Psychological Needs: A Study of What Makes Life Satisfying

Self-determination theory (SDT) is a theory of motivation that focuses on the degree to which people are intrinsically motivated and internally regulate their behaviors and activities (Deci, Eghrari, Patrick, & Leone, 1994; Deci & Ryan, 1985). SDT is based on organismic meta-theory and assumes that individuals have an innate tendency toward growth. SDT not only helps to identify factors in the social environment that are conducive to satisfaction of the basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness, but also identifies the factors that are detrimental to this positive growth (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Autonomy is the need to pursue activities in which individuals are motivated internally and experience joy as a result of having personal choice (Deci & Ryan, 1985; Jang, Kim, Reeve, & Ryan, 2009; Reeve, Nix, & Hamm, 2003). Competence is the need to effectively interact with one's environment and maximize challenges, thus gaining more skills (Deci, 1975). Relatedness is the need to establish relationships in which one feels close, cared for, and secure (Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Deci & Ryan, 1991). Previous research has shown that satisfaction of two human needs competence and autonomy--relates to emotional well-being (Sheldon, Ryan, & Reis, 1996). Such research has demonstrated that the degree of satisfaction of the basic needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness determines the variations or fluctuations in daily emotional well-being (Reis, Sheldon, Gable, Roscoe, & Ryan, 2000). In a cross-cultural attempt to test the model of SDT and examine cross cultural generalizability, researchers found that Korean students function well in a social environment that encourages growth of these three psychological needs. The results of the study support the idea of the universality of these needs (Jang, et al., 2009). Sheldon, Elliot, Kasser, and Kim (2001) created an interesting methodology for determining which psychological needs are most powerful. They asked students in introductory psychology classes at the University of Missouri (Study 1) and South Korean students at Hanyang University in South Korea (Study 2) to write down the most satisfying event that they had experienced in their lives during the last month. Next, the participants were asked to rate their responses on 30 descriptive statements of need-satisfaction on a scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 5 (very much). Thus, their questionnaire was composed of items that described what made the satisfying event so satisfying. The 30 items in the Sheldon et al. (2001) study were grouped into 10 categories of needs. They were Self-Esteem, Self Actualization, Physical Thriving, and Security based on Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory; Autonomy, Competence, and Relatedness based on Self-Determination Theory; Pleasure / Stimulation based on behaviorist general principles of reward and punishment and Epstein's cognitive-experiential self-theory (1990) which specifies pleasure as one of the four needs that all individuals must satisfy and Money and Popularity based on the evolutionary or adaptationist perspective that assumes an evolutionary advantage to individuals who achieve material dominance (Buss, 1997). The results of the Sheldon et al. (2001) study indicated that autonomy, competence, relatedness and self-esteem emerged as the top four psychological needs and were considered as most important in understanding what is so satisfying about a satisfying event. In the present study, we tested the findings of the Sheldon et al. (2001) study. In addition, we also studied an 11th need, Compassionate Love, along with the 10 other psychological needs in the Sheldon et al. study. Sprecher and Fehr (2005) have done considerable research on compassionate love. Compassionate love is defined as an attitude toward others containing feelings, cognitions, and behaviors focused on caring, concern, tenderness, support, and helping (Sprecher & Fehr, 2005). …