of going out with friends every chance they get, while some people do not and would rather stay at home and watch TV. The main way we satisfy our need for relatedness is by interacting with others; however, we also need to feel that we have a social bond with that person(s). We need to feel like we can be ourselves and that they care for us. If we have these close relationships, we will begin to internalize beliefs/feelings/values/etc.
I thought that most of this was surprising because I had not thought about it that much. It is pretty obvious once you realize that these needs are there all the time. If I had to rate myself on them, I would say that my need for autonomy is medium. I do enjoy feeling like I have the freedom of choice and can shape my own behavior; however, I also need the constraints of other people sometimes. I like hybrid classes because I feel like I have some freedom over when I do my homework, but I also know that if I did not have an eventual due date I probably never would do it. I do rely on other people for some things and without those people, such as my parents, friends, etc., I would be a complete mess. I think that my level of competence need is high. I am the type of person that has to have a sense of accomplishment and skill or I feel crappy. I thought about when I was in calculus in my freshman year at Kirkwood. I had just taken calculus in high school and we used pretty much the same book. My skill level was high in this area and the homework was not challenging since I got an A in it already, so I ended up not really doing my homework or anything and getting a B- in the class. I was completely bored with it. I love school, and I think one of the reasons I do is because I get a sense of competence from getting good grades and understanding the material. When I complete a task that seems difficult, I definitely feel the sense of flow. This reinforces me to try more difficult tasks. Lastly, for my level of relatedness, I think I could be all three. My level really depends on the situation and type of relatedness. In close relationships like my family or boyfriend, I am definitely a high level. I constantly want to interact with them and be near them. When it is a matter of people that I know beyond that, I will sometimes want to go out and hang with them and sometimes stay in, but when it is a matter of going out with a group, I definitely would prefer to stay in my room, by myself. I have given several examples of how psychological needs motivate my specific behaviors.
The fish picture could relate to each of these needs. The fish is in a tiny bowl with not much room to move around. He could be trying to escape so he can gain a sense of autonomy. He has a desire to feel like he is in control of himself and his environment. He may see jumping out of the bowl as an optimal challenge and is doing it to feel competent that he can accomplish his goal. There is nothing for him in the bowl to challenge, so he will try to do the one thing he can. He also is alone in the bowl, so his need for relatedness is not being fulfilled. He may be trying to jump out so that he can go interact with other fish.
Terms used: psychological needs, organismic psychological needs, organismic theory of motivation, person-environment dialectic, feedback, autonomy, perceived locus of causality, volition, perceived choice, autonomy-supportive motivating style, competence, flow, relatedness
Chapter six is focused on the three main psychological needs of humans which are autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Autonomy can be summarized as the amount of control an individual perceives him or herself having over the decisions they are making and activities they are engaging in. Autonomy has three different elements that make up an individual’s perceived level of autonomy and those are perceived locus of causality, volition, and perceived choice over their actions. Competence is being able to effectively complete the tasks and activities that a person engages in. One of the most important things about competence is that it can, under optimal conditions, produce what is known as flow. Flow happens when an individual is completely absorbed in the work or activity that they are doing. The individual does good work and perceives time as moving very quickly. It is pleasurable and individuals often strive to engage activities that produce for them a sense of flow. Finally, relatedness can be looked at as the need for humans to belong and engage successfully in social situations. The individual often feels a sense of belonging and friendship. It is very important to have caring and liking in order for relatedness to be nurtured.
The most surprising thing that I learned was how much difference autonomy can have in an academic setting. I have had classes in the past that were relatively high in autonomy and I didn’t really enjoy them that much. That is probably because I don’t have a very high need for autonomy in school. Having listened in class I couldn’t believe how much more effective teachers can be if they choose to simply sit and have a conversation with their students instead of simply reading out of a textbook and giving them tests to assess the level of facts retained. I also thought that the what makes for a good day section of the book was very interesting. I had never thought about my good days in a broader view instead of just looking at the individual events that made me happy.
I would rate myself as having a high need for relatedness, medium need for autonomy (high in the workplace, low in academic settings), and high for competence. Competence is an easy need to see in day to day life. I strive to feel competent in the work I do at school and my job. Needing to feel a high level of competence has motivated me to read chapters in textbooks, write papers and do research, put forth extra effort at my job to get better, and even little things like trying to be a better cook in my everyday life.
