Context
The owner asked how the record covered self-determination theory, then for
it to be filed alongside the theories drawn from the psychopathology batch
(ADR-021). The record held none of it. It does hold the philosophy of
autonomy: Frankfurt’s lectures (LIT-293), the regress about what makes a
motive one’s own (THEORY-029), and the manipulation argument against
present-structure conditions on free agency (THEORY-040). All of that sits
under agency.
Self-determination theory is the empirical programme on the same question.
It distinguishes autonomous from controlled regulation, grades
internalization from introjected to integrated, and tests what each does
to persistence and well-being. Filed under agency, a reader could not
tell a theory of what an agent is from a theory of why people act and
when that acting is their own.
Decision
Add motivation to topics, outside the philosophy group: why organisms
act and persist. It covers intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, needs,
goals and values, the internalization of regulation, and the difference
between autonomous and controlled motives.
- The SDT filing: all seven of its notes take the word first, including both sides of the dispute over rewards and intrinsic motivation.
- Earlier filings: two take it second, after
agency. They are Frijda, Ridderinkhof and Rietveld’s action readiness (LIT-540), whose states are motives, and Bandura’s self-efficacy (LIT-545), a theory of why people persist.
Alternatives considered
agencyandsocial-sciencealone.agencyis in the philosophy group and is about what it is to be an agent. The reward and internalization experiments are not about that, andsocial-scienceis too large to browse them.self-determination. That names one theory, where the subject is motivation. The behavioural account it argues with would need a second word.
Consequences
The SDT agent named two gaps this does not close:
- Operant learning and reinforcement. Behaviour analysis has no word;
learning-theoryis the machine-learning sense. Relational frame theory met the same gap (ADR-021). - Well-being and flourishing. SDT defines its needs by their effect on well-being, and well-being has no word.
Each should get its word when a second work needs it.