Basic psychological needs and neurophysiological responsiveness to decisional conflict: an event-related potential study of integrative self processes

Abstract

Fulfillment of the basic psychological needs for competence, relatedness, and autonomy is believed to facilitate people's integrative tendencies to process psychological conflicts and develop a coherent sense of self. The present study therefore used event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine the relation between need fulfillment and the amplitude of conflict negativity (CN), a neurophysiological measure of conflict during personal decision making. Participants completed a decision-making task in which they made a series of forced choices according to their personal preferences. Three types of decision-making situations were created on the basis of participants' unique preference ratings, which were obtained prior to ERP recording: low-conflict situations (choosing between an attractive and an unattractive option), highconflict approach-approach situations (choosing between two similarly attractive options), and high-conflict avoidance-avoidance situations (choosing between two similarly unattractive options). As expected, CN amplitudes were larger in high-relative to low-conflict situations, and source localization analyses suggested that the anterior cingulate cortex was the generating structure of the CN. Most importantly, people reporting higher need fulfillment exhibited larger CN amplitudes in avoidance-avoidance situations relative to lowconflict situations; to a lesser extent, they also exhibited larger CN amplitudes in approach-approach situations relative to low-conflict situations. By contrast, people reporting lower need fulfillment exhibited CN amplitudes that poorly discriminated the three decision situations. These results suggest that need fulfillment may promote self-coherent functioning by increasing people's receptivity to and processing of events that challenge their abilities to make efficient, self-congruent choices.

Reflections on self‐determination theory as an organizing framework for personality psychology: Interfaces, integrations, issues, and unfinished business

“…In fact, the integrative process central to SDT can itself be studied at a neurological level, including how it is optimized by basic need supports. Work by Di Domenico and colleagues (Di Domenico, Fournier, Ayaz, & Ruocco, ; Di Domenico, Le, Liu, Ayaz, & Fournier, ) shows how persons reporting greater basic need satisfaction have greater access to self‐relevant information, allowing better decision‐making when faced with difficult choices, a process mediated by the medial prefrontal cortex. More recently, Di Domenico et al () showed greater medial prefrontal cortex activation in people higher in basic need satisfaction when accessing past memories or future projections of self, again suggesting that need satisfaction conduces to more ready access to self‐representations across time.…”

The conflict negativity: A neural correlate of value conflict and indecision during financial decision making

“…Participants were more undecided and less pleased when they decided between options of equal value compared to decision scenarios in which one option clearly outperformed the other. Moreover, the amplitude of the CN, a negative-going ERP that is thought to represent decision conflict in the medial prefrontal cortex (Di Domenico et al, 2016), was more negative on conflicting decisions relative to non-conflicting decisions. Regarding the monetary value of decision options, behavioural reactions became even stronger when more money was at stake: Participants were even more undecided and also slower in decisions when they deliberated between conflicting options of high monetary value.…”

Hierarchy Formation and Self-Determination

“…Findings from recent neurophysiological studies suggest that self-determination entails a flexible and adaptive situation-specific attunement of approach and avoidance tendencies. Specifically, basic psychological need fulfillment-which includes the experience of self-determination-has been associated both with enhanced medial prefrontal activation (indicative of self-reflection) during the resolution of decisional conflicts (Di Domenico, Fournier, Ayaz, & Ruocco, 2013) and with enhanced anterior cingulate activity (indicative of behavioral inhibition) during the processing of avoidance goals (Di Domenico, Le, & Fournier, 2014). Furthermore, a motivational orientation toward self-determination has been associated with enhanced neuroaffective responsiveness to self-regulatory errors during response inhibition tasks (Legault & Inzlicht, 2013).…”