PERSON
Edward Deci
American psychologist (b. 1942) whose Soma puzzle experiments and subsequent collaboration with Richard Ryan produced self-determination theory — the empirical foundation on which Pink's motivation framework rests.
Edward Deci is an American psychologist whose career at the University of Rochester produced the most influential empirical program on intrinsic motivation in the second half of the twentieth century. His 1969 doctoral dissertation experiments using the Soma puzzle demonstrated that external rewards could undermine intrinsic interest — the phenomenon that became known as the overjustification effect. Over the next four decades, his collaboration with Richard Ryan produced self-determination theory, which identified autonomy, competence, and relatedness as the three basic psychological needs whose satisfaction enables intrinsic motivation. Pink's three pillars — autonomy, mastery, and purpose — are the applied translation of Deci and Ryan's framework for organizational and educational contexts.
In The You On AI Field Guide
Deci's Soma experiments replicated and extended Harlow's primate findings in human populations. Students who enjoyed the puzzles and were then paid for solving them spent less time with the puzzles during free periods than students who received no payment.
The 1999 meta-analysis Deci conducted with Richard Koestner and Ryan