Self-Determination Theory and Media Use

Self-determination theory (SDT; Deci & Ryan, 1985, 2000) is a broad theory of human motivations, both intrinsic and extrinsic. A core tenet of the theory is the existence of three basic psychological needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness that energize human behavior across domains, including media and leisure activities. Competence refers to our need to experience efficacy and personal growth, and is satisfied when we succeed in challenges, learn new things, and feel mastery in any domain. Autonomy refers to our need to feel volitional and agentic, and is satisfied when we feel like we personally endorse and value what we are pursuing. Relatedness refers to our need to feel meaningfully connected to others – to feel respected and valued by them.

These basic psychological need satisfactions are fundamental to motivated behaviors in different ways. For example, intrinsically motivated activities, those done for inherent interest and enjoyment, are sustained through satisfaction of competence, relatedness, and autonomy needs (Deci & Ryan, 2000). That is, what makes an activity enjoyable largely lies in its affordance of satisfactions associated with these basic needs. Although media use can vary widely and involve both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations, nonetheless it is largely a volitional activity, and thus presumed to be intrinsically motivated much of the time. In fact a variety of studies have suggested that both active and passive entertainment media, as well as social media such as Twitter and Facebook, can provide challenges, choices, and relational elements that are conducive to competence, autonomy, and relatedness satisfactions (Calvo & Peters, 2014). For instance, Oliver (2008) conducted several studies showing that enjoyment of sad films – clearly not directly linked to positive hedonic states such as happiness – reflected a propensity toward having feelings of warmth, sympathy, and compassion. Vorderer, Steen, and Chan (2006) postulated a two-factor model for media enjoyment, describing “lower order” satisfactions (i.e., hedonic) that were characterized as immediate and transient and a “higher order” factor consisting of satisfaction of basic needs associated with intrinsic motivation, notably those of competence, relatedness, and autonomy.

Research within SDT has also linked the satisfaction of basic psychological needs not only to sustained motivation, but also to a host of wellness-relevant outcomes including more positive experience, greater well-being, and higher vitality (Ryan & Deci, 2011). Conversely, when these needs are frustrated, negative outcomes such as emotional distress, ego-depletion, and psychopathology result (Vansteenkiste & Ryan, 2013).

Apropos of this volume, each of these needs has also been shown to have close relations with both subjective well-being and activities associated with eudaimonia (Ryan et al., 2008). In fact, SDT has had an important stake in the literature on eudaimonia (e.g., Ryan & Deci, 2001) in part because the theory argues that many virtuous behaviors such as having authentic relationships, helping others, or aiding one’s community deeply satisfy basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness (e.g., Weinstein & Ryan, 2010). As people pursue eudaimonic goals and activities they tend to experience high need satisfaction, which enhances subjective well-being and supplies a sense of meaning. In contrast, SDT suggests that more direct pursuit of happiness via money, fame, or image tends not to be as need-satisfying, and thus tends not to yield as much happiness, suggesting a hedonic irony.

Accordingly, in approaching media entertainment, SDT has several foci. First, the theory suggests that people’s intrinsic motivation for sustained engagement in any media entertainment will be a function of the need satisfactions it affords. Need satisfaction should thus explain variability in media preferences and enjoyment. Second, SDT predicts that need satisfaction yielded through media engagement should result in short-term gains in mood, vitality, and other indicators of well-being (Ryan, Rigby, & Przybylski, 2006). Third, because of the strong capacity of some media to satisfy psychological needs in the virtual context, some individuals overuse media. We thus argue for a need density hypothesis (Rigby & Ryan, 2011) in which individuals who have need-satisfying media experiences that contrast with need depriving or need thwarting in other important domains of life are especially at risk of media overuse. Finally, SDT suggests that eudaimonic living enhances wellness (Ryan et al., 2008). Eudaimonic living is in turn described in terms of the autonomous mindful pursuit of intrinsically worthwhile goals, leading to both deep need satisfaction and connectedness with others, and yielding subjective well-being as a by-product. How media consumption enhances or distracts from propensities toward eudaimonic living is thus a relevant question for the theory.

Interactive Media: Motivation and Satisfactions

At its broadest level, the rapid proliferation of social media – through programs that allow for instantaneous sharing of information among friends and acquaintances – certainly demonstrates a strong motivation pull for connectivity and rapid communication. “Daily Active Users” or DAU statistics, an industry standard for measuring the success of software applications, indicate that more than one billion people are using Facebook each day for purposes of social connection, roughly double the usage Facebook had just a few years ago (Statista, 2015). The question at hand is how use of social media (e.g., Facebook, Twitter) may be satisfying of basic psychological needs and representative of the eudaimonic living noted above.

