Endorsement-Autonomy Rather Than Choice-Autonomy Makes Work Meaningful: Evidence from Four Experiments

Does autonomy predict meaningful work? To properly answer this question, a distinction must be made between autonomy-as-endorsement and autonomy-as-choice. In four preregistered experiments, we found empirical support for the distinction between choice-autonomy and endorsement-autonomy, for autonomy increasing meaningful work, and for endorsement-autonomy more strongly predicting meaningful work than choice-autonomy.