October 19, 2006: Jennifer Crocker (University of Michigan)

• http://crocker.socialpsychology.org/

Egosystem and Ecosystem Goals: Implications for Learning, Relationships, and Well-Being

Most current motivational theories of the self portray humans as self-serving and self-centered. I present a framework for two motivational systems for the self-the egosystem and the ecosystem. Egosystem motivation focuses on constructing, maintaining, and defending desired self-images, whereas ecosystem motivation focuses on concern with the well-being of others, or something larger than the self. In a study of 199 first-semester college freshmen, we examined the effects of egosystem and ecosystem goals. Students completed pretest and posttest assessments of achievement goals, social support, and well-being at the start and end of the semester, and 10 weekly surveys of their goals and academic, relationship, and well-being outcomes each week. 194 students (97.5%) completed all 12 surveys. We examined between-participants effects by averaging across the 10 weeks to create measures of chronic egosystem and ecosystem goals, and also examined within-participants effects using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) to examine the association between changes in goals and changes in academic and relationship outcomes and well-being. Chronic egosystem goals predicted increases in ego-involved achievement goals over the semester, whereas chronic ecosystem goals predicted increases in learning goals. Egosystem goals also predicted feelings of loneliness over the semester, whereas ecosystem goals predicted feelings of closeness and increases in social support from pretest to posttest. Egosystem goals predicted increases in depression and anxiety, whereas ecosystem goals predicted decreases in depression and anxiety over the first semester of college. HLM analyses showed that within-person changes in egosystem and ecosystem goals predicted within-person changes in academic and relationship experiences and well-being. These results suggest that egosystem goals interfere with satisfaction of the needs for learning and relatedness and undermine well-being, whereas ecosystem goals foster learning, relatedness, and well-being. We argue the ecosystem framework, with its accompanying awareness of the self as part of a larger system, affords the possibility of satisfying fundamental human needs in a way that is sustainable overtime and synergistic with the satisfaction of others' needs.