Reframing motivation with SDT

Mark Carroll (: 00:00

Hi everyone, welcome to this episode of Labours of Sports Coaching. So in today's episode I'm going to go through some of the basic assumptions of sports coaching through a self-determination theory lens as far as the role of the coach, the effects of the coach, and how some of the various sort of elements of self-determination theory is a macro theory.

of motivational psychology and it has its own sort of constituent parts and you know, looking at motivational regulation, you know, and understanding the connection between different motivation types and the psychological needs. And just to kind of help you as a coach or as a coach developer or maybe in a researcher in this space, someone with a growing interest in this space, sort of understand some of the core fundamentals of the premise.

of self-determination theory and why we should care about it and how it might change the way in which you view motivation, both for athletes primarily, but also actually in terms of even understanding the coach experience too. For the purpose of, know, just for brevity and to keep things on point today, we'll keep it around the motivational effects on athletes, but I just.

They say that it's an explanation of human behaviour in general. And coaches are part of that equation, aren't they? But I just mentioned that, I digress. So yeah, so let's kick it off with the first base assumption, is in coaching, there's that sort of the cartoon coach that you might see as someone blowing a whistle and shouting at athletes and offering that external motivation.

You know, in some respects then, there's assumption of the coach as being the motivator. So the coach's job is to motivate the athletes. It's sort of, some people may say that that's, you know, the responsibility of motivation lies with the coach. Now, a self-determination theory lens would actually spin that and say actually it's not, the primary role of the coach isn't to be the motivator.

but instead to create an environment in which the athlete motivates themself. So it's not to deny the coach, you know, a responsibility around the motivation and all the different elements that that would entail, it's to, who's in the driving seat here? You know, and part of that is because there's a long line of research across various domains, not just sport, that is suggested that.

internal drivers are those are strongest, that are those most heavily linked to positive outcomes. And therefore as a result of that, you know, we have to then consider well, the coach's job is to get athletes into the state where they're internal drivers are salient, you know, and it's the athlete who should drive this because it's them alone who's going to be there across

across the full stretch of their support involvement. So that's the first basic assumption in terms of how you might flip it in your head from recognising yourself, the coach, as the prime motivator in an athlete's world to actually being a facilitator. So you hear that a lot mostly in pedagogical conversations around as the coach and then the intervention, i.e. in some respects, the coach being the direct.

driver in the athlete's learning to is actually coaching and the design of the practice. So it's a similar sort of thing from a motivational standpoint from, you know, the coach being that prime motivator to the coach actually creating an environment and facilitating an environment where the athlete is empowered to motivate themselves. So that's one basic assumption I think to get in your head here in a way that we view the world of motivation from a self-determination if you really lens.

The second assumption is, I think it's really important, is how do most people think about motivation in terms of the language that they use and what type of reality that language confers. So, you know, what's the typical thing we say? An athlete is lacking motivation or an athlete is very motivated. So I'm going to say to you that, you know, there's no such thing as an athlete lacking

or being demotivated, maybe more specifically. Every athlete's motivated. It's the type of motivation that they embody at the time is what's important here. In the same way, no athlete's, it's just a stereotype that we hear, it's just common language, and we need to get away from that. It's the same way that we hear people talk about the athlete lost concentration and anyone, you know.

with an understanding of concentration, understand that we don't lose concentration, it's just that our mental spotlight drifts to something less relevant. So it's the same thing again from a motivational perspective. So there is no such thing as a demotivated athlete, but there are better and worse quality forms of motivation arguably that are respectively related to different outcomes.

you know, more adaptive outcomes, more maladaptive outcomes. So that's something that I think is really important to understand. And again, an athlete can have a lot of motivation types, so again, it's not denied that there's quantity is there, but we need to deal in types. So self-determination theory, STD for short, deals in motivational quantity and also types, so quantity and quality, okay, amounts and types, both things at once.

