Restoration processes after need thwarting: When autonomy depends on competence

Exploring the process of restoring psychological needs after incidences of frustration and need unfulfillment

Background

Research on psychological need restoration after incidences of need frustration holds promise for deepening our understanding of the dynamic nature of psychological needs proposed by self-determination theory. We aimed to extend this work by exploring differences in the process of restoring psychological needs after indences of frustration versus need unfulfillment.

Methods

In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 42 Danish adults varying in age, gender, and physical activity levels. Data were analyzed using the Framework Method.

Results

We identified four distinct yet interconnected phases in the need restoration process: Discrepancies between Actual and Desired Need States, Experiencing Negative Emotions, Initiating Plans for Action, and Action Stage. These stages offer a comprehensive framework for understanding how individuals restore their needs.

Discussion

We discerned contrasting approaches to need restoration depending on prior experiences of need frustration due to external contingencies versus need frustration due to internal factors and need unfulfillment. Need frustration due to external contingencies prompts withdrawal, aligning with the avoidance strategies identified in the literature. Conversely, unfulfilled needs and need frustration due to internal factors lead to proactive engagement, highlighting a distinct 'fight' response. These insights extend existing research, providing a nuanced understanding of the dynamic processes of need restoration.

Nature, implications and determinants of academic motivation profiles among upper elementary and secondary students

The present study sought to contribute to self-determination theory by examining the nature of adolescents' academic motivation profiles defined while considering its global and specific nature. The construct validity of these profiles was examined by considering their replicability across samples of upper elementary (n = 781) and secondary (n = 467) school students, as well as their associations with predictors (perceived parental need nurturing behaviors) and outcomes (academic achievement and expectations of success). Latent profile analyses revealed four profiles (Non-Motivated, Identified, Amotivated, and Strongly Motivated) characterized by differing levels of global and specific levels of academic motivation. These profiles were fully replicated across educational levels. Most profiles differed from one another in terms of outcomes, although differences in terms of outcomes associations were observed across educational levels. Finally, profile membership was predicted by global levels of need nurturing and by some of the specific need nurturing behaviors in a way that replicated across educational levels. Our results suggest that the specific qualities of academic motivation and the global levels of self-determination are equally important in the identification of academic motivation profiles.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12144-023-04687-x.

Living with severe obesity: adults' physical activity preferences, self-efficacy to overcome barriers and motives

BACKGROUND

This study aimed to explore the preferences, self-efficacy to overcome barriers and motives for physical activity of individuals with severe obesity (body mass index ≥35 kg/m²).

METHODS

44 adults with severe obesity (50.5 ± 13.3 years, 80% female) consented to participate in this study. Accelerometers, the 6-minute walking test, and questionnaires were used to collect data on participants' sociodemographic and medical characteristics, physical fitness, physical activity behaviour, preferences for physical activity, self-efficacy to overcome physical activity barriers and motives for physical activity.

RESULTS

A preference for walking (89%) and engaging in supervised physical activity (61%) at moderate intensity (46%) was reported. Most participants (71%) preferred engaging in physical activity outdoors for a duration of 30 to 60 min (84%), either in the morning (64%) or in the evening (48%). Participants had the lowest self-efficacy to overcome physical activity barriers when they had poor health and pain. The two most frequently reported physical activity motives were: preventing health problems and having better health.

CONCLUSIONS

A preference-based program focusing on health motives and addressing health and pain issues may help to promote physical activity behaviour among adults with severe obesity. Nevertheless, experimental studies are needed to determine if such strategies effectively increase physical activity behaviour in this population.Implications for rehabilitationPhysical activity preferences (i.e., walking, biking and swimming performed at a moderate intensity and outdoors for a duration of 30 minutes to 1 hour with supervision) can be used to enhance motivation in people with severe obesity.Addressing the main barriers of regular physical activity (e.g., poor health, pain, depression) could ensure better adherence to physical activity in people with severe obesity.Using motives of health improvement and health problems prevention could lead to increased physical activity in people with severe obesity.

