Psychological needs: Competence

Question 1

What is the need for competence?

Answer 1

The psychological need to be effective in one’s interactions with the environment
It reflects the desire to exercise and extend one’s skills and abilities

Question 2

What does competence need satisfaction look like?

Answer 2

feelings of effectance, mastery, making progress
Increased motivation and engagement, enhanced well-being and positive emotions, increased self-efficacy and confidence

Question 3

What does competence need frustration look like?

Answer 3

decreased motivation and engagement
Reduced well-being, negative emotions, burnout
Behavioural maladjustment

Question 4

What are the four key practices of competence support?

Answer 4

1) clear expectations
2) progress-enabling guidance
3) Optimal challenges
4) Informational feedback

Question 5

Describe clear expectations

Answer 5

Picking a goal to strive for or a standard of excellence to pursue so the person know what competence looks like
Make it clear what “good” performance look like

Question 6

Describe progress-enabling guidance

Answer 6

Offer how-to instruction, worked out examples, models to emulate, tips and strategies, resources, and reminders

Question 7

What are optimal challenges?

Answer 7

• require you to stretch your capacities, but still feel achievable
• studies show that moderately difficult tasks are the most enjoyable because it builds competence

Question 8

What is informational feedback?

Answer 8

Constructive feedback helps people adjust their strategies and performances into a clear path to future progress

Question 9

How can we give constructive criticism?

Answer 9

Quality assessment – highlight strengths and progress to boost confidence and motivation
Identifying weakness- be specific, don’t overgeneralize
Actionable advice
Encouraging self-reflection
Bolster sense of control

Question 10

Where does authentic sense of competence come from?

Answer 10

Authentic competence comes from person’s own performance & effort, not external praise & rewards

Question 11

What is directive support vs autonomy support?

Answer 11

Directive: advice, reminders, and problem-solving
- can be useful, but may backfire and feel intrusive and undermine motivation and competence

Autonomy: listening, understanding, encouraging self-determination
- may lead to better outcomes in goal achievement, goal internalization, resilence, and well-being .

Question 12

What does research suggest about directive versus autonomous goal support?

Answer 12

STUDY: Participants listed multipple personal goals and were followed over a period of 3 months

RESULT: autonomy support significantly positively related to both self-reported and other reported goal progress in both friendships and romantic relationships
–> mediated by autonomy Directive support not significantly related to better goal progress, relationship quality, or well-being

Question 13

What is invisible support?

Answer 13

Support that goes unnoticed by the recipient but nevertheless exerts positive effects on recipient

Question 14

Summarize the findings of the Bolger et al. (2000) invisible support study (where participants were writing the New York State Bar Exam)

Answer 14

Daily Diary study of couples where one partner was preparing for NY Bar exam.
- Partners reported daily provision of emotional support
Examinees: reported daily reciept of emotional support and distress

RESULT: reports of support provision associated with examinees’ decreases in depression while support reciept associated with increases
The most benefical condition was when support was provided but not noticed by participant.

Question 15

Why might visible support undermine individuals’ well-being

Answer 15

Visual support seemed to increase feelings of stress
– there is a threat of efficacy, that your partner doesn’t think you can handle something.
Visual support can undermine our sense of COMPETENCE

Study: Ps assigned a stressful task, a confederate then supported the person either very visibly or invisibly.
RESULT: visible support inc stress

Question 16

What does the effectiveness of visible and invisible support depend on?

Answer 16

Our relatedness needs! The extent to which we feel understood, validated, and cared for. Also competence durrr

Question 17

What is cognitive evaluation theory?

Answer 17

A framework for predicting the effects that any extrinsic event will have on motivation taking competence and autonomy into account.

Believes that external events have 2 functions:
1) control behaviour- dec intrinsic motivation, interferes with learning quality, self-regulation undermined
2) inform competence- increases intrinsic motivation, enhances high quality learning, enhances self-regulation

Whichever function is MORE SALIENT determines how an external event will affect extrinsic motivation

Question 18

What is praise?

