You Oughta Know Maarten Vansteenkiste

Today’s guest is Dr. Maarten Vansteenkiste, professor in the development and motivation psychology at Ghent University. 

We discuss the concept of needs crafting and agency. Maarten shares what is meant by these ideas (the act of one affecting one’s own environment directly… to steer one’s own life’s circumstances). He distinguishes between being autonomous and being independent.

We also discuss the CIRCUMPLEX, or COMPASS, a unique way to conceptualize how needs get supported or undermined.

We take a late detour to talk about how SDT can actually support techniques like explicit/ direct instruction.

REFERRALS

During the episode, we reference many other researchers.

Maarten mentions the work of Johnmarshall Reeve and the concept of agentic engagement. A good reference for this is the article Reeve wrote with Stephanie Shin called How Teachers Can Support Students’ Agentic Engagement. (Reference: Reeve, J., & Shin, S. H. (2020). How teachers can support students’ agentic engagement. Theory Into Practice, 59(2), 150–161. https://doi.org/10.1080/00405841.2019.1702451).

Maarten references the LifeCraft Program. You can learn more about it here (the write-up is in Dutch). https://motivationbarometer.com/en/lifecraft/

He also alludes to Albert Bandura, and his work on agency.

Along with the aforementioned work by Johnmarshall Reeve, he also refers to Erika Patall and her research… highlighted here, among other places: Patall, Erika. (2024). Agentic Engagement: Transcending Passive Motivation. Motivation Science. 10. 10.1037/mot0000332. 

MORE ABOUT MAARTEN:

Maarten Vansteenkiste is, since 2014, a full professor in the Department of Developmental, Personality, and Social Psychology at Ghent University. Since his research internship at the University of Rochester, collaborating with Prof. Dr. Ryan and Prof. Deci, the founding fathers of Self-Determination Theory (SDT), he has substantially contributed to the extension, refinement, application and dissemination of this framework, both in collaboration with these founding fathers (Vansteenkiste & Ryan, 2013; Vansteenkiste, Ryan, & Soenens, 2020), but also largely independently from them, thereby establishing his own line of scientific work. His work addresses novel topics in the motivational literature, such as the study of motivational profiles, individuals' multiple reasons for lacking motivation, the notion of need crafting, the interface between psychological and physiological needs, and the development of a more fine-grained and holistic understanding of how different (de)motivating practices of socializing agents (e.g., teachers, parents) relate to each other. Further, his work is not limited to the development of SDT as such but extends to the motivation literature more broadly as he has written theoretical reviews and book chapters that plea for a cross-fertilization between SDT and motivational interviewing, achievement goal theory, and expectancy-value theory. 

In terms of its societal impact, his work has had a strong influence on the domains of education, sports, and parenting. Particularly impactful was the publication of a Dutch handbook entitled ‘Vitamins for growth’ (Vansteenkiste & Soenens, 2015), followed by the publication of a practice-friendly book ‘Motivating coaching in the sport’ (Aelterman et al., 2017). He played a critical role during the COVID-19 crisis as a member of the key scientific advisory committee (GEMS) to aid policy makers in developing an evidence-based policy. To this end, he led a consortium of scholars who tracked diverse aspects of individuals’ psychological functioning (motivation, well-being, vaccination) across 2,5 years during the pandemic. The Motivation Barometer Project (www.motivationbarometer.com) provided an unique insight in the psychological impact of the crisis and received substantial attention in the media, with more than 40 reports being published on a regular basis.