Customer delight during a crisis: understanding delight through the lens of transformative service research

Purpose

The unprecedented dynamics of the COVID-19 pandemic has forced firms to re-envision the customer experience and find new ways to ensure positive service encounters. This context has underscored the reality that drivers of customer delight in a “traditional” context are not the same in a crisis context. While research has tended to identify hedonic need fulfillment as key to customer well-being and, ultimately, to invoking customer delight, the majority of studies were conducted in inherently positive contexts, which may limit generalizability to more challenging contexts. Through the combined lens of transformative service research (TSR) and psychological theory on hedonic and eudaimonic human needs, we evaluate the extent to which need fulfillment is the root of customer well-being and that meeting well-being needs ultimately promotes delight. We argue that in crisis contexts, the salience of needs shifts from hedonic to eudaimonic and the extent to which service experiences fulfill eudaimonic needs determines the experience and meaning of delight.

Design/methodology/approach

Utilizing the critical incident technique, this research surveyed 240 respondents who were asked to explain in detail a time they experienced customer delight during the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyzed their responses according to whether these incidents reflected the salience of hedonic versus eudaimonic need fulfillment.

Findings

The results support the notion that the salience of eudaimonic needs become more pronounced during times of crisis and that service providers are more likely to elicit perceptions of delight when they leverage meeting eudaimonic needs over the hedonic needs that are typically emphasized in traditional service encounters.

Originality/value

We discuss the implications of these findings for integrating the TSR and customer delight literatures to better understand how service experiences that meet salient needs produce customer well-being and delight. Ultimately, we find customer delight can benefit well-being across individual, collective and societal levels.

Dropout, Autonomy and Reintegration in Spain: A Study of the Life of Young Women on Temporary Release

This study analyses the psycho-educational and social paths of women prisoners after the time they drop out of school as minors, based on different variables related to autonomy and their preparedness to face temporary release.

The Spillover Effect of Autonomy Frustration on Human Motivation and Its Electrophysiological Representation

It is a commonplace that some people may adopt a controlling style, which brings about autonomy frustration to others. Existing studies on autonomy frustration mainly examined its effect in the primary thwarting context, ignoring its potential spillover to subsequent activities. In this study, we examined whether prior autonomy frustration would have a sustaining negative impact on one's motivation in another autonomy-supportive activity that follows. In this electrophysiological study, participants worked on two irrelevant tasks organized by two different experimenters. We adopted a between-group design and manipulated participants' autonomy frustration by providing varied audio instructions during Session 1. In Session 2, all participants were instructed to complete a moderately difficult task that is autonomy-supportive instead, and we observed a less pronounced reward positivity (RewP) difference wave and a smaller P300 in the autonomy-frustration group compared with the control group. These findings suggested that the negative influence of autonomy frustration is longstanding and that it can undermine one's motivation and attention in a following activity that is autonomy-supportive itself. Thus, our findings provided original neutral evidence for the adverse intertemporal effect of autonomy frustration, and suggested important practical implications.

Predictors and outcomes of core and peripheral sport motivation profiles: A person-centered study

While previous studies highlighted the importance of the different motivations for doing sports as proposed by self-determination theory, less emphasis has been put on the simultaneous presence of multiple motivations within the same individual. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the complex interaction of sport motivations and to identify core (common) and peripheral (uncommon) profiles of people engaged in sports based on a combination of motivations. To achieve this goal, latent profile analysis, a person-centered approach, was performed on responses from 506 participants engaged in sports. For better understanding the extracted profiles, basic psychological need fulfillment was included as profile predictor, while subjective vitality and various engagement-related indicators as outcomes. Four core and peripheral profiles were identified: Moderately Motivated, Highly Motivated, Amotivated, and Poorly Motivated. Contrary to theory, introjected regulation clustered more closely with self-determined motivations. Profile membership was significantly predicted by global need fulfillment, autonomy satisfaction as well as, to a smaller extent, autonomy, relatedness, and competence frustration. The four profiles differed along vitality and some, but not all, engagement-related outcomes.