Interestingly, the literature on social media is mixed on this point. While there can certainly be enhancements to relatedness satisfaction through the use of Facebook (e.g., Sheldon, Abad, & Hinsch, 2011) and other social media applications, there is also evidence that such connections may not represent truly eudaimonic living; they may, in fact, serve as replacements when individuals feel they are not receiving enough relatedness satisfaction across other areas of their lives. Although more work on social media is needed, some studies have indicated that the extent of use of such services as Facebook is more likely to reach unhealthy levels when the individual reports a dearth in basic need satisfaction (i.e., competence, autonomy, and relatedness) in their lives generally (Masur, Reinecke, Ziegele, & Quiring, 2014). Thus, while such technologies hold the promise of allowing for more immediate and accessible communication between people, it is possible these social networks often become an unhealthy substitute for the authentic satisfaction of needs that are associated with eudaimonic living.

Our own initial forays into the application of SDT to media began with the study of video games. Video games represent the fastest growing form of entertainment on the planet (Entertainment Software Association, 2015) and, if for no other reason, their satisfactions and effects on well-being deserve attention. Many of today’s leading video games represent extraordinarily detailed experiences for players by combining multiple mechanics, social interaction, and increasing levels of choice and autonomous control. Many leading games present players with a rich tapestry of interactive opportunities and experiences that, unlike passive media such as television or film, allows the audience to lean forward and actively shape the story.

Ryan, Rigby, and Przybylski (2006) conducted an initial series of studies looking at the potential of video games to satisfy SDT’s basic psychological needs. They postulated that players’ interest in and time spent in games would be strongly accounted for by basic need satisfaction. In studies that examined varied types of games, both solo and multiplayer, results showed that both subjective preferences and behavioral measures of intrinsic motivation for playing games were predicted by in-game basic psychological need satisfactions. These studies also confirmed that there are psychological benefits of video game play. Specifically, insofar as playing video games was a vehicle for need satisfaction, players reported short-term increases in well-being as indexed by changes in mood and vitality.

Tamborini, Bowman, Eden, Grizzard, and Organ (2010) similarly suggested that enjoyment in interactive games is more than simple hedonic attainment, and that it could be more richly described through the lens of basic psychological need satisfactions. They examined video game enjoyment and need satisfaction in an experimental setting by manipulating features of the game that they expected would directly impact specific need satisfactions. As they predicted, game enjoyment was indeed a function of SDT’s basic need satisfactions, which accounted for more than 50% of the variance in enjoyment. Moreover, they showed by manipulating specific features of games that these features impacted specific need satisfactions. For instance, offering multiplayer options increased relatedness satisfaction, whereas improved control interface led to enhanced competence.

Peng, Lin, Pfeiffer, and Winn (2012) demonstrated experimentally the strong importance of autonomy and competence need satisfactions to sustained engagement in video games. They used an exercise video game within which multiple features could be manipulated to test the effects of need satisfaction on motivation. For example, in one condition an autonomy enhancement was turned “on” by providing players with choices about customizing their character. This was compared to an “off” condition in which those choices were not offered. Similarly a competence enhancement condition featured a difficulty adjustment system to create optimal challenges, whereas in the “off” condition the system was not deployed and difficulty levels remained constant. These features indeed affected players’ enjoyment and their motivation for future play, among other outcomes: results that were mediated by autonomy and competence need satisfactions. These results again support the SDT perspective on what makes a game intrinsically motivating and mood enhancing.

More recently Oliver et al. (2015) applied SDT to study people’s perceptions of both fun and meaningful games, arguing that basic psychological need satisfactions largely account for experiences of both fun and meaning. They also suggested that a need for insight could be satisfied in games and would add to meaning. Their research showed that players rated as their most meaningful games those that were more story-based, and that were particularly associated with the satisfaction of relatedness needs and the need for insight. At the same time, autonomy and competence need satisfactions accounted for game enjoyment across all games, regardless of how meaningful players found them.

It is clear that video games have the ability to provide a variety of emotional and cognitive experiences that enhance positive mood and short-term well-being. Many of the ways in which they enhance positive affect are a result of allowing activity within games that satisfies basic psychological needs. Designing one’s character, selecting missions, forming groups, increasing in ranks and levels, and helping others are all types of activities that afford need satisfaction and are thus sources of enjoyment, explaining the gravitational pull of games for some.