So, if we're now at the stage that we're recognizing, okay, there are various types of motivation. What are they? Now, the motivation for self-determination exists on a spectrum. Okay, so the prototypical form of self-determination, of self-determined motivation, it's under the name, is the most internalized form of motivation.

which is intrinsic motivation. that's intrinsic motivation is motivation that we're pure joy and

Motivation to compel someone to take part in activity it comes from nothing More than the basic and built enjoyment and interest of doing the test So there's no reward Within this the reward that's the award the reward is participation and test Okay, so that's it's a very

whole very pure form of self-determined motivation. Okay, that's why it's interchangeable, intrinsic motivation is interchangeable with the word self-determined motivation. You know, that is the idea around that. I've maybe before, maybe jumped a step there in so far as it's important to recognise when we say why someone's doing a task, it's...

What we, if we to flesh that out, what we're actually meaning is what is the value that someone assigns to a behaviour? What is the reasons for why someone feels compelled to act? What is the environment that they're part of sending them in so far as knows for what is expected of them and their involvement within that environment? So, because it's psychosocial.

theory, you know, so, and I'll come on to that more about the environmental elements later on, but just what I did quickly, just a wee footnote there as we got into the very first motivation type, which is the, as I say, the prototypical form of self-determined motivation, intrinsic motivation. do we all do activity for purely the absolutely neat interest of doing the task or the neat enjoyment that we derive from doing the task? Of course not, people are far too complicated for that, so.

Obviously there is more extrinsic or external, it means the same thing, for why we do anything. So self-determination theory sees these on a spectrum of more self-determined extrinsic forms of motivation and less self-determined extrinsic forms of motivation. So what that means is that while there are extrinsic forms of motivation that someone can have for doing a task, there are,

strictly speaking, higher quality forms of that is self-determination. It can't compete in the same level of self-determination as intrinsic motivation because it's just not as pure as that. But there are ones that are pushing the envelope a little bit more in that respect. They're going closer to the letter there. And that's these various ones that I'm going get into now. So let's say silver place in the battle for self-determination. So the very first.

of the self-determined extra-intrinsic drivers, they're not quite intrinsic motivation, is integrated regulation. So it's better understood as where we take part in activity because it's part of our identity. So you can understand how heavily integrated that is within someone's psyche, where it's part of who they are. So this is an athlete who takes part in sport.

for one of many reasons, but in terms of the integrated element of their motivation is because they are an athlete, it's part of who they are. Or maybe they attach a value to it that's not even so much inbuilt into the title or status of athlete, but rather what they see participation in sport has been instrumental towards insofar as deeply held values like resilience, discipline, character.

You know, these are some of the words that we make use to describe ourselves someone who is Committed, know and that matters a lot to them, you know, and so so that that's very personal and I'm sure you can appreciate that and Let's see. It's not often Of all the motivational regulations. It's not the one that's used that much at all with children adults. Yeah with children not so much just partly because the ego development and

Just the fact that, know, character, are fairly, that sense of self is being developed in a child's style. typically that's where we it used as much in studies. So you might see it being skipped sometimes in measurement tools and things like that. So integrated regulation. The next form of motivation, still extrinsic, but we would still put it on the side of being more self-determined extrinsic motivation, is

identified regulation where basically we have attached value to doing a task and it serves some higher order goal. Okay, not to the same level as a goal that's driven towards character, but I don't plus the line somewhat there, but maybe something that's value driven to something else attached to the activity and the goals that we have for.

what we want to get out of the activity, in this case sports. So, kind of like an athlete who doesn't really like the gym, but they know that going to the gym helps them be a better rugby player. That sort of idea. So we've attached a value to it. And again, we need that a lot, don't we? Because oftentimes we need to do tasks that we don't always enjoy, but we need to delay gratification in order to achieve longer term goals, those sorts of things. So identify.

regulation is quite important in that respect. Athletes will use that and rely on that quite a lot when engaged in sport. Then we then cross into the threshold of more non-self-determined etch runs that forms a motivation. So the one at the other side of the fence here, okay, across the spectrum of internalization, our lack thereof is we start to move closer towards this side.

than the other side that we've just been at, is introjected regulation. So this is sort of like, guiltevation. I've just made that word up, but it's kind of like the, you know, where an athlete feels guilty and they feel maybe their relationship with somebody else or their feelings about themself around a threat unless they engage in an activity or engage in a behaviour. So you might go, well,

And this is what's and serious about this form of motivation is that the athlete is still internalized the reasons for doing it. Okay, so they're still driven by the athlete. However, that seed was planted externally. why do they feel guilty? Why are they feeling under threat in order to carry out this behavior and they decide to go along with it? But why is it they feel that compelled to do it?

that it doesn't actually, doesn't, the genesis of that behavior isn't from name, it's external to them. So it's kind of like a coach who's around my dad telling an athlete, know, you're being lazy or I can't believe you're not gonna do that. I'm not angry and disappointed, know, that sort of So, or someone maybe not wanting to let their coach down, not wanting to let their family down, not wanting let, you know, those sorts of things. Even more complicated, maybe not wanting to let.

