How to use Self-Determination Theory to create engaging, emotion-provoking experiences
Self-Determination Theory (SDT) says a person’s need for self-efficacy and self-actualization determines what motivates them, and considers how that’s affected by social contexts and individual differences.
By understanding what drives a person’s motivation, psychologists can predict what behaviors they’ll exhibit in certain situations, such as when striving towards a goal, experiencing risk, or dealing with challenges.
You can also apply these principles to your marketing to predict customer intention, influence their behavior as you guide them through your content and, ultimately, affect their buying choices.
According to SDT, all our actions are motivated by either ‘intrinsic’ or ‘extrinsic’ reasons. Intrinsic motivation is related to internal satisfaction – things we do for ourselves – while extrinsic motivation comes from external pressure or reward.
Gilal et al. (2018), in their review of two decades of empirical research on SDT and consumer behavior, found that intrinsic motivation drives “curiosity-based behaviors, the pursuit of new perspectives, and seeking out optimal challenges.”
Their review posits that intrinsic reasons lead us to persist for longer, perform better, and remember more of our activities. So, we want our content to attain and maintain attention to stay competitive in the online space, we should design to provide intrinsically motivating experiences for our prospects.
An SDT mini-theory, Basic Behavioral Needs theory, delves deeper into intrinsic motivation and argues that psychological wellbeing and optimum human function rely on satisfying three universal needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness.
Loroz and Braig (2015) theorized that intrinsically driven consumer attachments to brands can take on personal relationship qualities that create greater brand affiliation and loyalty. They called it the ‘Oprah Effect.’
It makes them feel appreciated, empowered, and able to express their individuality (the autonomy need)
It makes them feel competent, successful, and capable of performing well (the competence need)
The brand that seems to care about them and provides warm feelings of openness, understanding, and acceptance (the relatedness need)
The short answer: many marketers don’t really know how to. What helps in this situation is understanding how readers want to navigate digital content based on how our brains have evolved to consume content.
Long pages and endless scrolling are becoming a thing of the past. Discover how the way we engage with content has changed in our guide to Content Psychology 101.
Autonomy: Different page and column layouts enable readers to make their own journey through the content and read sections in the order that makes the most sense to them.
Offering variety and multiple paths allows the reader to take control of their content experience.
Relatedness: According to Davenport and Beck (2013), we need to manage information efficiently to avoid overload. Use design elements to strategically navigate your readers to the most important sections.
By highlighting their pain points and positioning yourself as someone who can fix them, you can foster feelings of connection and trust.
Competence: Give your readers an opportunity to interact with quizzes, surveys, polls, charts, competitions and more, making your content a two-way conversation.
This’ll give them the experience of achieving a goal, making them feel more capable and competent.
Over the last 40 years, SDT has broadened substantially – researchers now believe you can use a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic motivators at the same time.
Malhotra (2004): CRM system adoption depended on its fit with consumer /employee needs, and that both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation increases behavioral intention to adopt, but customer autonomy mediates actual use.
Park et al. (2006): Consumers attach to human brands when their autonomy and relatedness are satisfied without compromising their competence. The more ‘human’ the brand, the stronger the intrinsic attachment and purchase intentions.
Botti and McGill (2010): People experience higher intrinsic motivation when choosing a ‘high involvement’ and ‘autonomous’ goal, and therefore put in greater effort, investment, and perseverance until its completion.
Botti and Iyengar (2006): Despite more choices often fostering freedom, empowerment, and independence, too much can produce paralyzing uncertainty, stress, and selfishness.
Markus and Schartz (2010): Some conditioning is necessary to avoid choice paralysis when people are overwhelmed by information. By ensuring you focus your reader’s mental resources on the actions you want them to take, and highlighting how they’re consequential and rational, they’ll believe that these decisions were made on their own, which satisfies all three SDT needs.
