Behavioral Regulation of SELF-DETERMINATION THEORY

Most current theories of motivation have the concept of intention (e.g., Lewin, 1951) at their core. They are concerned with factors that promote (vs. fail to promote) people's understanding of behavior-outcome instrumentalities and engaging in efficacious behaviors to attain those outcomes. This conceptual distinction between motivated and amotivated actions – in other words, between intentional and nonintentional behaving - has been described in various terms. These include personal versus impersonal causality (Heider, 1958), voluntary responding versus helplessness (Seligman, 1975), and internal versus external locus of control (Rotter, 1966).

Unlike most other theories, however, self-determination theory makes an important additional distinction that falls within the class of behaviors that are intentional or motivated. It distinguishes between self-determined and controlled types of intentional regulation. Motivated actions are selfdetermined to the extent that they are engaged in wholly volitionally and endorsed by one's sense of self (Deci & Ryan, 1991), whereas actions are

controlled if they are compelled by some interpersonal or intrapsychic force. When a behavior is self-determined, the regulatory process is choice, but when it is controlled, the regulatory process is compliance (or in somecases defiance).

The dimension that ranges from being self-determined to being controlled in one's intentional responding has also been described using the concept of perceived locus of causality (decharms, 1968; Ryan & Connell, 1989).

When a behavior is self-determined, the person perceives that the locus of causality is internal to his or her self, whereas when it is controlled, the perceived locus of causality is external to the self. The important point in this distinction is that both self-determined and controlled behaviors are motivated or intentional but their regulatory processes are very different. Further, as we show later, the qualities of their experiential and behavioral components are accordingly different.