Self-Determination Theory: Ryan and Deci

• self-determination theory: need for autonomy, belonging, and competence is essential for growth, integration, constructive social development and personal well-being

• intrinsic motivation: inherent tendency to seek out novelty and challenges

• extrinsic motivation: performance of an activity in order to achieve some separable outcome

• self-determination continuum from least to most internal

  • amotivation: non-regulation, impersonal locus of control

    • the state of lacking the intention to act

    • results from

      • not valuing an activity

      • not feeling competent

      • not expecting an activity to yield a desired outcome

  • extrinsic motivation

    • external regulation: performed to satisfy an external demand or reward contingency

    • introjected regulation: taking in a regulation but not fully accepting it as one’s own

      • includes ego involvement - people are motivated to demonstrate ability / avoid failure in order to maintain feelings of worth

    • identified regulation: conscious valuing of regulation action is owned as personally important

    • integrated regulation: identified regulations are fully assimilated to the self

  • intrinsic motivation: intrinsic regulation - internal locus of control

Math Anxiety: Maloney

• math anxiety: adverse emotional reaction to math / the prospect of doing math. tied to poor math performance

  • as young as elementary school

  • hyperactivity in amygdala regions (processing neg emotions)

• onset of math anxiety caused by

  • social influences

    • teachers who’re math anxious impart that anxiety on their students

    • falls among gender lines: demale teachers’ attritudes are more contagious to female students

  • cognitive predisposition

• prevention: early identification of at-risk students

  • children who don’t have strong foundations in ath are more math anxious

• reducing math anxiety

  • regulation of negativity associated with math situations

  • expressive writing

  • reappraisal / reframing techniques: reconstrue anxious symptoms as arousal, not as something negative

  • thinking positively

• math anxiety decreases motivation and self-efficacy

Expectancy Effect: Rosenthal

• teachers’ expectancies of their students increased their IQs

• only for younger students

  • younger children have less well-established reputations

  • more susceptible to unintentional social influence created by their teacher

  • teachers of lower grades may differ (teaching style, etc)

• experimenter bias

• independent variable: whether teachers were told the student had a high iq and were going to bloom

• factors that mediated the effect of teachers’ expectations on students’ growth

  • teachers instilled more confidence in the students, increasing their self-efficacy

  • younger subjects were more malleable and more likely to be influenced by the teacher

  • expecting the students to be right and making them a model, giving more positive attention and creating more opportunities

  • more challenging tasks

  • labeled the students

  • teachers of young students have different teaching styles - more student centered, more reinforcement

  • self-fulfilling prophecy - because they were expected to grow, they did

Self-determination theory

• explains growth-oriented aspects of motivation and personality integration

• intrinsic motivation: result of three innate psych needs

  • self-determination / autonomy

  • relatedness / belonging

  • competence

• autonomy supportive environments

  • emphasize individuals needs / interest / goals

  • encourage choice and initiative

• need for competence

  • feedback that increase perceived competence increases intrinsic motivation

• need for relatedness

  • enhances student engagement and well-being

• identified / integrated and intrinsic regulation

  • goal is to improve one’s identity-related competence

  • reflects a learning / mastery goal