The Associations of Different Social Needs with Psychological Strengths and Subjective Well-Being: An Empirical Investigation Based on Social Production Function Theory

Abstract

The fulfilment of social needs is essential for human beings to function well and thrive, but little is known about how social needs are differentially associated with types of well-functioning. This study investigates how the three social needs as proposed by Social Production Function theory-the needs for affection, behavioral confirmation, and status-relate to psychological strengths (self-evaluation, hope, and self-regulatory ability), loneliness, and subjective well-being (life satisfaction, positive and negative affect). Moreover, possible mechanisms are explored. Using the first release sample of the LifeLines study (N = 13,301) and four other samples (N = 1094, N = 456, N = 415, and N = 142), we found that the three social needs yielded a robust factor structure, and related differentially to gender and education. Their associations with all three psychological strengths were substantial. Affection need fulfilment related most strongly to both emotional and social loneliness, but the expected stronger association of behavioral confirmation with social loneliness was not found. As expected, affection related most strongly to life satisfaction and least strongly to positive affect, whereas status related most strongly to positive affect and least strongly to life satisfaction. Of all social needs, behavioral confirmation had comparatively the strongest negative association with negative affect. With regard to mechanisms, affection was found to have a partial indirect effect on life satisfaction via self-evaluation, hope, and self-regulatory ability, while status had a modest indirect effect via self-regulatory ability on positive affect. It is concluded that different need fulfillments make unique contributions to different types of well-functioning, implying that a mix of social need satisfiers (i.e. different kinds of social relationships and other social provisions) are needed for individuals to function well. This knowledge may support interventions and policy directed at both individual and societal well-being.

Social Needs and Happiness: A Life Course Perspective

“…The peaks for affection (about age 30) and behavioral confirmation (about age 60) disappeared in the weighted estimates, seemingly due to the high proportion of women in the unweighted analyses, with diluted effects in men. Women reported slightly higher levels of affection than men, but significantly lower levels of status, which has previously been observed by Steverink et al (2019). Future studies might expand upon our results and investigate whether gender differences also influence the ways in which people fulfil their needs.…”

“…The differences in social need fulfilment between the age groups were examined using descriptive statistics, ANOVA analyses and pairwise t-tests. To examine whether comparisons of average social need fulfilment levels between age groups are valid, we fit measurement invariance tests (Supplement 5), which supported configural, metric, scalar, and strict invariance (CFI > .96, RMSEA < .06; Putnick and Bornstein 2016), in line with previous reports in five independent samples (Steverink et al 2019).…”

“…Although SPF theory is about both social and physical needs, the present study has been specifically focused on the three social needs of SPF theory (see also Steverink and Lindenberg 2006;Steverink et al 2019). Although the fulfilment of physical needs may also be expected to differ over the life course, these physical needs are less dependent on the social context and, therefore, considered to fall outside the scope of the present study.…”

“…Social needs have been conceptualized and investigated in various ways (e.g., Deci and Ryan 2008;Lindenberg 1996Lindenberg , 2013Maslow 1943;Max-Neef 1992;McClelland 1985). Although there is some overlap between these theoretical approaches on social needs (e.g., Ormel et al 1999;Steverink et al 2019), the possibility of substitution between different social needs and a life course perspective on such processes is rather unique to the Social Production Function (SPF) theory (Steverink and Lindenberg 2006). For example, both substitution between social needs and concrete predictions on divergent life course trajectories do not directly follow from the self-determination theory (e.g., Deci and Ryan 2008;Wehmeyer et al 2017).…”

Development of Subjective Well-Being in Adolescence

“…The fact that at t4 none of the family variables were associated with SWB may coincide with an increase in the adolescents’ autonomy with respect to the family. Furthermore, the more consistent association with “Talking with parents about school” might indicate a process about how to improve adolescents’ SWB as intervention studies have demonstrated that talking to important others is a critical indicator of how relationships can increase individuals’ SWB [108]. Therefore, even though the association between SWB and “Talking with parents” was not large, it may indicate an important effect, because in the case of process variables small effects can also be impressive [109].…”