Self-Determination Theory
Self-determination theory (SDT) is a macro-theory of human motivation developed by Edward Deci and Richard Ryan. It posits three basic psychological needs that must be satisfied for intrinsic motivation and psychological well-being: autonomy (self-regulation), competence (effectiveness), and relatedness (social connection).
SDT distinguishes between intrinsic motivation (doing something because it is inherently interesting) and extrinsic motivation (doing something for separable outcomes). It further categorizes extrinsic motivation by degree of internalization, from external regulation (pure compliance) to integrated regulation (fully internalized values).
In the active inference framework, SDT's three needs map onto properties of the generative model: autonomy corresponds to self-model precision, competence to world-model accuracy, and relatedness to mutual information between social models.