1 Introduction
In recent years there has been a renewed interest in universal basic and psychosocial needs, the fulfillment of which has been shown to be essential to positive functioning and well-being (e.g., Deci and Ryan
2000; Demir and Özdemir
2010; Diener et al.
2010; Tay and Diener
2011). ‘Needs’ refer to certain basic physical and social needs, such that deficits in their satisfaction create negative psychological consequences. Especially social needs, such as the need for close relationships and respect from others, have been found to be strong predictors of happiness and positive feelings (e.g., Diener et al.
2010). A study by Tay and Diener (
2011) has shown the association of social needs with well-being in countries all over the world. Conversely, deficits and deprivations in social needs fulfillment have been shown to lead to pathological and aversive outcomes. For example, evidence from the social neurosciences shows that social rejection creates social pain, which is visible in the brain in a way similar to physical pain (e.g., Eisenberger et al.
2003). So, overall, it is a core finding in the literature that social need fulfilment is crucial for subjective well-being and happiness in general, and deficits in social need fulfilment lead to social pain and unhappiness. What has not received much attention so far, however, is the question whether the fulfilment of
different social needs is related to
different socially and psychologically important outcomes, and what the possible mechanisms are that underlie these associations. The aim of this paper is, therefore, to investigate to what extent different social needs relate differentially to indicators of well-functioning, and to explore possible mechanisms.
In order to answer these questions empirically, it is important to know, first of all, which social needs to distinguish. Lack of attention to the question how the fulfilment of different social needs affects various outcomes, may be related to the fact that many prominent theories of social needs assume that there is basically one overall social need. For example, Baumeister and Leary (
1995) do consider the need for intimacy or affection, the need for approval and affiliation, and the need for power, but they consider these needs as derivatives of the overarching need to belong (see Baumeister and Leary
1995, p. 498, 522). Also Deci and Ryan (
2000), when talking about the need for relatedness, refer to love and care, which seem to point to a need for intimacy and affection, but at the same time they also identify relatedness as “assimilation and integration of oneself within the social community” (Deci and Ryan
2000, p. 242), which seems to refer to the wider group rather than to intimate relationships. So, it still is uncertain which social needs to distinguish. This may have caused that, so far, little attention has been paid to the question whether deficits in different social need fulfilments may have different consequences for indicators of well-functioning. For example, if there is a need to relate to others, then there is one kind of social need deficit: lack of relations to others. If, by contrast, the presumed need to relate is actually a combination of a need for intimate relations and a need to be socially accepted, there could be two different kinds of deficits. Having a deficit in one social need does not necessarily mean that one also has a deficit in the other: people can feel accepted by members of a group but not have intimate relationships with them and vice versa, with also different consequences for specific outcomes of well-functioning.
In this paper, a distinction of three fundamental social needs, as proposed by Social Production Function (SPF) theory (Lindenberg
2013), will be used. SPF theory distinguishes three basic social needs, next to two basic physical needs (for detailed descriptions see Lindenberg
2013; Steverink
2014). The two basic physical needs are comfort and stimulation, but in this paper we focus on the three social needs: affection, behavioral confirmation, and status.
Affection is the feeling that you are liked and loved. Affection thus refers to the love you get for being who you are, regardless of your assets (status) or actions (behavioral confirmation).
Behavioral confirmation is the feeling of doing the ‘right’ thing in the eyes of important others and yourself; it includes doing good things, doing things well, and being part of a functional group. Behavioral confirmation, thus, results primarily from what you do, rather than what you are (affection), or what you have or can do (status). Note that ‘behavioral confirmation’ was also used by Snyder and Swann (
1978) to refer to the self-fulfilling nature of social stereotypes. However, in our definition, behavioral confirmation is the confirmation that a person gets from others, or from herself, for showing the ‘right’ behavior. The third social need,
status, is the feeling that you are being treated with respect, achieve more than others, have influence, and are known for your achievements, skills, or assets.
1.1 How to Assess Social Needs?
Mostly, needs are assessed by directly asking people about whether or not they have certain needs and to what extent. For example, the need to belong scale (Leary et al.
2013) uses items such as “I want other people to accept me” and “I have a strong need to belong”. Such ways of assessing needs are useful when one is interested in individual differences in the strength of a need. However, a different approach seems necessary in order to distinguish different needs and their different associations with relevant outcomes. SPF theory proceeds from the idea that for purposes of distinguishing social needs and tracing their consequences, one should be able to distinguish their alleged ‘satisfiers’ and,
pari passu, the possible different deficits and consequences of deficits. In the case of social needs, need ‘satisfiers’ would be those social relationships and/or social phenomena or social situations that are evaluated by a person as satisfying one or more social needs. For example, emotionally close relationships, which make a person feel that he or she is being loved, are need satisfiers for the need for intimate and close connections. Similarly, responses from others that make a person feel that he or she is ranked higher than others, are satisfiers for the need for prestige or status.