If I had to make a guess as to what the fish is about I would say that he/she is not able to fulfill all of these needs within that tiny little bowl. The fish is trying to find a new environment with which to interact because the current one is not satisfying its psychological needs. Having said that maybe the fish is just stupid…
Terms:autonomy, relatedness, competence, locus of causality, volition, perceived choice, flow, caring, liking
We have discussed how we all have needs. There are the three different forms of needs: physiological, psychological, and social. Chapter 6 focuses on the three basic psychological human needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness.
Autonomy is people’s need to feel independent; to be able to have self-direction. The chapter explains one’s needs of being driven by our “inner resources,” rather than “environmental events.” This basically means we all want to be able to WANT to do something, not be forced to have to do it. A person’s environment is very important when determining how much their need for autonomy will be met. If a person’s environment is “autonomy supportive,” then many benefits occur as a result. Overall, they will simply feel much more happy and motivated to succeed in all areas of life. They will develop, learn, and grow to a much higher extent as well.
Competence is the “need to interact effectively with the environment.” A person needs to be able to utilize their skills and abilities, and be challenged in the process. In order to satisfy this, people require a combination of challenge, structure, and failure tolerance. If a person has the right amount of talent, interest, and skill in a task, they get “flow.” Competence is not only important for people in their careers, but also in their everyday lives and activities.
Relatedness is the final need. This is the need to have bonds and be emotionally connected and involved with people. Essentially, this is the need for friends. People need to confirm, at least to some degree, that they are liked and received by others. This reception is also a key factor for internalization, the process of taking in other’s values as your own.
I would rate myself as medium-high on the level of autonomy. I very much like the idea of individualism and being my own person, and I like having control and input on my life and in my work. I would rate myself as very high in the need for competence. It’s not something I thought about much until I read the chapter, but a lot of my life has been geared towards utilizing my abilities to the best of my ability. I feel like I have been blessed with many gifts, so I feel it is my responsibility to “maximize my potential” and “live life to the fullest.” That is one of the reasons I am involved in everything under the sun, like being Student Body Vice President. I would also rate myself high for the need relatedness. I have always had a high need for friends, particularly for “being liked.” Throughout my childhood, I tried very hard to always remain included and like I fit in. In high school, although I wouldn’t admit it, being popular was my primary drive for a lot of actions. While I am not as focused on that aspect anymore, I am still very much a servant to my need to have friends.
Specifically, my need for relatedness controls many of my behavior. I am kind of one of those people who “need to be liked by everyone.” Because of that, I tend to be a people pleaser, which can get me in to trouble. By always trying to stay on everyone’s good side, I am put in the middle of a lot of situations. For example, right now two of my friends are having a tough time with each other, and through a process of events, I am now in the middle of it. I was honest with both the whole time, but since I want to help them both, it has put me in a tough spot. Another example is that during the last semester, especially during the campaign season and when the Interlude Dance was becoming a hit, I was so focused on making a good impression with as many people as possible that I rubbed some of my close friends the wrong way.
I think the fish is trying to escape from the bowl. I think it is representative of the chapter in the sense that the fish is being “controlled” by his need for water; which means he is being controlled by his environment. He is trying to let his inner desires be more important, and therefore breaking free of the restrictions of his environment. He is trying to satisfy his need of autonomy.
We have discussed how we all have needs. There are the three different forms of needs: physiological, psychological, and social. Chapter 6 focuses on the three basic psychological human needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness.
Autonomy is people’s need to feel independent; to be able to have self-direction. The chapter explains one’s needs of being driven by our “inner resources,” rather than “environmental events.” This basically means we all want to be able to WANT to do something, not be forced to have to do it. A person’s environment is very important when determining how much their need for autonomy will be met. If a person’s environment is “autonomy supportive,” then many benefits occur as a result. Overall, they will simply feel much more happy and motivated to succeed in all areas of life. They will develop, learn, and grow to a much higher extent as well.
Competence is the “need to interact effectively with the environment.” A person needs to be able to utilize their skills and abilities, and be challenged in the process. In order to satisfy this, people require a combination of challenge, structure, and failure tolerance. If a person has the right amount of talent, interest, and skill in a task, they get “flow.” Competence is not only important for people in their careers, but also in their everyday lives and activities.
Relatedness is the final need. This is the need to have bonds and be emotionally connected and involved with people. Essentially, this is the need for friends. People need to confirm, at least to some degree, that they are liked and received by others. This reception is also a key factor for internalization, the process of taking in other’s values as your own.