Themself down as well depending on the level of engagement commitment. They've already deserted towards some larger aim and again, you're probably Hopefully starting to listen to this and actually start to see why These different forms of motivation need to be called upon at different times. Maybe I don't know but that's a conversation for another day I do know I have from feel it reach drawn feelings on that but I don't I don't want to take up and This episode too much worth that what that conversation will come

at different time. There's a previous episode that can watch. made a guest appearance on rugby coach week later. We talked a little bit about that. But that is it. So, and then beside that, okay, the far end of the, it's the inset spectrum is what we would call.

external regulation. So this is where an athlete engages in a task because there is the opportunity to gain a reward for doing it or in order to avoid a punishment of some sort. So athletes are motivated by, you know, getting a trophy or motivated by avoiding some sort of punishment for their coach doing laps of the park because of something that's happened or whatever that maybe doesn't meet expectations, those sorts of things.

And I'm sure you can understand that that is definitely, that's why it's quite explicitly in the name, it's externally regulated. That is the environment around the athlete, bribing or coercing them into a behavior. and then what we've actually got, now, so that basically makes up the spectrum of its trends and motivators.

So this comes from one of the many theories of self-determination for the organism integration theory that sort of helps us understand how we can internalize behavior from more extrinsic to more intrinsic or internal. If it doesn't quite get to the point of being intrinsic. But there is actually, and it's not a developmental spectrum in a way, it's not like you move from external regulation to interjected to

identify that doesn't, it's not how it works, it's actually that you can jump across in between these things at various intervals because of different contextual events. Maybe across a long term, maybe across a short term, but in a really potent way, quite more episodic events that can occur as well, whatever. So I'll return to that, to that there is actually a final behaviour regulation that doesn't actually sit

is being extrinsic. It's called a motivation. And this is almost like a non-formal motivation. It's like a non-regulation. It's actually sometimes categorized as a form of sort of helplessness. it's where someone neither feels forced nor intrigued nor, know, they aren't able to.

They aren't able to manifest any reason for doing an activity. It's almost like going through the paces. So people either disengage and it's almost like not doing the activity or they go through the motions in a passive way. So it's like, you know, just passively going through the motions. So that you can probably tell me that could literally be something that just doesn't do an activity, it ceases to do an activity and why they don't do it to someone who does it but in a way that's just so...

unintegrated with the self. Okay, now that integration with the self, not to just repeat the very first form of self-determination motivation, but the reason why we use that sort of language is because you've got to understand that self-determination theory has a view on human motivation. It's a form of positive psychology.

Okay, that's about, it's growth oriented and it posits and a lot of the evidence would suggest that people have an innate and born desire to self actualize, to create an ever more cohesive, self integrated form of the self, you know, in terms of when it's harmoniously attuned to what we want and what.

and for her own control over an activity and those sorts of things like it's, it should reflect their values or beliefs or actions or actions rather should reflect their values or beliefs or goals, those sorts of things and be very personally orientated. So, and it believes that everyone has a natural inclination towards the self growth, provided that their environment, social environment that surrounds them, because it's kind of like, know, you might have that equation, it's like,

personality plus environment equals behavior. Let's say this is the personality element, without stretching too many things here, is about that innate propensity towards growth. But we need plus a supportive environment that nourishes that innate desire towards growth. And if it does, then great. You'll see ever more internalized reasons for doing activities. And there should be an ever more...

cohesive relationship between what we do and what we want to do and those sorts of But if it doesn't, then that is where that innate growth desire is somewhat polluted and that is where more complicated motivational orientations develop. Okay, now.

