THEORY-077: Goals pursued for identified or intrinsic reasons receive more sustained effort, which carries their better attainment, and attaining them raises well-being more than attaining goals pursued under pressure

Which unity this is about

Self-governance, in its empirical form: whether a goal is pursued from reasons the person endorses. The criterion is “whether the person feels ownership as he or she pursues the goal” (LIT-589, p. 484). The paper’s self is “the more-or-less integrated center of agentic activity” (p. 483), but nothing it measures is behavioural integration or a unity of experience.

Source

• Sheldon & Elliot (1999), LIT-589, read in full in NOTE-448.

What was actually shown

The measure. Participants listed their own goals and rated four reasons for each: external (“because somebody else wants you to”), introjected (“because you would feel ashamed, guilty, or anxious if you didn’t”), identified (“because you really believe it’s an important goal to have”) and intrinsic (“because of the fun and enjoyment”). Self-concordance is identified plus intrinsic minus introjected minus external.

Effort carries attainment. In Study 1 (N = 169), self-concordance correlated .24 with semester effort and .20 with attainment, and effort .76 with attainment. With both entered, self-concordance dropped to β = .02, ns, and effort stayed at β = .76; Sobel z = 2.93 (p. 486). Study 3 (N = 73) repeated it: effort β = .72, self-concordance β = .08, ns; Sobel z = 3.12 (p. 491). The authors’ 1998 single-goal studies, as recapped here, found that controlled motivation predicts initial effort intentions but not effort two and four weeks later (p. 484). The self-concordance to effort path survived adding self-efficacy, implementation intentions, avoidance framing or life skills, one at a time (p. 492).

Attainment does more when goals are self-concordant. Attainment predicted change in well-being (β = .34 in Study 1, .28 in Study 3), and the self-concordance by attainment interaction was β = .11 (p < .05) and .23 (p = .01) (pp. 487, 491). In Study 3 accumulated daily need satisfaction partly carried attainment’s effect on well-being (need satisfaction β = .22, attainment’s direct effect β = .19, p = .056; Sobel z = 1.98). Study 2 (N = 152) showed that semester-long need satisfaction predicts change in well-being beyond its baseline.

This is the paper’s model, held at the strength of its evidence: the effort half is consistent across two samples and the authors’ earlier work; the well-being half is smaller, and its mediation is partial and in one sample.

What this does not say

• It does not say integration does the work. The measure has no integrated-regulation item, and it pools identified with intrinsic reasons. The result belongs to the autonomous end of SDT’s continuum as a whole.
• It does not escape shared method. Effort and attainment are the participants’ monthly answers to “How hard are you trying” and “How well are you doing”. The r = .76 between them may be partly one person rating herself twice, which is why promote_when asks for observed outcomes.
• It does not say the model fits as specified. Studies 1 and 2 reached acceptable fit only after adding paths the modification indices suggested, and Study 3’s χ²(9) = 20.3 is significant at .05 (NOTE-448, Corrections).
• It says nothing about the content of goals. The authors concede that a goal can be self-concordant and evil, and that “a complete model of optimal goal functioning will need to address not only the why of striving, but also the what” (p. 495). Taylor’s book (LIT-594, unread) is usually read as pressing that objection against self-determining freedom.
• It does not say the reasons are the person’s own in the philosopher’s sense. Self-concordance is felt ownership, reported. Whether the report could itself be alienated is THEORY-029’s question, and the paper does not ask it. Its own conclusion grants that telling one’s “native desires” from “alien injunctions” is hard, because internalizing a culture works by the same infiltration (p. 495).

Connections

• THEORY-054 (autonomy is graded integration, not order of endorsement). This account presupposes SDT’s graded continuum, which is that account’s first half, and supports it: the autonomous end predicts persistence and well-being. It does not bear on the second half, since it cannot tell integrated from identified regulation, and its measure is the kind of self-reported endorsement THEORY-054’s refutation clause worries about. It presupposes THEORY-054 rather than extending it: if integration turned out to be endorsement renamed, this account would stand unchanged, but if the continuum fell it would lose its premise.
• THEORY-047 (the conditions of acquisition fix how a value is held). No history is measured here; self-concordance is present structure.
• THEORY-049 and THEORY-046 (controlling events lower intrinsic motivation). Those accounts are about what a reward or event does to interest in an activity. This one is about what the reasons behind a self-set goal do to persistence. Both say controlled motivation fades, by different routes, and neither tests the other.
• THEORY-052 (need frustration as a transdiagnostic process). Study 2 is the well-being side of the same need theory in a nonclinical sample. It says nothing about frustration or disorder.
• THEORY-074 (true-self accessibility is not what self-report authenticity or need satisfaction measure). Self-concordance is one more self-report in the family that account sorts. Whether it measures the same thing as reported authenticity is not tested in any paper the record holds.