Motivated Gifts: A Self-Determination Perspective
At a Glance
Research Question:​
How do motivated gifts affect automous motivation in individuals?
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Tech stack:
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SPSS
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Qualtrics​
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Excel
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Timeframe:​
2 years
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​Size and source of dataset:
Over 400 responses from University of Washington students
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Key methods or models:​
Independent t-test, repeated measures ANOVA test, Chi-squared test of independence.
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Headline results:
​Motivated gifts reduced autonomous motivation and overall basic psychological need satisfaction in respondants.
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​Access:​
​"MOTIVATED GIFTS AND SDT" by Sharise Love and Liudmila Titova
Literature Research
The first step of the project was to conduct extensive literature research on Self-Determination Theory (SDT) and write up brief summaries of each paper to ensure thorough understanding of the topic. My research lead me to understand that SDT was closely connected to motivation types. More specifically, that autonomous regulation of motivation was facilitated when an individuals needs for autonomy, relatedness, and competence (or Basic Psychological Needs; BPNS) were fulfilled.
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Hypothesis Formation
A paper by Lara B. Akin, Dylan Wiwad, and Yuthika U. Girme showed that motivated gifts (gifts given with the intention of asking for a favor) had negative consequences for an individual's satisfaction and willingness in performing the favor. I expanded on this idea to ask the following question: How did motivated gifts affect an individual's motivation in performing the favor?​​
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With the findings in other SDT and prosociality papers, I hypothesized that motivated gifts would decrease BPNS in individuals, and therefore also decrease their autonomous motivation.
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I was also interested in seeing whether a "spillover effect" occurred in that individuals in the motivated gift group were also less inclined to perform a unrelated favor (i.e; be contacted about another study).
Designing the Study
Following from how Akin and colleagues completed their study, I used similar format with a hypothetical scenario along with questionnaires adapted from other papers to query respondants about:
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Their motivation (autonomous vs controlled)
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Their BPNS
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Anticipated satisfaction and willingness to perform the favor
The survey was created in Qualtrics.
Collecting and Cleaning the Data
The survey was distributed through the University of Washington Psychology research portal and responses from university students was taken.
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Incomplete responses, as well as responses that failed attention and manipulation checks, were removed resulting in 426 responses.
Analysis and Interpretation
The data was imported into SPSS for analysis, and excel for creating visualizations. Independent t-tests were performed for analyzing differences in participants' willingness and satisfaction from performing the favor. A repeated measures ANOVA test was performed to analyze differences in motivation between participants.​​​ A Chi-squared test of independence was also performed to determine wherther motivated gifts affected participants' willingness to perform an additiona, unrelated favor.
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My study was able to demonstrate that participants who were in the motivated gift group experienced a decrease in autonomous motivation that was greater than the non-motivated gift group.
Write Up and Presentations
The findings, along with initial literature research and exploration, were written up into a paper and summarized into a poster. The paper was submitted, and published, to UTC Scholar, and the poster was presented to University students, and public visitors, during both the Annual Research Symposium and the Psychology Research Honors Symposium.
