General Need for Autonomy and Subjective Well-Being: A Meta-Analysis of Studies in the US and East Asia

Self-determination theory proposes that human beings have universal basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness, which when satisfied lead to well-being. The current meta-analysis synthesized the correlations between the need for autonomy and subjective well-being. More speci...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of happiness studies Vol. 19; no. 6; pp. 1863 - 1882
Main Authors Yu, Shi, Levesque-Bristol, Chantal, Maeda, Yukiko
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.08.2018
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects
Autonomy
East and West
Economics
Happiness
Meta-analysis
Personality and Social Psychology
Philosophy
Positive Psychology
Psychological needs
Psychological theories
Quality of Life Research
Random effects
Researcher subject relations
Review Article
Self determination
Social Sciences
Systematic review
Well being
United States > US
Self-determination theory
Subjective well-being
Happiness
Autonomy
Basic psychological needs
Culture
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Summary:Self-determination theory proposes that human beings have universal basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness, which when satisfied lead to well-being. The current meta-analysis synthesized the correlations between the need for autonomy and subjective well-being. More specifically, because some researchers have questioned the role of autonomy in well-being in non-Western cultures, our meta-analysis focused on the results reported from studies conducted in the United States (US, a typical individualist culture) and East Asian countries (typical collectivist cultures). Random-effects analyses using 36 independent samples (22 from the US and 14 from East Asian samples including China and Japan) totaling 12,906 participants showed a moderate correlation ( r  = .46, p  < .001) between autonomy and subjective well-being. The difference between correlations for studies conducted in the East and West was not significant (Δ r  = .05, p  > .05). Overall, this study lends support to self-determination theory’s proposition that autonomy is a universal psychological need and provides suggestions for cultural practices and policies.
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ISSN:1389-4978
1573-7780
DOI:10.1007/s10902-017-9898-2