Baumeister and Leary (
1995) and Deci and Ryan (
2000) would be justified in lumping social needs together in one global need, if the various social needs are in fact fulfilled by the same satisfiers. Some satisfiers, such as the relationship with a spouse or parent, may indeed fulfil different social needs at the same time. Thus, need fulfillment of the three social needs will be correlated to some degree. However, if indeed there are different social needs, there should also be different satisfiers for these needs and different outcomes if the satisfiers are subjectively present or absent to various degrees.
Using focus groups and applying detailed content analysis, Van Bruggen (
2001) has investigated potential satisfiers of the three social needs
affection,
behavioral confirmation and
status. She identified various social relationships and various social situations, that differentially fulfill the separate social needs. For example, the satisfiers for the need for
affection are relationships that give you the feeling that you are liked, loved, understood, empathized with, feel that others are willing to help without expecting something in return, feel that your well-being is intertwined with that of others, and feel that others like to be either emotionally or physically close to you (e.g., to hug) and reciprocate your feeling. Satisfiers for the need for
behavioral confirmation are relationships that give you the feeling of doing the ‘right’ thing in the eyes of important others and yourself; it includes doing good things, doing things well, being a good person, being useful, contributing to a common goal, and being part of a group. Finally, satisfiers for the need for
status are relationships that give you the feeling that you are being treated with respect and are being taken seriously, achieve more than others, have influence, and are known for your achievements, skills or assets.
On the basis of Van Bruggen’s work, Nieboer et al. (
2005) constructed and tested an instrument for measuring the three social need fulfilments. This instrument (called the SPF-IL) contained 18 items for affection and 12 items each for behavioral confirmation and status. The original scale also contained 8 items each for measuring the two physical needs of SPF theory (comfort and stimulation), next to the three social needs. Nieboer et al. (
2005) tested the scales in various studies and, in general, found acceptable psychometric properties for the three social need scales, and the two physical needs scales. This work produced the first systematic evidence for distinguishing the three social needs. However, since an instrument with so many items is unwieldy, Nieboer et al. also developed short versions of the scales with three items for each social and physical need. The shortened scales (called SPF-IL(s)) have been used in many studies (e.g., Cramm and Nieboer
2015; Frieswijk et al.
2006; Goedendorp and Steverink
2017; Nieboer and Cramm
2017), and was recently validated again with various samples of older populations (Nieboer and Cramm
2018).
1.2 The Three Needs and Indicators of Well-Functioning in Various Samples
In order to investigate the differential associations of the three social need fulfilments with indicators of well-functioning, both psychological strengths and subjective well-being outcomes will be considered as indicators of well-functioning and thriving. Well-functioning and experiencing well-being, as argued previously, are inherently dependent on being socially well provided, i.e. having one’s basic social needs fulfilled.
In order to investigate the presumed associations in a robust way, we had available five samples, including a unique sample of more than 13,000 participants with an age range of 18–90 years, which contained, next to the three social needs, at least some measures of psychological strengths and/or subjective well-being. These allowed us to test whether or not specific deficits/fulfillments of the various social needs indeed have specific associations with these indicators of well-functioning. In the following these indicators will be explained in more detail.
4 Results
4.1 Factor Structures and Internal Consistency
Table
2 shows the results of the MGCFA, testing the first hypothesis, expecting that the three social need scales would show robustness in the five different samples (upper part of Table
2). Due to the large population in sample 2, we also made six age groups of this sample, in order to test our expectation also in these subpopulations. The lower part of Table
2 shows the results for these six age groups.
Table 2Multigroup confirmatory factor analysis for the three social needs: factor structure between the five samples and six age groups of sample 2
Five samples (N = 14,588) | | | | | | | |
Configural invariance | 2513.006 | 123 | .082 | .079, .084 | .941 | .914 | 217,409.912 |
Metric invariance | 2822.133 | 147 | .079 | .076, .083 | .934 | .919 | 217,671.039 |
Strong invariance | 1625.986 | 168 | .055 | .052, .057 | .964 | .961 | 216,432.892 |
Strict invariance | 3522.045 | 204 | .075 | .073, .077 | .918 | .928 | 218,256.951 |
Six age groups (N = 12,559) | | | | | | | |
Configural invariance | 1381.125 | 147 | .063 | .060, .066 | .967 | .951 | 182,036.286 |
Metric invariance | 1494.868 | 177 | .060 | .057, .062 | .964 | .957 | 182,090.028 |
Strong invariance | 802.454 | 204 | .037 | .035, .040 | .984 | .983 | 181,343.614 |
Strict invariance | 1371.636 | 249 | .046 | .044, .049 | .970 | .974 | 181,822.797 |
Because, according to Kenny (
2011), the RMSEA is currently the most widely used measure of model fit, and seems to be the only fit index among 20 alternatives that was unaffected by model complexity (Cheung and Rensvold
2002), we focus on the RMSEA, and use the other fit indices to add to the best model fit.
