nucleation

LIT-1966: What is satisfying about satisfying events? Testing 10 candidate psychological needs.

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StatusActive — read in full 2026-11-03 (NOTE-1502), from the scan on selfdeterminationtheory.org, read as page images; worth reading because its own SDT authors concluded there may be four needs, self-esteem the fourth, and named the need-or-outcome ambiguity that QUESTION-369 asks about.
Version2
Tagsmotivation, well-being
Cited as “paper” byNOTE-1502 — Sheldon, Elliot, Kim & Kasser — What is satisfying about satisfying events?
Cited as “source” byTHEORY-1310 — In Sheldon, Elliot, Kim and Kasser's three studies of most satisfying events, self-esteem was as salient as autonomy, competence and relatedness in every sample and the largest unique predictor of event affect balance among ten candidate needs in two of the three US samples (β = .28, .38); the authors, SDT researchers, concluded that there may be four fundamental needs and judged it imprudent to treat self-esteem as an outcome

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Sheldon, K. M., Elliot, A. J., Kim, Y., Kasser, T. (2001). What is satisfying about satisfying events? Testing 10 candidate psychological needs.. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80(2), 325-339. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.80.2.325.

Key takeaways

Read in full on 2026-11-03 (NOTE-1502). THEORY-1310, Active, is filed from it.

Standing in the record

Tests ten candidate needs; self-esteem performs strongly. NOTE-440 holds SDT’s reply, that self-esteem is derivative. For QUESTION-369.

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