I would rate myself as medium-high on the level of autonomy. I very much like the idea of individualism and being my own person, and I like having control and input on my life and in my work. I would rate myself as very high in the need for competence. It’s not something I thought about much until I read the chapter, but a lot of my life has been geared towards utilizing my abilities to the best of my ability. I feel like I have been blessed with many gifts, so I feel it is my responsibility to “maximize my potential” and “live life to the fullest.” That is one of the reasons I am involved in everything under the sun, like being Student Body Vice President. I would also rate myself high for the need relatedness. I have always had a high need for friends, particularly for “being liked.” Throughout my childhood, I tried very hard to always remain included and like I fit in. In high school, although I wouldn’t admit it, being popular was my primary drive for a lot of actions. While I am not as focused on that aspect anymore, I am still very much a servant to my need to have friends.
Specifically, my need for relatedness controls many of my behavior. I am kind of one of those people who “need to be liked by everyone.” Because of that, I tend to be a people pleaser, which can get me in to trouble. By always trying to stay on everyone’s good side, I am put in the middle of a lot of situations. For example, right now two of my friends are having a tough time with each other, and through a process of events, I am now in the middle of it. I was honest with both the whole time, but since I want to help them both, it has put me in a tough spot. Another example is that during the last semester, especially during the campaign season and when the Interlude Dance was becoming a hit, I was so focused on making a good impression with as many people as possible that I rubbed some of my close friends the wrong way.
I think the fish is trying to escape from the bowl. I think it is representative of the chapter in the sense that the fish is being “controlled” by his need for water; which means he is being controlled by his environment. He is trying to let his inner desires be more important, and therefore breaking free of the restrictions of his environment. He is trying to satisfy his need of autonomy.
We have discussed how we all have needs. There are the three different forms of needs: physiological, psychological, and social. Chapter 6 focuses on the three basic psychological human needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness.
Autonomy is people’s need to feel independent; to be able to have self-direction. The chapter explains one’s needs of being driven by our “inner resources,” rather than “environmental events.” This basically means we all want to be able to WANT to do something, not be forced to have to do it. A person’s environment is very important when determining how much their need for autonomy will be met. If a person’s environment is “autonomy supportive,” then many benefits occur as a result. Overall, they will simply feel much more happy and motivated to succeed in all areas of life. They will develop, learn, and grow to a much higher extent as well.
Competence is the “need to interact effectively with the environment.” A person needs to be able to utilize their skills and abilities, and be challenged in the process. In order to satisfy this, people require a combination of challenge, structure, and failure tolerance. If a person has the right amount of talent, interest, and skill in a task, they get “flow.” Competence is not only important for people in their careers, but also in their everyday lives and activities.
Relatedness is the final need. This is the need to have bonds and be emotionally connected and involved with people. Essentially, this is the need for friends. People need to confirm, at least to some degree, that they are liked and received by others. This reception is also a key factor for internalization, the process of taking in other’s values as your own.
I would rate myself as medium-high on the level of autonomy. I very much like the idea of individualism and being my own person, and I like having control and input on my life and in my work. I would rate myself as very high in the need for competence. It’s not something I thought about much until I read the chapter, but a lot of my life has been geared towards utilizing my abilities to the best of my ability. I feel like I have been blessed with many gifts, so I feel it is my responsibility to “maximize my potential” and “live life to the fullest.” That is one of the reasons I am involved in everything under the sun, like being Student Body Vice President. I would also rate myself high for the need relatedness. I have always had a high need for friends, particularly for “being liked.” Throughout my childhood, I tried very hard to always remain included and like I fit in. In high school, although I wouldn’t admit it, being popular was my primary drive for a lot of actions. While I am not as focused on that aspect anymore, I am still very much a servant to my need to have friends.
Specifically, my need for relatedness controls many of my behavior. I am kind of one of those people who “need to be liked by everyone.” Because of that, I tend to be a people pleaser, which can get me in to trouble. By always trying to stay on everyone’s good side, I am put in the middle of a lot of situations. For example, right now two of my friends are having a tough time with each other, and through a process of events, I am now in the middle of it. I was honest with both the whole time, but since I want to help them both, it has put me in a tough spot. Another example is that during the last semester, especially during the campaign season and when the Interlude Dance was becoming a hit, I was so focused on making a good impression with as many people as possible that I rubbed some of my close friends the wrong way.
I think the fish is trying to escape from the bowl. I think it is representative of the chapter in the sense that the fish is being “controlled” by his need for water; which means he is being controlled by his environment. He is trying to let his inner desires be more important, and therefore breaking free of the restrictions of his environment. He is trying to satisfy his need of autonomy.