The results support configural invariance of the three social need fulfilments across the five samples based on an RMSEA value of .082 (90% CI = .079, .084), which is close to the frequently established criterion of < .08 for reasonable model fit (Hu and Bentler
1999). This result suggests that the same model structure exists in all five samples. The subsequent test of metric invariance was also supported (RMSEA = .079, 90% CI = .076, .083), suggesting that the SPF-IL(s) subscales measure the social needs similarly (i.e., a similar metric) between groups. The RMSEA value for strong invariance suggests good fit (.055; 90% CI = .052, .057), based on the guidelines suggested by Browne and Cudeck (
1993; i.e., RMSEA < .06). This result suggests there are no differences between groups in the means of the three SPF-IL(s) social need subscales. Finally, the test of strict invariance demonstrated reasonable fit (RMSEA = .075; 90% CI = .073, .077), suggesting similar reliabilities of SPF-IL(s) social need subscale scores between groups. Thus, it can be concluded that all models show reasonable to good fit in terms of the RMSEA, while, taking also the other fit indices and their criteria into account, the model of strong invariance shows to be the best fitting model for the five samples.
The six age groups of sample 2 show generally comparable results. The test of configural invariance demonstrated reasonable fit (RMSEA = .063; 90% CI = .060, .066). The tests of metric invariance (RMSEA = .060; 90% CI = .057, .062), strong invariance (RMSEA = .037; 90% CI = .035, .040), and strict invariance (RMSEA = .046; 90% CI = .044, .049) all showed good fit. Also the other fit indices show acceptable fit, for all types of invariance, while also the model of strong invariance appears to be the best fitting model.
Taken together, these results provide support for the similarity of the SPF-IL(s) social needs factor structure, subscale metrics, mean scores, and reliabilities across the five samples and the six age groups of sample 2. Table
3 shows the Cronbach’s alphas, the means and standard deviations, as well as the inter-correlations of the three social need scales, for each of the five samples.
Table 3The three social needs scales: Cronbach’s alphas, means, SDs and zero-order correlations, for all five samples
Cronbach’s alpha | .67 | .56 | .67 | .75 | .76 | .79 | .76 | .69 | .74 | .81 | .74 | .74 | .76 | .68 | .72 |
Mean | 3.02 | 3.18 | 2.08 | 3.14 | 3.09 | 2.10 | 3.04 | 3.03 | 2.09 | 3.09 | 3.01 | 2.04 | 2.46 | 2.70 | 1.91 |
SD | .48 | .43 | .63 | .54 | .50 | .55 | .59 | .49 | .53 | .66 | .53 | .58 | .56 | .52 | .50 |
Correlations | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
Beh. confirmation | .43*** | | | .61*** | | | .57*** | | | .53*** | | | .44** | | |
Status | .09** | .21*** | | .22*** | .32*** | | .27*** | .32*** | | .29*** | .53*** | | .29** | .44** | |
Most samples show acceptable or good Cronbach’s alphas, although the alphas in sample 1 are rather low. All samples, except the single 52 + women in sample 5, show comparable Means and SDs. Overall, in each of the samples, the mean scores on the affection and behavioral confirmation scales are higher than the mean score on the status scale, with affection in general still somewhat higher than behavioral confirmation. This may reflect the different ease of satiation discussed above (Nieboer and Lindenberg
2002). Still, these findings indicate that there is a general pattern of how much on average the social needs are being fulfilled. Not surprisingly, the single women in sample 5 show a somewhat different pattern. This sample consisted of widowed and divorced or single women aged 52 and older who signed up to take part in an intervention study on improvement of self-management ability, well-being and loneliness (Kremers et al.
2006). As one might expect, these women scored relatively low on affection and also somewhat lower on behavioral confirmation and status than the average in other samples.
The correlations between the three social needs show, overall, that affection and behavioral confirmation correlate relatively strongly (between .43 and .61), whereas status correlates lower with behavioral confirmation (between .21 and .53) and still lower with affection (between .09 and .29).
We also examined the Cronbach’s alphas for the six separate age groups within Sample 2. The analyses yielded results (not shown in Table) that are highly comparable to those of the other samples. In all age groups the Cronbach’s alphas ranged from .69 to .76 for affection; from .73 to .79 for behavioral confirmation; and from .78 to .80 for status. From these results, together with the results shown in Table
2, it can be concluded that, as expected in H1, the stability and reliability of the three separate social need scales are robust (in all five samples, and in all age groups of sample 2).