The Role of Perfectionism and Controlling Conditions in Norwegian Elite Junior Performers' Motivational Processes

Conceptualized within the framework of self-determination theory, the aim of the current study was to investigate the relation between perfectionistic concerns and (a) controlled (non-self-determined) motivation and (b) performance anxiety through basic psychological need frustration (frustration of competence, autonomy, and realtedness), and if these relations would be moderated by controlling teaching/coaching conditions. We used a cross-sectional moderated mediation design and purposefully selected Norwegian elite junior performers (N = 171; mean age = 17.3; SD age = 0.94) from talent development schools, who completed an online questionnaire to report their perceptions of the study variables. Associations were examined using structural equation modeling. The results showed that perfectionistic concerns were positively associated with controlling conditions, basic needs frustration, controlled motivation, and performance anxiety. Reported controlling teaching/coaching conditions moderated the positive indirect relationship between perfectionistic concerns and (a) controlled motivation and (b) performance anxiety through competence need frustration. Specifically, these indirect associations were evident for performers reporting moderate or high levels of controlling teaching/coaching conditions. In contrast, there were no indirect associations via competence need frustration for those performers who reported low levels of controlling conditions. In conclusion, the results indicate that perfectionistic concerns appear to be a vulnerability factor that exposes elite junior performers to higher risks of entering a debilitative motivational process. This seems especially likely when exposed to controlling teaching/coaching conditions. Coaches and teachers working with elite junior performers should avoid using controlling mechanisms and instead foster autonomous functioning.

How Employability Attributes Mediate the Link Between Knowledge Workers' Career Adaptation Concerns and Their Self-Perceived Employability

The study examines employability attributes as psychological mechanisms that explain the link between the career adaptation concerns and self-perceived employability of a sample of professionally qualified knowledge workers (N = 404). A cross-sectional survey was used to collect primary data. Results of a mediation analysis by means of structural equation modeling show that proactivity, career resilience, and career self-management attributes are significant intrinsic motivational mechanisms in explaining the link between high career adaptation concerns and high self-perceived employability. The study makes an important contribution to the employability literature by illustrating by means of self-determination theory the role of employability attributes as psychological processes that restore individuals' sense of autonomous functioning as expressed by their self-perceived employability. The findings advance human resource management's understanding of the role of employability attributes as mechanisms of fulfilling knowledge workers' need for competence and autonomy in the career adaptation concerns-perceived employability link. Practice implications include supportive career development practices that strengthen knowledge workers' sense of competence and autonomy when confronted with changes in job and employment conditions that affect their perceived employability.

A Surprising Source of Self-Motivation: Prior Competence Frustration Strengthens One's Motivation to Win in Another Competence-Supportive Activity

According to self-determination theory (SDT), competence is among the three basic psychological needs essential for one’s well-being and optimal functioning, and the frustration of these needs is theoretically predicted to induce a restorative response. While previous studies have explored the restoration process of autonomy and relatedness, empirical evidence for such a process is still lacking for competence. In order to explore this process and to examine the effect of prior competence frustration on one’s motivation to win in a subsequent competence-supportive task, we adopted a between-group experimental design and manipulated one’s competence frustration through task difficulty in an electrophysiological study. Participants in both groups were instructed to work on the time-estimation task and the stop-watch task in two successive sessions respectively. Participants in the experimental group were asked to complete a highly difficult task in the first session and a task of medium difficulty in the second session, while those in the control group were instructed to work on tasks of medium difficulty in both sessions. In the second session, an enlarged feedback-related negativity (FRN) loss-win difference wave (d-FRN) was observed in the experimental group compared to the control group, indicating that the competence-frustrated participants have an enhanced motivation to win in a subsequent competence-supportive task. Thus, results of the present study provided original neural evidence for the restoration process of frustrated competence, which provided important guidelines for the managerial practice.

Being Eager to Prove Oneself: U-Shaped Relationship between Competence Frustration and Intrinsic Motivation in Another Activity

Competence frustration has been consistently found to undermine one's intrinsic motivation in the same activity. However, the relationship between competence frustration in a preceding activity and one's intrinsic motivation in a subsequent one remains unclear. In order to explore this relationship, self-reported data were collected from 617 undergraduate students of a large comprehensive university in southern China, who took varied courses immediately before taking a less-demanding one. Results suggested a U-shaped relationship between students' competence frustration in a preceding course and intrinsic motivation in a subsequent one. To be specific, for students whose competence frustration reached the inflection point, a restoration process would be activated if the current course would help restore their competence. Importantly, these students' competence frustration in a preceding course was found to positively predict their intrinsic motivation level in a subsequent course. As far as we are concerned, this is the first study to reveal a potential positive effect of need frustration outside of its primary thwarting context, which complements and extends existing literatures on the dynamics between need frustration and intrinsic motivation.