Needs and Well-Being Across Europe: Basic Psychological Needs Are Closely Connected With Well-Being, Meaning, and Symptoms of Depression in 27 European Countries

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openAccess

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Volume Title

A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä

Date

2023-06

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Language

en

Pages

14
501-514

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Social psychological and personality science, Volume 14, issue 5

Abstract

In the quest to identify the key sources of subjective well-being, self-determination theory (SDT) has proposed that three basic psychological needs-autonomy, competence, and relatedness-are fundamental to well-being across cultures. To understand their influence on well-being, we analyzed data from European Social Survey on 27 European countries (n = 48,550) using structural equation modeling with alignment invariance that allowed us to get comparable indicators across the countries. Both across Europe, and within each of the 27 countries, SDT's basic psychological needs-both when examined alone and when examined together-were strongly related to key indicators of well-being (happiness, life satisfaction, and meaning in life) and a key indicator of ill-being (symptoms of depression), even controlling for demographic factors and socio-economic position. Moreover, basic needs substantially and sometimes fully mediated the effects of socio-economic position on well-being, underscoring their status as crucial to human well-being.

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Keywords

subjective well-being, psychological needs, meaning in life, depression, cross-cultural, SELF-DETERMINATION THEORY, SOCIOECONOMIC-STATUS, SATISFACTION, LIFE, HAPPINESS, HEALTH, CAPABILITIES, COMPETENCE, AUTONOMY

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Citation

Martela, F, Lehmus-Sun, A, Parker, P D, Pessi, A B & Ryan, R M 2023, ' Needs and Well-Being Across Europe : Basic Psychological Needs Are Closely Connected With Well-Being, Meaning, and Symptoms of Depression in 27 European Countries ', Social psychological and personality science, vol. 14, no. 5, pp. 501-514 . https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506221113678