Building a science of motivated persons: Self-determination theory’s empirical approach to human experience and the regulation of behavior.

By Richard M. Ryan, Edward L. Deci, Maarten Vansteenkiste, Bart Soenens. Motivation Science, 2021

322 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Self-determination theory (SDT) is a still rapidly expanding framework of basic and applied research, underpinned by a global network of scholars and practitioners. Herein we focus on one feature of SDT that helps explain its continued growth --the fact that it is a truly human science that takes into consideration our attributes as persons, including our capacities for awareness and self-regulation, as well as vulnerabilities to defensiveness and control. Within SDT these human capacities are studied using diverse methods, and across all sub-disciplines of psychology. In this review we focus particularly on people’s capacity for autonomy as it applies to their individual functioning, interpersonal relationships, and societal interactions. If there is a core legacy to SDT it is one of representing a generative and philosophically coherent framework based on a convergent network of empirical evidence with relevance across domains and cultures, and to our basic experiences and concerns as humans.

Subfields: Applied Psychology, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3b3d2d8f64b405e83210ab699de71d8c764d79fe