Psychological Needs and the Facilitation of Integrative Processes

1995/09/01 by Richard M. Ryan · 2,202 citations
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Autonomy #Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development #Cognition #Cognitive evaluation theory #Cognitive psychology #Competence (human resources) #Motivation and Self-Concept in Sports #Personality #Psychology #Self-determination theory #Situational ethics #Social psychology #Youth Development and Social Support

paper · doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.1995.tb00501.x

published in Journal of Personality 63(3), 397-427 (Wiley)

openalex publication_date 1995/09/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01

Abstract

The assumption that there are innate integrative or actualizing tendencies underlying personality and social development is reexamined. Rather than viewing such processes as either nonexistent or as automatic, I argue that they are dynamic and dependent upon social-contextual supports pertaining to basic human psychological needs. To develop this viewpoint, I conceptually link the notion of integrative tendencies to specific developmental processes, namely intrinsic motivation; internalization; and emotional integration. These processes are then shown to be facilitated by conditions that fulfill psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness, and forestalled within contexts that frustrate these needs. Interactions between psychological needs and contextual supports account, in part, for the domain and situational specificity of motivation, experience, and relative integration. The meaning of psychological needs (vs. wants) is directly considered, as are the relations between concepts of integration and autonomy and those of independence, individualism, efficacy, and cognitive models of "multiple selves."

Citations

• Facilitating Internalization: The Self‐Determination Theory Perspective
• Human agency in social cognitive theory.
• Emotional Autonomy versus Detachment: Revisiting the Vicissitudes of Adolescence and Young Adulthood

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Related

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