Of the three basic psychological needs, the need for autonomy remains among the most controversial, although this is mainly due to a misunderstanding of the nature of the need (Deci & Ryan). SDT thus views each of the three needs as essential, with the thwarting of any need causing disruptions in psychological growth, internalization, and well-being. Consequently, SDT research has generally not examined moderators (such as indices of need strength) of need satisfaction effects.
Basic needs showed significant associations with each of the individual difference variables (see Table 2), with the exception of openness to experience (with which only competence was significantly associated) and extrinsic values (with which none of the needs were associated). The satisfaction of the need for relatedness was also positively related to cognitive demands and unrelated to workload and emotional demands. This may mean that satisfying the need for competence is more related to the individual's task than to the organizational context.
For well-being, each of the basic needs showed significant relationships with the indicators of well-being. Satisfaction of the need for autonomy and competence showed a negative and significant relationship with external motivation, while the need for relatedness was unrelated to external motivation. Each need accounted for a unique variance in intrinsic motivation, explaining 42% of the total variance.
The exception to this trend was predicting commitment, where satisfaction of the need for competence did not predict incrementally beyond satisfaction of the needs for autonomy and relatedness. However, competence need satisfaction was unexpectedly associated negatively with affective commitment and positively with turnover intentions. In particular, the correlation between satisfaction of the competence need and absenteeism was also positive.
Summary
In terms of the scale used, individual needs correlated more strongly when Deci et al. 2001) scale was used versus when the Van den Broeck et al. Outside of correlations between needs, a limited number of studies were available to compare the findings for each scale to compare. Nevertheless, the three needs generally showed a slightly stronger relationship to outcomes when Deci et al.
A reviewer also suggested that we calculate the mean reliability (assessed via Cronbach's alpha) for each of the three needs for both the Deci et al. Pyszczynski, Greenberg, & Solomon, 2000), our results show that basic needs explained about half of the variance of negative aspects of well-being (i.e., negative affect and strain) that was explained by positive aspects of well-being ( i.e., positive affect, general well-being and engagement). These findings raise questions about the role of needs at the start of the internalization process—when individuals move from external regulation to introjection—and contradict SDT arguments that the satisfaction of each of the needs reduces external regulation (decision). & Ryan, 2000).
Each of the three criteria suggests that it is not appropriate to average the three needs together or to use an overall need satisfaction score. With regard to the first criterion, our analysis highlights that the needs can be highly correlated, but not so strongly (i.e., ρ > .70) that it indicates that the needs are superfluous. With regard to the third criterion, while the magnitude and direction of the relationships between each need and a given correlate often seemed similar, the confidence intervals also often do not overlap.
Given these different nomological networks, it would be inappropriate to view the needs as equal and interchangeable. Overall, the Deci et al. 2001) scale showed stronger relationships with outcomes than the Van den Broeck et al. 2010) scale, suggesting that it may have greater predictive validity. However, two caveats should be mentioned: First, as previously mentioned, the stronger relationships may be due to the Deci et al.
One exception to the latter point was the large number of studies available for comparison regarding the relationships between the needs themselves. Here it is worth noting that the relationships between the needs were strongly influenced by the measure used. Since the needs (in theory) should be relatively independent, the strong connection between the needs in the Deci et al.
Going Forward: Recommendations for Future Research
We now turn to ways to address these gaps and issues, as well as to provide recommendations for future SDT research drawn more holistically from our review of the literature on basic psychological need satisfaction at work. In other words, we believe that the relatively weaker effects linking need satisfaction to more negative outcomes do not indicate that basic psychological needs are irrelevant to these outcomes; rather, we say that such effects are more likely to emerge when frustration or thwarting of needs is examined. One of SDT's most interesting assumptions regarding basic psychological needs is that the three needs of autonomy, competence and relatedness will consistently predict psychological growth, internalization and well-being over and above the effects of any other possible need candidates (e.g. need for power), whereas other possible need candidates would not incrementally explain these outcomes.
Although some exceptions exist (e.g., Lian et al., 2012, compared basic psychological need satisfaction against social exchange and justice theory constructs), in general, comparative studies against other motivational theory constructs are rare. The solution here is straightforward: We need (no pun intended) more research that compares SDT's underlying psychological needs with other potential needs and motivational constructs—in predicting psychological growth, internalization, and well-being and outcomes. other workplaces. .4. In addition to comparative tests of basic psychological needs versus needs or constructs from other theories, another approach would be to integrate basic psychological need satisfaction within other theories—or, other theories within basic psychological need satisfaction.
They argued that the "socio-emotional" resources exchanged or "personal" resources conserved in (respectively) social exchange and conservation of resources theories simply represent the satisfaction of basic psychological needs and thus that social exchange theory and conservation of resources the - ory can be viewed as essentially redundant with basic psychological need theory. Across four studies, they found that basic psychological needs predicted the outcomes typically associated with social exchange and conservation of resources theories (i.e., social exchange relationships and tension). Furthermore, once the effects of basic psychological needs on outcomes were accounted for, exchange relationships and strain had little predictive validity on their own, which was interpreted as supporting basic psychological needs theory as having greater utility than social exchange or conservation of resources theory .
Regardless of whether the research is comparative or integrative in nature, we believe that more research aimed at examining basic psychological needs theory in comparison to other theories of motivation should be one of the next steps for basic psychological needs research. The results of our meta-analysis clearly show that basic psychological needs have been associated with a wide range of outcomes, and while new research linking it to other outcomes is certainly not discouraged, we believe that this will not necessarily lead to the advancement of the position and respect of the base. research of psychological needs within management. In examining the effect of culture, we encourage researchers to directly assess potentially important cultural differences (eg, through measures designed to assess individualism/collectivism) as potential moderators of the effects of basic psychological needs.
Although, as mentioned earlier, most SDT research does not focus on the need for power, because of the assumptions that basic psychological needs are innate, work on it. In addition to health outcomes, research linking basic psychological needs to other objective outcomes (eg turnover and profitability) would also be useful. Therefore, we discourage cross-sectional self-report studies that address basic psychological needs and strongly encourage SDT researchers to include time-separated or longitudinal/.
Conclusion
Notes
Although (as noted) the analysis is limited by the small number of studies examining need satisfaction in other cultures, in the online supplemental material, we provide tables that examine culture as a potential moderator of our findings. Where possible, the online supplementary material also examines other potential methodological moderators (eg, time-lagged vs.
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