User:S.emp/Week 4, lecture 4

=Week 4, Lecutre 4=

Psychological needs
According to the self-determination theory a person must have a combination of autonomy, competence and relatedness to be psychologically happy.

One aspect of autonomy that I find interesting is that it is not the acutal autonomy that is necessarily important but the person’s perception of autonomy. According to Reeve (2009) providing a person with a choice could be the most widely used way to support a person’s need for autonomy. As when a person is offered unrestricted choices with no strings attached and when a person is allowed to make a choice that truly reflects their personal values, goals and interests, is when they feel a sense of need-satisfying autonomy.
 * Autonomy: The psychological need to experience self-direction and personal endorsement in the initiation and regulation of behaviour.


 * Competence: A psychological need to be effective in interactions with the environment and it also reflects a person’s desire to exercise their capacities and skills and in doing so a person is able to seek out and master optimal challenges.


 * Relatedness: A psychological need to establish close emotional bnods and attachments with other people and it reflects the desire to be emotionally connected to and interpersonally involved in warm relationships.

Social needs
I found the difference between social and psychological needs interesting. Psychological need are seen as esential to well-being and growth, on the otherhand, while social needs are still important, they are not innate but a socialised, learned need.

I had never heard of quasi needs before so I found it really interesting to learn about them.



Quasi needs: Ephemeral, situallionally induced wants to create tense energy to engage in behaviour capable of reducing the built-up tension. Quasi needs resemble a person’s true needs in some way. For instance, they affect how we think feel and act. They also originate from situational demands and pressures and whenever a person satisfies a situational demand the quasi need will disappear.

I am a visual person and during the lecture James used a really good example of quasi needs. James said that if it rains you will need an umbrella, however, if the rain was not there, the umbrella would not be essential. Therefore, the need is situaltionally induced.

This week we also looked at achievement. According to Reeve (2009) the need for achievement is the desire to do well relative to a standard of excellence. A standard of excellence is any challenge to a person’s sense of competence that ends with an objective outcome for example, success verus failure. Reeve (2009) made a good point when he said that when facing standards of excellence people vary in their emotional response. Individuals high in the need for achievement generally respond with approach-oriented emotions, such as, pride. Whereas individuals low in the need for achievement, generally respond with avoidace-orientated emotions, for example, anxiety. Depending on the person and the particular task will determine whether a person will respond with avoidance or approach-oriented emotions. It is also worth noting that when people are confronted with a standard of excellence, people show differences in choice, latency, effect, persistence and their willingness to take personal responsibility for ensuring whether the task is a success or a failure. According to research high-need achievers, compared to low-need achievers, choose moderately difficult to difficult versions of tasks instead of easy versions, they do not procrastinate, they take responsibility for the success or failuire of the task and they show more effort. However, I feel that it important to note that a person may be a high-achiever on one particular task, but a low achiever on a different task.

The need for achievement does not steam from one area of a person’s life, research indicates that it is a mltifaceted phenomenon. Need for achievement comes from social factors, cognitive and developmental influences. I agree with this statement, I think that a number of factors determine a person's need for achievement. Take my sister and me. When it comes to achievement we are similar in many ways, however we are also different. My sister for example, loves to run, she even goes in maratons on a regular basis. In this area she is a high achiever and extremely motivated. Me on the otherhand you would not catch me in a maratons, let alone running. My need for achievement in this area is extremely low. Therefore, while my sister and I had the same parents, similar upbrings and similar oportunities. we are interested in different things and therefore, have different levels of need for achievement depending on the task. It would be difficult to tell what made my sister and I different in our need for achievement, as research indicates, a number of social, cognitive and developmental factors would have contributed.