4.2 Associations with Age, Gender and Education
Table
4 shows, first of all, the zero-order and partial correlations of the three social needs with age, gender, and education, for each of the five samples. Also the correlations with all other concepts are shown in Table
4, and will be discussed consecutively in the following sections. Note that not all indicators were measured in all samples. Therefore, some of the cells in Table
4 remain empty.
Table 4Zero-order and partial correlations (italic) between the three social need scales and four clusters of indicators, for all 5 samples
1. Objective indicators |
Age | − .01 − .06 | .10** .11** | .03 .01 | − .04** − .03** | − .01 .01 | − .02* − .02* | − .03 − .07 | .07 .11* | − .03 − .05 | .07 .17** | − .14** − .17** | − .12* − .05 | − .15 − .17 | .01 .07 | − .03 − .02 |
Gender (0 = male) | .08* .09** | .00 .02 | − .25** − .26** | .08** .12** | .00 − .00 | − .24** − .26** | .18** .21** | .05 − .03 | − .11* − .17** | .15** .17* | − .01 − .01 | − .13* − .15** | | | |
Education | − .05 − .03 | − .06 − .10** | .27** .29** | .05** .03** | .02* − .06** | .21** .21** | .04 .03 | − .02 − .10* | .21** .23** | − .08 − .06 | − .05 − .11* | .16** .22** | .08 .02 | .13 .06 | .16 .11 |
2. Strength indicators |
Self-evaluation | | | | | | | .41** .29** | .31** .08 | .24** .12* | | | | | | |
Hope | | | | | | | | | | .31** .18* | .34** .06 | .42** .33** | | | |
Self-management ability | | | | | | | | | | .31** .07 | .50** .29** | .42** .26** | .52** .38** | .54** .35** | .40** .17 |
3. Loneliness |
Overall loneliness | | | | | | | | | | − .46** − .34** | − .36** − .15* | − .22** − .01 | − .47** − .42** | − .22* − .03 | − .17 − .02 |
Emotional loneliness | | | | | | | | | | − .30** − .21** | − .24** − .11 | − .14 .01 | − .33** − .29** | − .16 − .00 | − .15 − .06 |
Social loneliness | | | | | | | | | | − .51** − .39** | − .39** − .15 | − .26** − .03 | − .51** − .47** | − .24** − .04 | − .15 .02 |
4. SWB indicators |
Life satisfaction | .29** .23** | .20** .08* | .07* .03 | | | | .39** .29** | .27** .07 | .14** .02 | .28** .19** | .25** .05 | .25** .15** | .34** .26** | .23* .05 | .25** .13 |
Positive affect | .26** .15** | .31** .19** | .32** .28** | .32** .13** | .35** .15** | .36** .28** | | | | .30** .12 | .39** .11 | .49** .35** | .28** .12 | .35** .15 | .44** .32** |
Negative affect | − .18** − .13** | − .15** − .08* | − .06* − .03 | − .22** − .06** | − .29** − .17** | − .17** − .08** | | | | − .18* − .01 | − .34** − .23** | − .23** − .05 | − .21* − .17 | − .10 .01 | − .12 − .06 |
Regarding
age, we overall found relatively low correlations, and a rather inconsistent pattern across the various social needs and the various samples, indicating no support for H2a. Regarding gender, Table
4 indicates the expected differences between men and women, which we further tested using MANOVA. The results showed, as expected in H2b, that—in all samples (except sample 5 which contains only women) the three social need fulfilments differ significantly for men and women (Sample 1: Wilks’ λ = .925,
F(3, 983) = 26.734,
p < .001, η
2 = .075; Sample 2: Wilks’ λ = .925,
F(3, 12,555) = 337.021,
p < .001, η
2 = .075; Sample 3: Wilks’ λ = .933,
F(3, 430) = 10.320,
p < .001, η
2 = .067; Sample 4: Wilks’ λ = .952,
F(3, 358) = 5.990,
p < .01, η
2 = .048). In addition, the univariate tests (between-subjects) showed that—in all four samples—women have higher scores on affection need fulfillment than men (Sample 1:
F = 6.94,
p < .01; Sample 2:
F = 86.04,
p < .001; Sample 3:
F = 14.89,
p < .001; Sample 4:
F = 6.51,
p < .05). Men have higher scores on status need fulfillment than women (Sample 1:
F = 66.81,
p < .001; Sample 2:
F = 742.20,
p < .001; Sample 3:
F = 6.97,
p < .01; Sample 4:
F = 5.67,
p < .05). Moreover, men and women did not differ on the fulfillment of the need for behavioral confirmation in any of the samples (Sample 1:
F = .02,
p = .89; Sample 2:
F = .03,
p = .86; Sample 3:
F = 1.31,
p = .25; Sample 4:
F = .27,
p = .61).
