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Does Psychological Need Satisfaction Matter When Environmental or Financial Safety are at Risk?

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Abstract

Grounded in self-determination theory, the present study addressed the question whether the relation between satisfaction of the psychological needs for relatedness, competence, and autonomy and well-being would be constrained by satisfaction of the need for safety. In Study 1, we investigated environmental safety in a sample of young adults (N = 224) in South Africa, a country known for its low public safety. In Study 2, we focused on financial safety within a socio-economically deprived adult Chinese sample (N = 357). Although safety satisfaction yielded a positive relation to well-being in both studies, satisfaction of the psychological needs contributed to well-being above and beyond safety satisfaction and its contribution was not dependent upon the level of safety satisfaction. Further, across both studies, individuals high in safety satisfaction desired less psychological need satisfaction. Supplementary analyses in Study 2 indicated that whereas financial safety yielded a positive relation to well-being, materialism yielded a negative association. Together, these results point to the important role of basic psychological need satisfaction beyond safety satisfaction in the prediction of well-being.

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Notes

  1. In Study 1, 5.4 % of the respondents reported very low levels of environmental safety satisfaction, 13.9 % experienced relatively low levels of environmental safety, 41.3 % felt somewhat unsafe/somewhat safe, 30.5 % reported relatively high environmental safety, and 8.9 % experienced very high levels of environmental safety satisfaction. In Study 2, a similar pattern was obtained, with 8.2 % of reporting very low levels of financial safety satisfaction, 29.6 % experiencing relatively low levels of financial safety, 43.1 % feeling somewhat unsafe/somewhat safe, 16.3 % reporting relatively high financial safety, and only 2.8 % experiencing very high levels of financial safety satisfaction. In both samples, a substantial percentage of individuals (i.e., 19.3 % in Study 1 and 37.8 % in Study 2) scored below the midpoint of the scale measuring safety satisfaction, enabling us to conservatively test for possible interaction effects between safety and psychological need satisfaction in the prediction of well-being. More importantly, there was substantial variation in both safety measures, which is critical to find unique contributions to well-being.

  2. Based on the comment of an anonymous reviewer, we examined whether safety need satisfaction yielded a curvilinear association with psychological need desire, as individuals may need to surpass a critical threshold in safety satisfaction before desiring getting their psychological needs met. In Study 1 (i.e., the South African sample), no evidence for such a curvilinear association was found. Yet, in Study 2, (i.e., the Chinese sample), the quadratic effect was significant. However, the curvilinear relation between financial safety satisfaction and psychological need desire indicates that financial safety deprivation related to a greater desire for psychological need satisfaction among individuals who experience low financial safety, while this relation becomes non-significant among individuals who experience higher financial safety. This suggests that there is a threshold for financial safety to no longer relate to psychological need desire, which deviates from what one could expect based on Maslow’s need model (i.e., that a greater desire for psychological need satisfaction would only emerge among those high in safety satisfaction).

  3. In Study 1, besides environmental safety, we included a single-item assessment of financial satisfaction (“I feel satisfied with my financial situation”). When controlling for this financial satisfaction score in the regression, the effect of environmental safety remained significant (β = .50, p < .01), suggesting that financial satisfaction did not cancel out the effect of environmental safety satisfaction. Future studies could explore more systematically the unique contribution and the interplay between satisfaction of different aspects of safety.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Henri Dunantlaan 2, 9000, Ghent, Belgium

    Beiwen Chen, Jasper Van Assche, Maarten Vansteenkiste, Bart Soenens & Wim Beyers

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  1. Beiwen Chen
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  2. Jasper Van Assche
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  3. Maarten Vansteenkiste
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Correspondence to Beiwen Chen or Jasper Van Assche.

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Beiwen Chen and Jasper Van Assche are listed in alphabetical order though both authors contributed equally to this research and therefore share the first authorship.

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Chen, B., Van Assche, J., Vansteenkiste, M. et al. Does Psychological Need Satisfaction Matter When Environmental or Financial Safety are at Risk?. J Happiness Stud 16, 745–766 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-014-9532-5

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