Framework & research
Start with your experience of work.
What does your work give you? What matters to you? What would you like to change?
A career assessment starts with those questions. Okami uses six lenses to help you explore your answers.
The research behind the framework
Okami combines established research into six practical lenses. Competence, autonomy and relatedness come from Self-Determination Theory, which studies motivation and wellbeing. Meaningful work, work engagement and job-insecurity research inform the other three. These ideas were studied to understand people's experience of life and work. Bringing them together to explore AI's impact is Okami's adaptation.
1985 · Understanding human motivation
Edward Deci and Richard Ryan set out Self-Determination Theory in a book about motivation, with applications including education and work. This is part of the history behind Okami's skills, control and connection lenses.
Deci & Ryan — Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Determination in Human Behavior (opens a new tab)1999 · Why feeling secure matters
Hans De Witte reviewed research on job insecurity and psychological wellbeing. Okami draws on this work when considering security, while treating pay and future work options as additional parts of its own financial picture.
De Witte — Job Insecurity and Psychological Well-being (opens a new tab)2000 · Skills, choice and connection
Richard Ryan and Edward Deci described competence, autonomy and relatedness as three basic psychological needs. Their review concerns motivation, development and wellbeing across settings including education and work, not AI prediction.
Ryan & Deci — Self-Determination Theory and the Facilitation of Intrinsic Motivation, Social Development, and Well-Being (opens a new tab)2002 · The energy you bring to work
Wilmar Schaufeli, Marisa Salanova, Vicente González-Romá and Arnold Bakker studied a measure of engagement alongside burnout in employee and student samples. This research informs Okami's attention to energy and engagement.
Schaufeli et al. — The Measurement of Engagement and Burnout (opens a new tab)2012 · What makes work meaningful
Michael Steger, Bryan Dik and Ryan Duffy developed the Work and Meaning Inventory to study people's experience of meaningful work. Their research informs Okami's purpose lens; Okami does not administer that questionnaire.
Steger, Dik & Duffy — Measuring Meaningful Work (opens a new tab)
Explore the six dimensions.
Select a dimension on the graph. These are lenses for any career; your experience gives each one its importance.
Illustration only. This is not your assessment.
Read the values as a table
| Dimension | Example shape |
|---|---|
| My Competence | 7 |
| My Motivating Factors | 6 |
| My level of Autonomy | 4 |
| My Social Connection | 8 |
| My Energy | 5 |
| My Pay & Security | 6 |
My Competence
Being good at something — and getting to use it.
Understand my competence
The need to feel effective — to exercise and extend your skills against real problems.
Ryan & Deci (2000), American Psychologist 55(1), 68–78 (opens a new tab)Why use this to explore AI?
Okami uses these six lenses because a change in technology can affect different parts of your working life in different ways. A tool might save time while changing which skills you practise, who makes decisions, or how you work with others. Looking at each part helps you consider what to protect, what to learn and what to try. These are questions to explore using your circumstances and evidence, not predictions from the framework.
What the framework can—and cannot—tell you
Okami's six-part model has not been validated as a psychological test or an AI forecasting instrument. The research supports the underlying ideas; it does not validate Okami's combined scores or predict what will happen to your career.