Regarding education, we found, as expected in H2c, that the correlations with status need fulfilment are positive and significantly stronger than the correlations with behavioral confirmation. The correlation with affection is very low or non-existent. This we found in samples 1–4 (Steiger z tests, each comparing the partial correlations of two social needs: Sample 1: zBC-Sta = − 10.07, p < .001; Sample 2: zAff-BC = 11.55, p < .001, zBC-Sta = − 26.46, p < .001; Sample 3: zBC-Sta = − 6.02, p < .001; Sample 4: zBC-Sta = − 5.59, p < .001). In sample 5 (single women, age 52 +) none of the correlations between education and the three needs are significant, although status seems somewhat stronger than the other two needs. H2c is thus largely confirmed.
4.3 Psychological Strengths
It was expected (H3) that all three social needs relate positively to positive self-evaluation, hope, and self-management ability. For self-evaluation (Sample 3) it was found that it relates significantly to affection and status and, significantly more strongly to affection than to status (zAff-Sta = 3.04, p < .001). For hope (Sample 4) also significant associations with affection and status were found, but here the association with status is significantly stronger than that with affection (zAff-Sta = − 2.194, p < .05). Regarding self-management ability, Sample 4 showed no association with affection, and relatively strong and comparable associations with both behavioral confirmation and status (zBC-Sta = 1.85, p = .07). Results for sample 5 (single women, age 52 +) are different. Here we find relatively strong and comparable associations for both affection and behavioral confirmation, (zAff-BC = 0.36, p = .36), not status. It is concluded that H3 is only partially supported, as not all three social needs are related to all three psychological strengths simultaneously.
4.4 Loneliness
For loneliness we expected (negative) associations with affection and behavioral confirmation and no associations with status (H4a). Indeed, neither for overall loneliness, nor for emotional and social loneliness, we found status to play a role (see samples 4 and 5). Overall loneliness was most associated with affection, although behavioral confirmation also showed a significant association in Sample 4, but significantly smaller than affection (zAff-BC = 4.88, p < .001). We also expected (H4b) affection to relate most to emotional loneliness, and behavioral confirmation most to social loneliness. However, this we did not find. Affection, as compared to behavioral confirmation, has the strongest association with both emotional and social loneliness in both samples 4 and 5. Moreover, the negative associations of affection with social loneliness seem to be even stronger in both samples than the associations of affection with emotional loneliness (Sample 4: − .39 vs. − .21; Sample 5: − .47 vs. − .29). So, the expected stronger association of behavioral confirmation need fulfilment with social loneliness is not found. Thus, H4a is confirmed, but H4b is only partially confirmed.
4.5 Indicators of Subjective Well-Being
Regarding life satisfaction we found that affection need fulfillment, as expected in H5a, has the strongest correlation. This was found in three of the four samples that contained life satisfaction (Samples 1, 3 and 5). In Samples 3 and 5, only affection showed significant associations with life satisfaction, whereas in sample 1, also a significant association was found for behavioral confirmation, although significantly smaller than that for affection (zAff-BC = 4.68, p < .001). In sample 4 we found, contrary to expectation, also a significant association with status, which was comparably as strong as the association with affection (zAff-Sta = 0.16, p = 87).
With respect to positive affect (PA), it was found that all three needs correlated significantly with PA in samples 1 and 2, with, as expected, status showing the strongest association of the three needs (Sample 1: zSta-BC = − 2.35, p < .05; zSta-Aff = − 3.16, p < .01. Sample 2: zSta-BC = − 13.97, p < .001; zSta-Aff = − 13.95, p < .001). In samples 4 and 5, only status correlated significantly with positive affect. H5a is thus largely confirmed.
Regarding negative affect (NA), we expected the need for behavioral confirmation to have the strongest association with NA (H5b). As can be seen in Table
4, we found in samples 2 and 4 behavioral confirmation need fulfilment to have indeed a stronger association with NA than the other two needs (Sample 2:
zAff-BC = 14.23,
p < .001;
zBC-Sta = − 8.79,
p < .001). However, in sample 1 affection has the strongest association with NA even though it is not significantly different from the association with behavioral confirmation (
zAff-BC = − 1.54,
p = .12). Finally, although affection seems to have the strongest association with negative affect in sample 5, none of the correlations in sample 5 reach significance. H5b is thus only partly supported.