Interestingly, it is these needs that draw people into even the most violent of games. In a series of studies, Przybylski, Ryan, and Rigby (2009) investigated whether the violence present in so many video games motivates players to engage with them. In a series of studies, both experimental and survey based, they showed that it was not violence per se that motivates play. Rather, games of war, conflict, and “zombie killing” readily provide optimal challenges and dense feedback for competence satisfactions, teamwork opportunities for relatedness, and plenty of choices, options, and interesting tasks to support autonomy. When violent games were “modded” to tone down violence, players were just as intrinsically motivated as long as such need-satisfying elements were retained. This suggests that the often anti-eudaimonic appearance of the content of games may not reflect what is motivating the player.

In sum, people engage in and enjoy games in large part because they are designed to gratify certain basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. They do so through varied mechanics and contents, and with varied success. To the extent that needs are satisfied, games enhance short-term mood and subjective wellness. To the extent that games frustrate needs, they foster more negative mood and even anger and hostility (e.g., Przybylski, Deci, Rigby, & Ryan, 2014). These satisfactions alone tell us much about why people seek this entertainment, including sometimes seeking it too much.

Narratives, Traditional Media Entertainment, and Eudaimonic Satisfactions

It is interesting to note that, despite its shorter history, motivational research on interactive media (e.g., video games and social networking) has been accelerating at a faster rate than research on traditional media alone. Nonetheless, traditional entertainment media such as fictional television and movies continue to occupy a tremendous portion of people’s time and resources; overall, the average U.S. adult consumes more than 25 hours of TV per week (Nielsen: Media and Entertainment, 2015). Interestingly, however, in younger demographics (i.e., those 35 and under), TV viewing is on the decline – presumably because traditional media must increasingly compete with a growing set of choices of interactive media that, as discussed above, can be need satisfying and compelling.

Time spent in traditional media is distinct from that spent in interactive media precisely in its relative passivity. The audience cannot take action, impact stories, or participate in activities that lead to growth, social connection, and other channels for need satisfaction in the ways afforded by interactive media. Basically, the only choice is whether to engage with the story being told, or not. In traditional media entertainment one essentially decides to engage an externally created narrative, and allow oneself to suspend sufficient belief to become immersed in that story. What, then, do we get from such traditional media, and how might it be connected to eudaimonic satisfaction?

Oral narratives represent perhaps the oldest form of human entertainment and fantasy. People love to listen, read, or watch human narratives being played out for many reasons. Listeners identify with characters, imagining these other minds and perspectives, and struggling with the existential issues they face (also see Slater and Cohen, this volume). Indeed Zunshine (2006) suggested that it is the exercise of our capacities for empathy and mindreading that drives our fascinations with fiction. Similarly, Oatley (1999) argued that literature is a simulation – it allows us to vicariously step into various social scenarios and experience the emotional reactions we might have.

Media narratives thus frequently activate a myriad of experiences and emotions, and stimulate a range of personality interests and psychological needs and desires. Such experiential responses to media are perceived as entertaining, even when they are not pleasure-toned. In fact some media experiences elicit sentiments antithetical to positive affects such as joy and happiness (Oliver, 2008). Many media narratives that are described as “touching” or “inspirational,” or are otherwise characterized as meaningful are, in fact, tragic or sad in content and evoke negative emotions. Consider a recent best-selling novel and popular film such as Marley and Me, which, at its climax, presents the death of a beloved family pet. Certainly this is an emotionally negative ending – yet it was a narrative that many consumers apparently found meaningful and compelling. Again applying the lens of SDT and basic needs, we suggest it evoked relatedness feelings that were satisfying to audiences; loss and the sadness that accompanies it cannot happen if there is not a meaningful relationship being affected, and thus the presence of these emotions for many is a sign that this experience of connection – a hallmark of relatedness – was strongly at play. Similarly, relatedness can be seen as a core emotional engagement in the tensions and joys evoked in romantic comedies, as the parties involved ride through challenges to ultimately find for themselves (and the audience) a future of mutual love and respect. In these contrasting examples the valence of the emotions differs, but relatedness is the common thread of meaningfulness that engages the viewer.