Answer 18

A form of reward that doesn’t necessarily undermine intrinsic motivation

Question 19

How does cognitive evaluation theory apply to praise?

Answer 19

Praise can be used to control behaviour by focusing on meeting external expectations rather than personal achievement, but this can feel pressuring and reduce intrinsic motivation

Praise can also be used to inform someone about their competence by focusing on specific skills and effort, reinforcing a sense of mastery and competence and enhancing intrinsic motivation

Question 20

What is flow state?

Answer 20

Flow us a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing seems to matter

Question 21

What does it feel like to be in flow state?

Answer 21

• merging of action and awareness
• complete concentration on task at hand
• loss of self-conciousness
  -distortion of temporal perception
• heightened sense of control
  -autotelic experience

Question 22

What is an autotelic experience?

Answer 22

an experience that is rewarding in itself (intrinsically rewarding)

Question 23

What is mind wandering?

Answer 23

When you mind is wandering from the activity you are doing,
approx. 50% of our lives we are mind wandering and we tend to be less happy
In flow, we feel oneness with the activity

Question 24

What are the conditions of flow state?

Answer 24

The perceived balance between challenges and skills
The desire to experience optimal challenge largely explains why flow improves performance over time
Clear, proximal, and achievable
Immediate and unambiguous feedback

Question 25

What is the experience fluctuation model of flow?

Answer 25

The idea that the level of challenge and level of perceived skill of different activities indicate what state one will be in. For instance low skill and low challenge will make someone feel apathetic Low skill and High challenge will make someone feel anxious. Flow is high skill, high challenge

Question 26

What type of activities are best for flow?

Answer 26

Optimal challenge is the key to experiencing flow Some activities are more conducive to learning flow such that they require learning of skills, goals, provide feedback and make control possible. Many activities can be turned into flow!

Question 27

Explain how cognitive evaluation theory can be used to understand the effects of competition on motivation.

Answer 27

Competition can be a rich source of challenge and competence feedback but also involves high levels of pressure, incompetence feedback, stress, and negative social evaluation. According to CET, depending on how an event is percieved our intrinsic motivation can be enhanced or undermined

Question 28

How does "win-focused" instruction affect motivation?

Answer 28

Tends to be experienced as moderately controlling, thereby decreasing intrinsic motivation - the orientation is toward the reward, not enjoyment and engagement Competition is more motivating when success is based on personal achievement - Losers who met a performance standard and received positive feedback felt just as competent, interested, and engaged as winners -BUT those who received external rewards were less likely to continue engaging freely

Question 29

How does high pressure competition affect motivation?

Answer 29

Emphasis of winning at ALL COSTS lowers intrinsic motivation more than comparative competition condition without emphasis on winning (even for participants who WON) So competively contingent rewards CAN undermine intrinsic motivation even for winners

Question 30

How does feedback affect competitive motivation?

Answer 30

The more informational an event or piece of feedback can be the more it will satisfy competence and inc. intrinsic motivation

Question 31

How do expectations affect competition?

Answer 31

If you expect to play well, you will play better than expecting to play poorly (this is mediated through percieved competence)

Question 32

What is the role of challenge vs. threat appraisals in competition?

Answer 32

Viewing a competitive situation as a challenge (rather than a threat) leads to better focus, improved performance, and more adaptive emotional & physiological response ex) Golf contest with novice golfers where one group had challenge condition and other had threat condition. RESULT: challenge condition had more attention on task, better performance, and more adaptive emotional and physiological states

Question 33

What is ego-involvement? Why does it happen?

Answer 33

When one's self-esteem becomes tied to competitive success. Occurs as external pressures are internalized This often leads to psychological need frustration, lower intrinsic motivation and well-being

Question 34

How dies self-talk affect us?

Answer 34

Positive self-talk is associated with positive affect Controlling self-talk is associated with more anxiety and stress, esp. when paired with more negative experience in the class Supportive self talk will help, pressure-based or negative self-talk will hurt.