Conceptual Rethinking Self-Determination Theory: The Project of Constructivist SDT

Self-determination theory (SDT) has developed gradually over the last 45 years to become a major theory of human motivation and personality. Philosophical roots of SDT are grounded in organismic theory, SDT assumes that humans are proactive by nature, oriented toward healthy development and are vulnerable to passivity, psychological fragmentation, and interpersonal disharmony, especially when the social surround is not supportive of their inherent growth tendencies. Such a dynamic gives rise to an organismic-dialectic meta-theory. SDT uses the achievements of many other approaches. In the field of psychology of motivation it represents a very successful development of ideas about the cognitive mediation of motivational tendencies developed by J. Rotter, J.A. Atkinson, H. Heckhausen, M.E.P. Seligman, B. Weiner, etc. In the field of personality psychology, SDT is a new, much more empirically grounded stage in the development of the ideas of humanistic psychology. This paper offers a way to rethink SDT from a constructivist perspective. It seems that this approach will allow us to unify the ways of motivation formation using different styles of activity regulation, will make it possible to differentiate various regulatory styles within the style that is called external in traditional SDT and also will provide an opportunity to re-examine the problem of distinguishing between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. It will eventually expand the explanatory power of the SDT.

Is Service Quality a Driver of the Regulatory Welfare State? Policies for Health Services in Germany and France

The article analyzes the design and development of health services in Germany and France—two countries with similar welfare states but with striking differences in their national regulatory styles. Using these comparative cases, I show how the interplay of long-term institutional factors and short-term political factors shaped the establishment and development of these regulatory welfare states’ (RWS) social services. Specifically, I argue that the discovery of service quality in the 1990s had the potential to accelerate RWS development. In Germany, characterized by a corporatist state tradition and a cooperative regulatory style, the political debate on quality (either as a parameter of competition or as a concept for the professional consolidation of service production) had a greater influence on the design of the national quality regulation system (goals, instruments, processes, institutions) than in France, which is characterized by a state-centered Napoleonic tradition and a directive regulatory style.

Perfectionism Profiles and Motivation to Exercise Based on Self-Determination Theory

This study complements extant variable-centered research that focus on the relationship between perfectionism and the autonomous and controlled motivation to exercise. A person-centered approach is used for identifying perfectionism profiles as well as analyzing inter-profile differences in terms of the six regulatory styles located on the autonomy-control continuum. A sample of 597 (Mage = 22.08, SD = 3.33) Ecuadorian undergraduates enrolled in a sport science degree program was employed. Latent Profile Analysis based on two higher-order perfectionism dimensions, Perfectionistic Strivings (PS) and Perfectionistic Concerns (PC), supported a four-class solution: Non-Perfectionists (low PS and PC), Adaptive Perfectionists (high PS and low PC), Maladaptive Perfectionists (high PS and PC), and Moderate Perfectionists (moderate PS and PC). Adaptive Perfectionists obtained the highest means on Intrinsic, Integrated, and Identified regulations. However, these differences where only significant when compared with Moderate Perfectionists, and only in the case of Integrated regulation, in comparison with Non-Perfectionists. In contrast, Maladaptive Perfectionists obtained significantly higher scores on Introjected and External regulations as well as on Amotivation than the other three classes. Results are discussed in light of Self-Determination Theory.

Neurophysiological and behavioural markers of compassionate motivation

The scientific study of compassion is burgeoning, with research indicating that practicing compassion for oneself can facilitate well-being and buffer against mental health problems, specifically by protecting against the impacts of self-criticism and shame. However, the putative neurophysiological markers of compassion training programs which are increasingly being used in psychotherapy, such as compassionate mind training (CMT) are less well known. Herein we offer an integrative, multi-method approach which investigated CMT at neural, physiological, self-report, and behavioural levels. Specifically, this study first assessed participants’ neural responses when confronted with disappointments (e.g., rejection, failure) using two fundamental self-regulatory styles, self-criticism and self-compassion. Second, participant’s heart-rate variability (HRV) – a marker of parasympathetic nervous system response – was assessed during compassion training, pre- and post- a two-week self-directed engagement period. We identified neural networks associated with threat are reduced when practicing compassion, and heightened when being self-critical. In addition, cultivating compassion was associated with increased parasympathetic response as measured by an increase in HRV, versus the resting-state. Critically, cultivating compassion was able to shift a subset of clinically-at risk participants to one of increased parasympathetic response. Further, those who began the trial with lower resting HRV also engaged more in the intervention, possibly as they derived more benefits, both self-report and physiologically, from engagement in compassion.

Administrative Styles and Policy Styles

There are distinct characteristics to the ways and procedures through which public administrations typically accomplish their daily tasks. The informal routines that characterize the behavior and activities of public administrations in the policymaking process are called administrative styles. They can be understood as the meso-level of organizational culture. Studying administrative styles is important for comparative research on policymaking because they capture and explain variance in policymaking and implementation beyond merely structural aspects or formal institutions. Similar to policy styles and regulatory styles, the concept of administrative styles has long been employed to describe state–society relationships. It has found to be a useful independent variable in the study various phenomena, such as divergent policy developments across European states, national idiosyncrasies in regulatory regimes or the impact of Europeanization on national administrations. However, administrative styles can also be informative of the relationship between the bureaucracy with both their political masters and society and bureaucratic influence in policymaking. In this regard, one can distinguish two orientations underpinning administrative styles, namely positional and functional orientations characterizing informal bureaucratic routines and standard operating procedures. Depending on the prevalence of positional and functional orientations in behavioral patterns, it is possible to distinguish four ideal-typical administrative styles that apply to administrative routines of influencing the policymaking process: a servant style, an advocacy style, a consolidator style, and an entrepreneurial style. Variation in administrative styles across different organizations can be explained by two factors, namely the internal and external challenges they face. Understood this way, administrative styles could enable a comparative assessment of bureaucratic routines and influence in policymaking across different countries or sectors as well as in supra- and international bureaucracies.

The Diversity of Legal Environments for Organized Civil Society in Long-Lived Democracies

This chapter shows that the legal regulation of groups and parties adopted within long-lived democracies resemble each other sufficiently to be aggregated in one overall Legal Regulation Index, which allows us to rank democracies’ legal environments for voluntary organizations on a continuum from highly permissive to highly constraining legal environments. Having explored the cross-country variation in regulatory constraints applied to voluntary organizations across the nineteen democracies studied, this chapter presents an interdisciplinary, theoretical framework to account for democracies’ legal dispositions building on neo-institutionalist arguments associated with notions of ‘state traditions’ and ‘regulatory styles’. This framework integrates arguments derived from literature in political science, sociology, public administration research, and comparative law, specifying why lawmakers might be legitimated or able to adopt constraining regulation in an area in which state interference is often contested.