Self-Determination Theory’s Contribution to Positive Organizational Psychology

At the core of SDT is the postulation of three basic psychological needs, that is, the needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. The satisfaction of these three needs is said to be of utmost importance in its own right as it contributes to people’s functioning. Moreover, need satisfaction forms the basis for the development of more optimal forms of motivation (i.e., intrinsic motivation, internalization) and contributes to individual differences in people’s general motivational orientation, called general causality orientations, and differences in values that also affect how we live and thrive.