Chapter 6 was all about psychological needs. The three basic psychological needs are competence, autonomy, and relatedness. Autonomy is the need to have a feeling that we have control over the decisions we make. We like to think that we are consciously making decisions when in reality our decisions are all made based on things that we don’t even know are going on in our minds. I would rate my need for autonomy as a 10 especially when it comes to school. I struggle with school and class on a daily basis because I feel like it conflicts with my need for autonomy. If I had things my way, I would want to take ONE CLASS a semester so that I could focus on one subject at a time to fully immerse myself in and learn completely. Competence describes the psychological need that describes our desire to interact optimally and effectively with our surroundings. This need directly relates to major life activities like school work and any goals we are trying to achieve. I would say my need for competence is relatively low because I’m not really in to the major systems in my life right now. I’m just feeling like I should just screw it all and be a modern day Socrates. Relatedness is the name we gave to our need to interact with other people and be successful in those relationships. In my life that would probably be an 8 or 9. I really enjoy interacting with other people especially those people that I’m really comfortable with and I like to keep up with those relationships on a daily basis.
My need for relatedness causes me to text people, get on facebook, set up times to study with people etc. The fish is kinda like me right now. Trapped in an environment where he can’t satisfy his needs. Talk about no relatedness competence OR autonomy! That fish is committing suicide I don’t know why some people are saying it’s cute.
Competence, autonomy, and, relatedness
We have discussed how we all have needs. There are the three different forms of needs: physiological, psychological, and social. Chapter 6 focuses on the three basic psychological human needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness.
Autonomy is people’s need to feel independent; to be able to have self-direction. The chapter explains one’s needs of being driven by our “inner resources,” rather than “environmental events.” This basically means we all want to be able to WANT to do something, not be forced to have to do it. A person’s environment is very important when determining how much their need for autonomy will be met. If a person’s environment is “autonomy supportive,” then many benefits occur as a result. Overall, they will simply feel much more happy and motivated to succeed in all areas of life. They will develop, learn, and grow to a much higher extent as well.
Competence is the “need to interact effectively with the environment.” A person needs to be able to utilize their skills and abilities, and be challenged in the process. In order to satisfy this, people require a combination of challenge, structure, and failure tolerance. If a person has the right amount of talent, interest, and skill in a task, they get “flow.” Competence is not only important for people in their careers, but also in their everyday lives and activities.
Relatedness is the final need. This is the need to have bonds and be emotionally connected and involved with people. Essentially, this is the need for friends. People need to confirm, at least to some degree, that they are liked and received by others. This reception is also a key factor for internalization, the process of taking in other’s values as your own.
I would rate myself as medium-high on the level of autonomy. I very much like the idea of individualism and being my own person, and I like having control and input on my life and in my work. I would rate myself as very high in the need for competence. It’s not something I thought about much until I read the chapter, but a lot of my life has been geared towards utilizing my abilities to the best of my ability. I feel like I have been blessed with many gifts, so I feel it is my responsibility to “maximize my potential” and “live life to the fullest.” That is one of the reasons I am involved in everything under the sun, like being Student Body Vice President. I would also rate myself high for the need relatedness. I have always had a high need for friends, particularly for “being liked.” Throughout my childhood, I tried very hard to always remain included and like I fit in. In high school, although I wouldn’t admit it, being popular was my primary drive for a lot of actions. While I am not as focused on that aspect anymore, I am still very much a servant to my need to have friends.
Specifically, my need for relatedness controls many of my behavior. I am kind of one of those people who “need to be liked by everyone.” Because of that, I tend to be a people pleaser, which can get me in to trouble. By always trying to stay on everyone’s good side, I am put in the middle of a lot of situations. For example, right now two of my friends are having a tough time with each other, and through a process of events, I am now in the middle of it. I was honest with both the whole time, but since I want to help them both, it has put me in a tough spot. Another example is that during the last semester, especially during the campaign season and when the Interlude Dance was becoming a hit, I was so focused on making a good impression with as many people as possible that I rubbed some of my close friends the wrong way.
I think the fish is trying to escape from the bowl. I think it is representative of the chapter in the sense that the fish is being “controlled” by his need for water; which means he is being controlled by his environment. He is trying to let his inner desires be more important, and therefore breaking free of the restrictions of his environment. He is trying to satisfy his need of autonomy.