An example of this, and before I come back to what an example of this looks like, I think at this stage it's important to just also explicitly state that we're not expecting anyone athlete, anyone person to only inhabit one of these worlds, one of these behavior regulations. That's not the case. We are all motivated by several things at once. However, what is the...

What's really important is what is the main drivers, you know? So again on that spectrum, on what side of the fence, so non-self-determined to self-determined, would most of our reasons for why we do something lie? It's where most of our reasons for why we do something is what would constitute as being our motivational orientation. And this is where there's been a lot of markers that are being identified within the literature and studies.

you know, track some of these, you know, the different outcomes that people have achieved based on the different regulation types that they've possessed. This is where more self-determined forms of motivation have been linked to things like enhanced, you know, energy, effort in the task, persistence, longer persistence in the task, performance in the task, concentration, know, teamwork, sporting-like behavior, all these different things. So there's so many,

positive adaptive outcomes. And again, we can go into some of them in a later episode, I believe so. But there's so many different adaptive outcomes that have been associated with that, whereas the opposite is typically tended to be true for people whose reasons for doing an activity across the long term are more non-self-determined. and recognize that I've said across the long term because

you know, you'll know it yourself and this is something as coaches we must be aware of, like, for quick jabs, for, you know, quick dirty results over a short term, you know, the really powerful external reasons for doing something can have a really potent impact on our behaviour and lead to lot of short term results insofar as persistence, effort, performance. Sometimes that does happen, but what we see is, and what self-determination theory does is it looks to...

It looks at the long term implications of our environment and the signals that it sends to us for why we should be taking part there and those sorts of things. Not even just sends to us, but the signals that it creates within us. The longer term we see these issues. So that's a little bit around that. Now, I'm gonna come back to the internalization element here. But first, in order to understand

more about the internalization element where we can move from more external reasons to more internalized reasons if we aren't already at that point. Or why even, not easily said, why we would have a motivational orientation that's closer towards that end of the spectrum, we say, that is more self-determined. Well, what's linked to...

motivation orientation is the extent to which, and this is where we talk about how does our social environment nurture and foster these higher quality motivation. It's determined by the extent to which it satisfies our fundamental psychological needs. And them being the psychological need for autonomy, for competence, and for relatedness. Very quickly, autonomy is the desire to feel empowered, feel in control of our behavior, feel like we are responsible for our actions.

You can understand why that's very fundamental within a theory that is built around self-determination. It's kind of in the name. Self-determination, transit motivation, autonomous motivation, they all means the same thing. So autonomy is quite essential driver. The other two needs that I'm about going to aren't, and I'll come back to that in a moment. But autonomy, you then get the need for competence, as I say, that's about how...

efficacious to be feel around or capacity to do well and to interact with our environment effectively. And then you've got that final psychological need, which is the need for the lateness, that is the need to feel a sense of belonging and cared for. Some respects, they feel like you can care for others and be part of a community. So because we're social beings, okay, we want to be close to people. So how does this work? How does that fit in? How do the psychological needs connect?

and it's sent to watch our environment satisfying these three drivers, these three needs and how does that link to, you know, the drivers that come out of that for why we continue to engage or disengage or something in the middle of that. Well, if you want, let's go back to the most typical form of self-determination. If I want to, if I'm going to be intrinsically motivated towards an activity,

I really need to feel in control of the activity. How could I be doing something out of the pure interest and enjoyment for it if I don't feel that I have control over it? Because I need to be brought to it on my own volition in order to be inhabit that really pure form of motivation. And even if it's not quite at the point of intrinsic motivation, and it then exists on a more self, on the spectrum of its intrinsic reasons for it, if you look at integrated regulation or identified regulation,

those are still working towards something that has an internal driver within it. That I'm seeing value in activity, that I am feeling an activity integrates with who I am, my sense of self, my character development, that sort of thing. That is still a very, that is innately autonomous. So that's why autonomy is so important towards getting towards that higher end of the spectrum.