Media narratives invariably involve feelings of tension and conflict. In direct contrast to early psychological ideas that organisms aim toward tension reduction (e.g., Freud, 1920; Hull, 1943), people seek to be psychologically stimulated and activated by the conflict and tension narratives create. Yet people also desire resolution, usually one that emphasizes (either by conforming to or violating) social justice, morality, or other eudaimonic themes. This is one of the distinguishing characteristics of tragedy versus other plots: In tragedy, there is not a resolution in favor of wellness or good. Despite evoking negative feelings, tragedy remains a common plot device, as the plot highlights key conflicts around values and meaning with which audiences can empathize. In other words, humans indeed seem motivated by having these existential themes activated, even in tragic ways. In entertainment we often become immersed in emotionally salient issues that we face (albeit usually in less dramatic forms) in “real life,” which, as we will see, very often have basic need satisfactions as core ingredients.

What allows people to surrender to immersion, or give themselves over to a narrative, is typically an identification with one or more characters, most often the protagonist or hero. Heroes in many narratives exemplify a powerful expression of at least one, and oftentimes all three, of the basic psychological needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness (Rigby & Przybylski, 2009). This is hyperbolically exemplified in popular superhero narratives: Inevitably, the hero overcomes tremendous adversity to achieve success (competence), usually to the benefit of the countless others who depend upon him or her (relatedness; benevolence), and by taking a path that requires volition and great conviction (autonomy). Movies such as The Avengers, Fantastic Four, and X-Men all involve the dramatic tensions of individuals who choose to come together to build a “better world.”

Basic Plots, Need Satisfaction, and Eudaimonic Themes

Drawing on the work of Carl Jung, Booker (2004) has argued that all narratives, regardless of their specific content, setting, and story, can be distilled into seven basic archetypal plots. Interestingly, the action within each of these plots emphasizes character motivation, development, and story “arcs” that strongly reflect the exploration and satisfaction of basic needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness. We will briefly review each of these seven plot types through the lens of SDT’s basic needs and the mechanisms they employ to activate eudaimonia-relevant considerations in the audience.

Media Use: Virtual Versus Everyday Eudaimonia

At the outset of this article we argued that with the emergence of every new media type, some have worried that it will take people away from living a good and meaningful life. Coleridge’s argument that a habit of reading novels “occasions in time the entire destruction of the powers of mind” (Brantlinger, 1998) is one reiterated in turn by many modern critics of television and video games. Are these criticisms correct, or, perhaps more precisely, under what circumstances might they be correct?

So far we have suggested that, although most people think of entertainment use as “just for fun,” people enjoy the opportunities that media entertainments afford to experience – either directly or vicariously – competence, relatedness, and autonomy. In traditional entertainment these experiences are vicarious, as the audience is passive with respect to how the media unfolds. In video games these satisfactions are directly contingent on one’s actions, and thus there is a greater opportunity to directly experience need satisfaction in relationship to personal agency. In fact, social media generally – inclusive of instant messaging and multiple forms of spontaneous communication of words and images – has heightened the opportunity for immediacy and intimacy even when separated by thousands of physical miles. In either case, there is considerable evidence that when media engagement affords satisfaction of autonomy, competence, and relatedness needs it enhances positive affect and vitality. Narratives and games, by virtually simulating or providing opportunities for need satisfaction, can indeed enhance mood and sometimes a sense of meaning. Further, regardless of the myriad content of countless stories across the centuries, we have proposed that the very DNA of most narrative plots has the activation of basic needs as a central element in motivating engagement.

However, it is still the case that need satisfactions in entertainment media of all types are happening in a virtual rather than a “real life” environment. As Aristotle might have suspected, even a good thing, used too much, is problematic. Reflecting this, we suggested in our need density approach that when psychological need satisfactions derived in the real world ‘pale in comparison’ to the satisfactions experienced in virtual worlds, there is risk of overuse.

Beyond overuse, there is the fundamental question as to whether entertainment media generally enhances or detracts from people’s eudaimonic propensities. In other words, does entertainment media conduce toward eudaimonic improvement of an individual and society, or is it detrimental? We believe this is an important but complicated question that will require significant empirical work, and to that end we offer some initial directional thoughts.

First, there is the question of whether there are differences between traditional and interactive media in their ability to contribute to eudaimonia. Video games represent opportunities – albeit virtual ones – to actively engage in moral decision-making and building cooperative societies and relationships, and to explore other experiences that are directly related to eudaimonic satisfaction. As psychologically real as they might be (Rigby & Ryan, 2011; Ryan, Cornick, Blascovich, & Bailenson, in press) there is still little research on how portable or generalizable these experiences are to the real world. Simply put, do eudaimonic pursuits in games impact people’s overall tendency to be good people outside of virtual environments?