Chapter 6 discusses psychological needs of people. We feel enjoyment when our psychological needs are satisfied. There are three main psychological needs, and these needs together are referred to as organismic psychological needs, or organismic theories of motivation. Organismic psychological needs provide the motivation that supports initiative and learning. These three main needs are autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Autonomy is the psychological need to self-direct and be able to choose our own decisions and personal choices. This allows us to regulate our own behavior and develops our own inner motivational resources. Competence is the need to be effective in one’s environment. The key conditions to achieving competence are optimal challenge and flow; interdependency between challenge and feedback; structure; and failure tolerance. Relatedness is our inherent need to belong and form close bonds with those around us. This is influenced by our interaction with others, our social bonds, our relationships, and our community.
The most surprising thing I learned was how important autonomy is when it comes to our actions and how motivated we are. I hadn’t ever thought of how important it is to feel a sense of control over our environment and the tasks we have before it. When we were discussing in class how today’s educational system really ignores this psychological need for autonomy, that almost wanted me to switch my major and become an education major, just so I can apply this in a classroom setting and improve children’s learning.
I would rate myself on medium for autonomy, high on competence, and medium on relatedness. I feel like I am able to make decisions for myself in many aspects of my life. In some classes I don’t have as much autonomy, but I don’t need a high amount of autonomy for I really like structure and knowing exactly what I’m expected to do and exactly how to do it. I am competent in the many aspects of my life as well, and feel I have a firm grasp on the world around me. In my job in particular as a resident assistant, because I am a returner, I have a lot more competence this year than last for I know what to expect and how to do my job well, and that has resulted in more confidence and a better understanding of what I’m expected to do. I am medium on relatedness. I have a small circle of friends that I am close to, and I’m very close to my boyfriend and my family, and so while sometimes I wish I had wish I had more social bonds than I do now, the relationships in my life are very strong.
Competence is one psychological need that especially motivates me. I have always had a strong desire to do well in all my classes, and expect of myself the highest grade possible in every class I take. This has been true from kindergarten all the way to my junior year of college today. I take much pleasure I knowing I am effective in my environment and understand what is going on. As long as I could remember I have always loved to read. For me reading is one of my favorite activities to do and I am disappointed I don’t have enough spare time today to read more. I know too well that when I read I have the flow experience and get caught up in reading when I should be doing other tasks. For me each test is a challenge, and I enjoy meeting that challenge, however stressful it might be. For I get pleasure each time I finish an exam knowing I did well and will most likely get a good grade to show for it. This is an example of the interaction between challenge and feedback. When it comes to structure, I prefer very structured classes where I know exactly what I’m doing and when I’m supposed to do it. I have goals I strive to achieve and my test results give me feedback on how I am doing in the test and how I can change my study strategies.
I think this picture can be related to all three psychological needs. The fish is experiencing no autonomy because it wasn’t his choice to be put in a boring old bowl; he has no control over his environment and wants to get out. He isn’t competent in the fishbowl because there’s nothing challenging him in there. And there’s no other fish or creatures in the fish bowl so he has no relatedness.
Terms used: organmismic psychological needs, autonomy, competence, relatedness, optimal challenge and flow, interdependency between challenge and feedback, structure, failure tolerance
Chapter 6 discussed the different psychological needs each person experiences during life. The three main psychological needs are autonomy, competence and relatedness. Psychological needs are important because they help us understand, enjoy, and satisfy us in different situations. These three needs are part of the Organismic Approach to Motivation: meaning they are needs part of an "entity" which is alive and active. Autonomy is the need to experience self-direction, and regulation of one's behavior. Competence is the need to be effective in interactions the environment, and it shows the skills one has. Relatedness is the need to establish close bonds and attachments with others.
When it comes to autonomy, I know I am high on that, because it talks about the locus of control, and no matter what, I always have an internal locus, because I know things happen due to my actions and behavior. I also am pretty good at regulating my behavior, and not letting external factors affect me too much. I like to think I am pretty competent because I challenging myself in all aspects of my life (work, school, working to better myself in relationships, etc). I would rather have a hard task and have to work at it, than be assigned something easy, get it done right away, and not feel like I accomplished anything or gained anything at all. As for relatedness, I think I am high on that scale too, because I do like being close to others. I like knowing that other people care about me, and like me for who I am.
The need that is most motivating to me is Autonomy. I like participating in activities that I like, and make decisions that are beneficial to me. Also like I mentioned above, I have more of an internal locus of control. I don't look to others for guidance or approved all the time. I am motivated to do good and succeed in college because I want to. Not just because I know it would make my parents happy.