Now, where do the other two cyclones need to come in? Well, again, if you really wanted to do an activity over a longer stretch of time, and in a way that we think is really high quality and adaptive, then we also should feel like we're mastering it in some way. We need to feel like we're getting better at it in order to keep doing it over a longer stretch. And in a way that's conducive to keeping, to doing it well, is that we feel we're getting better at it. It's like you can't, you do something forever.

you never get any better at it. You're not gonna do it forever, you're gonna eventually, or else it will grind on you to be able to do it forever without it becoming an externalised reason as for why you do it. Because you want to feel like you're getting better at something and that's why it can really help with that internalisation because even if you don't initially feel completely in control, getting better at something.

can still be a very important driver for why you return to something and why you over time start to attach value and volitionally want to engage in something. Even if it's hard, even if it's maybe directed elsewhere by someone else who's leading it. So it's really, really important. That sense of competence is really important to as human beings, as athletes as well. Then the third psychological relatedness and the role that plays in the internalization process is that, well, many people

Engage in activity, if not for purely internally driven reasons and that they feel like control or even that they feel good at it, many people engage in because it's not the activity per se that drives them, but it's the relationship that they have with others who are engaged in the activity that drives them. It's like how many times do you hear athletes who took up the sport because it made them feel closer to their parents or a kid who takes up a sport and

and wants to do well in a sport, and this is actually even, this is where we see interlinks between the different psychological needs, but because they want to feel closer and more accepted by their friends, so then that's like, well, okay, I want to feel more accepted by my friends, I'm gonna join this sport club, I'm gonna do well, and the more well I do, the higher stakes I get in terms of my relationship with people, and then that builds on it even further, and then all of sudden, because I'm doing it well,

and then actually want to then be in it more involved more and all of sudden I've got more autonomous reasons for doing it. So you can see how these, free cyclone needs, cyclist needs, and you can scale that up across different domains, levels of sport, and maybe start, I think maybe spark a wee bit of reflection on you at the moment. Think about how that does relate to your context. Think about how that relates to your athletes, even if it's even easier for you. Think how, are your reasons for why you took part in sport back in the day?

If you want to talk about it in the context of why do you coach, then again, that's absolutely fine as well. Maybe I'd always encourage a wee bit of introspection towards some of the reasons for why we do things. Just for how it ensures that you're still doing things for why you want to do it, or is your environment creating your sense of reason for action, which is something I think we always need to consider, just to take stock of ourselves and those sorts of things as a coach.

That is the role that that plays in things. so that hopefully allows you to understand what does self-determination think about? How does it change the way that we view some of the fundamental elements of coaching as far as who's responsible for motivation? How do we actually conceive of what motivation is? What language do we attach to it? Don't say demotivated anymore, everyone's motivated by something.

To then actually write what are the different motivational types. So if we now can see that motivation exists on a spectrum, what are the different regulators? What's the relationship between those different regulators? It's a spectrum in the sense that it's not hierarchical because it's not a simplified view on human motivation. Okay, because it also allows us to understand, like I said, that human motivation, it's what's the main drivers? There's multiple drivers.

and what's the main drivers and hopefully it also helps you maybe take stock of, well, our athletes want to do the activity they want to have, there's a purpose for why they want to do it. They may, no, not so much that they want to do it, but our athletes want to be ever more harmoniously self-integrated with themselves, between themselves and the environment. They want that harmonious relationship between how they feel and what they do, okay, and your job as a coach is how can you bring an athlete

closer towards internalizing the reasons for doing your sport and less close towards more external reasons and externalized reasons for why they do your sport. And that's where, again, across the short term, you can see, yes, you can use lots of less external reasons and externalized reasons for doing more externalized reasons for doing something, but across a longer stretch, it doesn't really pay the evidence. And hopefully now you can also recognize that

you know, how do you actually get them towards anywhere in that equation? It's the extent to which you're satisfying versus frustrating their psychological needs. And now we can understand the role that, you know, how the environment supports us, the role that I can play in whether we do that task, how we do that task and reasons why we do that task, you know, and how they interweave between the antecedents of behaviour and...

and the effects of it in terms of the experiences that we have as athletes and they're all often very different, aren't they? So yeah, hopefully that made sense guys. As I say, we're gonna keep digging out of this topic more and more in different angles as the weeks and months go on. So please continue the conversation. You can connect with me on LinkedIn and by all means send me a message. I'm to receive feedback as well, even on the email for the show as well. That's absolutely fine.

So yeah, so keep thinking about that. Hopefully this episode's been helpful to you and I will see you next time.