4.6 Possible Mechanisms
Finally, some mechanisms were explored, focusing on the possible mediating role of psychological strengths in the link between social need fulfillments and indicators of well-being, including loneliness. For this we had available in samples 3, 4 and 5 (not in samples 1 and 2) one or more of the psychological strengths (as mediators) and one or more of the indicators of well-being, including loneliness, as dependent variables. As shown in Table
4, it was found that one or more of the three social need fulfilments relate to the three psychological strengths considered in this study, and that one or more of the three social needs relate significantly to the well-being outcomes, including loneliness, except for negative affect in sample 5. Also, all psychological strengths related to one or more of the well-being outcomes: positive self-evaluation (sample 3) was found to correlate significantly with life satisfaction (
r = .63,
p < .001), as did hope in sample 4 (
r = .55,
p < .001). Self-management ability was found to relate significantly to life satisfaction, both in sample 4 (
r = .30,
p < .001), and in sample 5 (
r = .55,
p < .001). Moreover, self-management ability was found to relate to positive affect (
r = .59,
p < .001), and loneliness (
r = − .48,
p < .001) in sample 5, as well as to negative affect (
r = − .19,
p < .05), but no associations were found for the three social needs with negative affect in this sample. In Table
5 the results of the mediational analyses are shown.
Table 5Mediation analyses: psychological strengths (M) mediating the relation between social needs and well-being indicators
Constant | 1.85 (.28) | .15 (.27) | 2.55 (.73) | .58 (.71) | 2.91 (.74) | 2.24 (.80) | − .77 (1.38) | − 2.05 (1.24) | .89 (.49) | .42 (.43) | 13.16 (2.63) | 14.9 (2.52) |
Age | .00 (.00) | .00 (.00) | − .01 (.01) | − .01 (.01) | − .02 (.01) | − .01 (.01) | .04 (.02) | .05 (.02) | .00 (.01) | .00 (.01) | .02 (.03) | .01 (.03) |
Genderbc | − .01 (.07) | − .08 (.06) | − .14 (.09) | − .02 (.09) | − .18 (.10) | − .20 (.09) | | | | | | |
Social needs (X) |
Affection | .48 (.07) | .23 (.06) | .29 (.09) | .16 (.08) | .274 (.09) | .256 (.09) | .93 (.25) | .41 (.24) | .09 (.09) | − .11 (.08) | − 2.43 (.48) | − 1.73 (.49) |
Beh. confirmation | .10 (.09) | .02 (.08) | .06 (.12) | .03 (.10) | .07 (.12) | .00 (.12) | .15 (.29) | − .43 (.27) | .13 (.10) | − .09 (.10) | − .14 (.55) | .65 (.56) |
Status | .02 (.07) | − .09 (.06) | .14 (.09) | − .06 (.09) | .11 (.09) | .06 (.09) | .47 (.28) | .21 (.26) | .39 (.10) | .29 (.09) | .03 (.54) | .39 (.52) |
Ps. Strengths (M) |
Self-evaluation | | .87 (.06) | | | | | | | | | | |
Hope | | | | .83 (.12) | | | | | | | | |
SMA | | | | | | .011 (.005) | | .08 (.01) | | .03 (.005) | | − .11 (.03) |
Indirect effect (ab) | | .25 | | .13 | | .018 | | .52 | | .10 | | − .70 |
95% CI | | [0.17, 0.35] | | [0.05, 0.23] | | [− .01, .06] | | [0.24, 0.89] | | [0.01, 0.23] | | [− 1.22, − 0.36] |
PM | | .52 | | .45 | | .07 | | .56 | | .25 | | .29 |
R2 | .16 | .42 | .15 | .33 | .16 | .18 | .19 | .37 | .19 | .40 | .20 | .29 |
R2 change | | .26 | | .18 | | .02 | | .18 | | .21 | | .09 |
F testd | 15.93 | 52.09 | 6.48 | 14.97 | 6.30 | 6.10 | 7.89 | 15.68 | 7.81 | 17.24 | 8.47 | 10.95 |
(df1, df2)e | (5, 424) | (6, 423) | (5, 181) | (6, 180) | (5, 172) | (6, 171) | (4, 132) | (5, 131) | (4, 131) | (5, 130) | (4, 132) | (5, 131) |
For each dependent variable and each mediator, we executed separate regression analyses, using the macro PROCESS (Hayes
2013) to estimate the indirect effect (
ab) of the mediator between the three social needs as independent variables (
X), and each one of the indicators of well-being, including loneliness, as dependent variable (
Y). Age and gender were used as controls.
