Assessing domain-general need fulfillment in children and adults: Introducing the General Need Satisfaction and Frustration scale.

Abstract

Fulfillment of basic psychological needs has been postulated to be essential for mental health across the human life span. So far, validated domain-general instruments using the same items to assess these constructs in different age groups are lacking. To close this gap, we introduce the General Need Satisfaction and Frustration scale, a multidimensional instrument to capture fulfillment of the basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness in children and adults. The factor structure and correlates of this new instrument are examined in two cross-sectional studies with children (N = 185, age range = 7–14) and adults (N = 380, age range = 18–77), and one ambulatory assessment study with children (N = 84, age range = 8–10). Confirmatory factor analyses suggest adequate fit of the postulated six-dimensional measurement model (three needs, each split into satisfaction and frustration). Need satisfaction was linked to higher well-being, and need frustration was linked to higher ill-being in both children and adults. Findings suggest that the instrument introduced in this work is suitable to capture between-person differences as well as day-to-day fluctuations in the fulfillment of the basic needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness in children and adults. The measurement instrument therefore is a useful tool to capture core ingredients for mental health in samples across a broad range of the human life span.

Week-to-week fluctuations in autonomous study motivation: Links to need fulfillment and affective well-being.

“…The importance of this differentiated approach has been shown empirically in previous work: need satisfaction and need frustration were often differentially associated with well-being and ill-being (e.g., B. Chen et al, 2015;Neubauer, Kramer, & Schmiedek, 2022;Schmidt et al, 2020); furthermore, on the psychometric level, a six-factor model with differentiation of need satisfaction and need frustration for each of the three needs often fit the data best (e.g., Costa et al, 2018;Heissel et al, 2018;Neubauer & Voss, 2018). We will consider this differentiation in the present work and predict, following Vansteenkiste and Ryan (2013), that need satisfaction is primarily associated with higher well-being (positive affect), whereas need frustration is primarily associated with higher ill-being (negative affect).…”

“…In examining the links among autonomous study motivation, need fulfillment, and affective well-being, we considered suggestions by Vansteenkiste and Ryan (2013) and further researchers (e.g., B. Chen et al, 2015; Neubauer, Kramer, & Schmiedek, 2022; Schmidt et al, 2020) who emphasized the relevance of separating need satisfaction from need frustration. Results regarding the links among autonomous study motivation, need fulfillment, and affective well-being were in line with predictions by SDT (Ryan & Deci, 2017): Weekly fluctuations in autonomous study motivation were related to (a) need satisfaction, which in turn was related to positive affect, and related to (b) need frustration, which in turn was related to negative affect.…”

The Basic Psychological Need Satisfaction and Frustration Scales probably do not validly measure need frustration.

“…In the BPNSFS, as in many other psychological measures (e.g., in this journal; cf. Crasta et al, 2021; Neubauer et al, 2022), item-keying and purported substantive variance are fully confounded. Though this is not necessarily a flaw itself, it does mean it is inherently difficult to empirically determine the underlying meaning of the Satisfaction versus Frustration scales.…”

Why we do what we do matters for how we feel: Links among autonomous goal regulation, need fulfillment, and well-being in daily life

“…well-being and ill-being (see e.g., B. Chen et al, 2015;Coxen et al, 2023;Neubauer et al, 2022). Further, need satisfaction and need frustration are theoretically assumed to be linked to different antecedents (need fulfilling vs. need thwarting environments; see Vansteenkiste & Ryan, 2013).…”