I think the fish is trying is trying to escape environment (bowl) that someone other than himself put him in. He wants to be in control of his own autonomy, and wants to make decisions for himself. Maybe the fish has decided that there is a better bowl two feet away, that is nicer, cleaner and bigger. He doesn't want to wait for someone to decide to move him. He is taking initiative and going to get to that other bowl! (too bad he is a fish...and can't survive long without water) :)
If you had to make a guess, what's the deal with the fish picture? How does it relate to this chapter?
Provide a list of terms at the end of your post that you used from the chapter.
(sorry about the last two lines...I c/p the top part of the page so I could see what the requirements were...and forgot to delete that part! Not trying to plagiarize!)
And my terms
Terms: Autonomy, Competence, Relatedness, Organismic Approach to Motivation, locus of control
Chapter 6 deals with people's 3 main psychological needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Autonomy is the amount of control you feel you have in deciding whether or not to engage in a specific activity. In other words, do you feel like you made the decision to do something rather than being forced? Even though we all have the need for autonomy, in our day-to-day life, we do not always have autonomy. Thus, our need for it feels satisfied even if we only perceive to have autonomy.That is, when we feel we have a say in or over something we have to do, we still satisfy our need for autonomy. This is because we feel that the perceived locus of causality is internalized. When we feel we have autonomy, we are more motivated to engage in certain behaviors or actions.
In addition to autonomy, we also have a need for competence. Competence is when we feel that we are effective at what we are doing. It helps us to seek out challenges and behaviors that reflect the abilities and skills that we possess. When our skills/abilities are aligned just right with the difficulty of a task, we experience optimal flow. One way to tell if we are experiencing optimal flow is how focused we are on a task and how quickly it seems time flies while doing that task. This is because the task is challenging enough to keep our interest but not too hard to make us frustrated and give up.
The final psychological need is for relatedness. According to our text, "relatedness is the psychological need to establish close emotional bonds and attachments with other people and it reflects the desire to be emotionally connected to and interpersonally involved in warm relationships." Because of this need, we tend to seek out others for comfort and warmth whom we trust to care for our well-being. With these people we form strong social bonds.
When we combine all three of these psychological needs, we tend to feel as though we are having a really good day.
I was really surprised by how just simply feeling like we have autonomy is enough to satisfy our need for it without fully having autonomy.
If I had to rate my levels of these psychological needs, I think that I would score really high in relatedness. This is because I am a mother so I feel it is crucial for me to form strong emotional bonds with my children and my husband. I also feel that my friends are very important in my life and I rely on them (as they rely on me) for emotional support in times of need.
For competence, I would range from medium to high. I tend to get bored rather easily in certain tasks so I need some challenge. I also like the feeling of being able to excel in certain areas.
As for autonomy, I'm not exactly sure where I would rate myself. I do know that I hate being forced to do certain things but there are times where I don't mind a little direction on what to do. I guess, I would probably rank it as medium.
I think that when it comes to my actual classes, the various levels of my psychological needs really show. When I have a class like my Correctional Treatment course or Drugs, Crime, and Society course, I really enjoy it because I have classmates whom I speak with frequently. Also, I feel very competent in doing the course work. This is especially so because both courses are more discussion-based rather than lecture-based so it gives me a chance to state my opinions based on the material that we have learned. Finally, because they both are discussion-based, I do feel as though I have a little bit of autonomy because my classmates and I pretty much direct which way our discussions go through our contributions to the discussions.
The first thing that popped in my head when asked about one specific psychological need that motivates my behavior is competence. Just the other day, I was thinking about my internship and how much I really enjoyed it. After reading this chapter and listening to the lecture, I discovered one of the reasons I really enjoy my internship is because I reach optimal flow while I'm there. I literally come in to the internship and look at the clock to confirm that I am on time and it feels like a few minutes later when I look at the clock again, it's already time to leave. Additionally, I am able to apply almost everything that I've learned in all my classes to the job itself. I utilize different criminology theories and motivation concepts to determine which referrals I make to the clients. I also find myself using the motivational concepts we are learning about to try and help motivate the clients to accept and embrace the help they are being given. I find the paperwork that I have to do is not boring at all. It provides just enough of a challenge for me that it keeps it interesting.
If I had to take a guess as to what the picture has to do with this chapter, I think it has to do with autonomy. The fish feels trapped, confined, and controlled by the bowl so it feels the need to jump out of the bowl to satisfy its need for autonomy.
Terms: psychological need, autonomy, competence, relatedness, perceived locus of causality, optimal flow