Regarding positive self-evaluation (sample 3), there was a significant mediation effect of self-evaluation on the link between affection need fulfilment and life satisfaction (ab = .25, 95% CI [0.17, 0.35]), the mediator accounting for 52% of the total effect (PM = .52). Also hope was found to mediate the association between affection and life satisfaction (ab = .13, 95% CI [.05, .23], accounting for almost half of the total effect (PM = .45). Self-management ability in sample 4 did not mediate the link between affection and life satisfaction (ab = .02, 95% CI [− 0.01, 0.06]). Yet, in sample 5, self-management ability significantly mediated the link between affection need fulfilment and life satisfaction (ab = .52, 95% CI [0.24, 0.89]), the mediator accounting for more than half of the total effect (PM = .56). Additionally, self-management ability weakly mediated the link between status need fulfilment on positive affect (ab = .10, 95% CI [.01, .23]), the mediator accounting for 25% of the total effect (PM = .25). Finally, a significant mediation effect of self-management ability on the link between affection need fulfilment on loneliness was found (ab = − .70, 95% CI [− 1.22, − .36]), the mediator accounting for almost one-third of the total effect (PM = .29).
It is concluded that there are significant mediation effects of all psychological strengths considered in our study (self-evaluation, hope and self-management ability) on the links between affection need fulfilment and life satisfaction as well as loneliness. For status need fulfilment, self-management ability was only a weak (though significant) mediator for the link with positive affect. No mediating effects of psychological strengths were found for the links between behavioral confirmation need fulfilment and well-being indicators.
5 Discussion
The fulfilment of social needs is essential for human beings to function well and thrive (cf. Deci and Ryan
2000). However, so far, there is a lack of more in-depth knowledge about which social needs are indeed important for which types of well-functioning. Curiously, the very question whether fulfilling a certain social need is more beneficial for certain indicators of well-functioning than fulfilling other social needs has rarely come up in the literature. This may be mainly due to the fact that social needs are often lumped together under one overall need to belong, or one overall need for relatedness. However, even studies (such as Tay and Diener
2011) that do differentiate between social needs and trace their associations with different types of subjective well-being (life satisfaction, positive and negative affect), do not problematize the possible differential role specific social need fulfillments may play for specific indicators of well-functioning.
What is needed is a deeper theoretical and empirical understanding of the role of social relationships and other social provisions for well-being and thriving. If specific social need fulfilments make separable contributions to different indicators of well-functioning, then it is important to focus on the different social satisfiers of social needs (i.e. the different kinds of social relationships, social activities, and social situations) and how they relate to indicators of well-functioning. SPF theory distinguishes three social needs and measures them in terms of the different social satisfiers. Applying SPF theory, we were able to link the different social need fulfilments to their associations with various indicators of well-functioning (psychological strengths, life satisfaction, and positive affect, and absence of loneliness and negative affect). Moreover, we explored possible mechanisms through which social need fulfilments may relate to subjective well-being. The empirical study in which we investigated these links and mechanisms was based on five different samples, including one very large sample of over 13,000 people.
The results showed, first of all, that social needs should indeed not be lumped together in one overall need to belong or need for relatedness. The needs for affection, behavioral confirmation, and status can be clearly distinguished, providing support for the robustness of the factor structure and internal consistencies of the three social needs across the five samples, as well as across age groups covering the whole adult life span. Second, for the demographic variables, both the hypotheses on gender and level of education were supported, but not on age. As expected, women in all samples scored significantly higher on levels of affection need fulfillment than men, whereas men scored significantly higher on levels of status need fulfillment than women. No gender differences were found for behavioral confirmation need fulfillment, as expected. The associations for education were largely as expected: higher education was significantly stronger associated with status need fulfillment as compared to the other two needs, in 4 of the 5 samples. Thus, differences in gender and education also systematically affect the level of need fulfilment with regard to status and affection. However, for age we found relatively weak correlations, and rather inconsistent patterns over the various samples. Possibly the fulfilments of social needs follow complex patterns with age, requiring more in-depth investigation in future studies.
Third, the psychological strength indicators that we examined (i.e., self-evaluation, hope, and self-regulatory capacity), showed as expected that all three social need fulfillments have clear and quite strong associations with these indicators, even though the partial correlations show that in some sample a particular need is more highly correlated with a particular indicator than in another sample. These findings do support the conjecture that all three social need fulfilments contribute to psychological strengths.
Fourth, it was found that for loneliness, as expected, status did not play a significant role. However, contrary to expectation, social loneliness was not most strongly (negatively) associated with behavioral confirmation. Rather, both emotional and social loneliness were most strongly associated with affection need fulfillment. Although there is evidence for the bidimensionality of the Jong Gierveld loneliness scale (Van Baarsen et al.
2001), our results suggest that even social loneliness taps more into lack of affection than into lack of behavioral confirmation need fulfillment.