In one survey of a Fortune 50 company, the majority of managers felt that having a leadership role in the online game World of Warcraft was directly related to leadership skills needed on the job in real life, with many such skills seemingly reflecting eudaimonic ideals consistent with SDT (i.e., relatedness, autonomy support) (Harvard Business Review, 2008). These kinds of correlations, however, do not show that video games are causing improvement in real life skills. It may simply be that those who have such skills gravitate to leadership in both virtual and real contexts. Our focus has been on the potential for eudaimonic transfer – whether people internalize positive attributes and moral lessons from media exposure and apply them in life. It seems fair to say that, here too, the extent to which games or media can enhance eudaimonia in non-virtual living remains an outstanding question (see also Sicart, 2014). Causal effects on extra-game prosocial behavior have simply not been well-established.

Studies of need satisfaction in media also highlight that the boundaries between everyday and virtual realities are less clear than one might think. Psychological satisfactions are robustly implicated in motivating people toward media, and virtual experiences can be deeply satisfying. Helping a fellow player in a virtual world is indeed helping another real person (arguably no different than helping them over a telephone call), and it enhances feelings of autonomy, competence, and relatedness just as “real world” helping does (Martela & Ryan, 2016; Weinstein & Ryan, 2010). Simply put, the event may be virtual, but the satisfaction is palpable and “real,” as are the participants behind the virtual avatars.

The motivational draw of such real satisfactions in media in turn suggests a particular challenge for effectively self-regulating media use. The accessible satisfactions of media can seduce consumers into time spent on activities that distract them from what they might reflectively value and find most worthwhile in life. No matter how meaningful the movie, or how exciting the video game, we can always be asking, “Was this the best use of my time?” When our energies are directed toward helping virtual-world friends accomplish virtual goals, is that distracting from attention to real world goals? Recently Lubans et al. (2013) showed, in fact, that those who can successfully regulate screen time do so for more autonomous, integrated reasons. In fact, the best reasons for limiting screen time are those in which the individual reflectively feels that he or she has “better things to do,” rather than those of guilt or self-consciousness following extensive media use (Kubey & Csikszentmihalyi, 1990; Reinecke, Hartmann, & Eden, 2014). This also dovetails with emerging research verifying that autonomy-supportive rather than controlling styles of parents are more effective in helping children self-regulate and limit screen time (Bjelland et al., 2015).

Inherent in this issue of self-regulation in the face of virtual satisfactions is the idea of balance, which is a hallmark quality of many models of well-being and eudaimonia. As Richardson (2015) emphasized, balance in activities is a hallmark of Aristotle’s idea of phronesis, or practical wisdom, an aspect of which is the avoidance of extremes. In this regard, one potential mediator of whether engagement with entertainment media will facilitate eudaimonia (or simply engender transient emotional experiences) is how mindful the individual is while engaging in media use. Mindfulness refers to the individual’s awareness of what is happening in the moment, and his or her ability to be “fully present” in what is happening now, versus becoming lost in reveries or processing “stories” about the past or the future (Brown & Ryan, 2003). As such, we would consider more mindful engagement with entertainment media to include one not becoming “lost” in media experiences that chew away countless hours, but being aware of time spent in the virtual world of media versus alternative choices.

We would also expect that being mindful while engaging in both traditional and interactive media would include a deeper processing of the experience itself (Rigby, Schultz, & Ryan, 2014). By this we mean that, when mindful, one is aware of how one’s feelings are being activated by media content and thus more open to reflecting on and integrating the potential relevance of those experiences to one’s real life. For example, a father may become steeped in emotions when watching a story that separates a fictional father from his child. If mindful and receptive, this experience may open the father to being more in touch with his “real” connection to his own child. Looking at mindfulness and other mechanisms associated with the transfer of eudaimonic lessons from entertainment to life is thus an important, but largely unfulfilled, agenda for research.

In sum, there is little question that entertainment media – both interactive and traditional – can activate and even satisfy to a certain degree basic psychological needs that are reflective of eudaimonia. Remaining to be explored is how these activations and satisfactions translate to the real world, and whether and how they can seed or support eudaimonic growth. The advent of technologies that make entertainment media so immediately and ubiquitously available may create plenty of “eudaimonic stagecraft” – or experiences that look and feel meaningful and good in the moment, but that in fact do not authentically advance eudaimonic living. In fact, ongoing advances in media will make it ever more challenging to recognize the difference between psychological gratifications that enhance rather than distract from authentic meaningful living. Clearly there are times when media reminds us of, or even calls us to, moral sentiments. Yet how these themes and messages lead us toward or away from virtuous and meaningful living are questions well worth further inquiry.