Fifth, concerning the three indicators of subjective well-being, it was found, as expected, that affection need fulfillment related the strongest to life satisfaction, and status need fulfillment the strongest to positive affect. These results are in line with the findings of Ng and Diener (
2014), Nieboer et al. (
2005), Steverink and Lindenberg (
2006), and Tay and Diener (
2011), who also showed comparable findings on the association between the need for respect (status) and positive feelings. The overall results for negative affect are less clear cut, since the expected stronger association of behavioral confirmation need fulfillment with negative affect was only found in two of the four samples that contained negative affect. Tay and Diener (
2011) also found a more diverse pattern in need fulfillments for negative affect than for positive affect. It can be concluded that the fulfilments of the three social needs cannot be clearly differentiated for their associations with psychological strengths, but they are quite differentially associated with important indicators of subjective well-being.
With regard to the possible mediating role of psychological strengths in the link between social need fulfillments and indicators of well-being, including loneliness, we found that all three psychological strengths play a significant role. Self-evaluation, hope, and self-management ability all (partially) mediated the link between affection and life satisfaction, as well as the link between affection and loneliness. Thus, with regard to the impact of psychological strengths on well-being, it is the combination with affection need fulfilment that seems to be most important. Self-management ability was also found to play a role in the link between status need fulfilment and positive affect. We did not find any mediating role of the three psychological strength for the link between social needs fulfilment and negative affect. We can conclude that social needs fulfillment has both direct and indirect effects on well-being, and that psychological strengths, besides being important in themselves, play a sizable mediating role between social needs fulfillment and indicators of well-being.
The study also has some limitations. First of all, although the various samples allowed the testing of the scales in different age groups and across gender, all samples only contained cross-sectional data, which do not allow us to draw conclusions about changes in the different social needs over time, nor about the presumed causal paths from social need fulfillment to positive functioning. Clearly, it is likely that the causal paths will be bidirectional. For example, self-regulatory capacity and positive affect are likely to contribute to achieving higher levels of social need fulfilment. Social needs are thus at the center of recursive loops that connect social need fulfillments to positive outcomes and vice versa. Still, the purpose of this study was not to trace changes over time but to answer the question whether different social needs could robustly be distinguished in their expected joint and specific associations with various indicators of well-functioning. Second, none of the samples contained all of the variables of positive functioning that may be relevant for assessing their associations with the three social need fulfilments. Future studies may explicitly theorize about how the three social needs would relate to specific indicators of well-functioning, including specifying mechanisms, and test the hypothesized associations and mechanisms in samples and designs specifically set up for that purpose. Third, this study investigated people’s social needs only, while according to SPF theory two physical needs (comfort and stimulation) are just as important. However, the focus and scope of this paper were on the social needs. Future research might fruitfully include the physical needs as well. Fourth, even though we had the advantage of a very large sample (sample 2), our study contained only Dutch samples. Although we have no reason to assume that the Dutch differ from other Western-European populations, and the SPF-ILs scale has been reliably used in, for example, South African (Cramm et al.
2014) and African American (Tiernan et al.
2014) populations, future research should include countries across the world, as Tay and Diener (
2011) and Ng and Diener (
2014) have done in their studies.
Despite these limitations, the study made some important contributions. The first is that it is one of the first to throw more light on the question whether different social need fulfillments have different associations to different psychological strengths, loneliness, and subjective well-being outcomes. An important implication of this finding is that it shows the importance of looking differentially at social ‘satisfiers’ (i.e., the different kinds of social relationships, social activities, and social situations), because they fulfill different social needs. Thus, the importance of different kinds of social relationships as satisfiers of different social needs comes into focal attention.
The second important contribution is that it points to the importance of looking deeper into the mechanisms that may explain why social need fulfilments are so important to well-functioning. One of the important mechanisms may be that social need fulfilments add to the development of psychological strengths, which, besides being important in themselves, also contribute to subjective well-being. For the design of interventions and policy directed at the improvement of well-being of individuals, this is important knowledge. If social structures and institutions could provide better opportunities for people to fulfill their various social needs, this would add to their overall well-being, also through improvement of psychological strengths.
Finally, this knowledge may also help individuals themselves to become more aware of their different social needs and conditions of need fulfillment. For example, for loneliness, being accepted in a group is likely to have less effect than receiving affection from a partner or friend. Awareness of the conditions of social needs fulfilment may also contribute to the development of psychological strengths, which, in turn, may contribute to better ‘social health behavior’, analogous to ‘physical health behavior’. We can conclude that if each of the social needs makes separable contributions, then a mix of social satisfiers (different kinds of social relationships, social activities and social situations) is required for social needs fulfilment and thus for human well-functioning and thriving.
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