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LIT-1988: Assessing basic/fundamental psychological need fulfillment: systematic mapping and review of existing scales to foster cumulative science

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Properties5
StatusActive — read in full 2026-11-03 (NOTE-1509), from the version of record (CC BY) via Europe PMC; worth reading as a finding aid to the 31 original need-fulfillment scales and as a plain list of the field's measurement faults: satisfaction, frustration, support and thwarting confused, frustration scales built from negatively worded satisfaction items, double-barrelled items. It offers no criterion for need-hood (THEORY-1318).
Version2
Tagspsychometrics, well-being
Cited as “paper” byNOTE-1509 — Kermavnar et al. — A systematic map of need-fulfillment scales
Cited as “source” byTHEORY-1311 — The BPNSFS frustration scales measure low need satisfaction in negatively keyed form, not need frustration in the sense of active thwarting, so the separation of frustration from low satisfaction in BPNSFS data, and frustration's stronger link to ill-being there, is largely a keying artefact, THEORY-1318 — Among 31 original self-report scales of psychological need fulfillment found by a 2023 systematic search, 21 measure satisfaction only, one measures frustration only and one thwarting only; all are self-reports of experience or of the perceived environment, the field uses satisfaction, frustration, support and thwarting interchangeably in places, and several frustration scales are negatively worded satisfaction items

Graph View

Kermavnar, T., Avsec, A., Huang, S., Desmet, P. M. A. (2024). Assessing basic/fundamental psychological need fulfillment: systematic mapping and review of existing scales to foster cumulative science. Frontiers in Psychology, 15. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1427478.

Key takeaways

Read in full on 2026-11-03 (NOTE-1509). THEORY: THEORY-1318 (Active).

  • 31 original scales; 21 measure satisfaction only, one frustration only, one thwarting. All are self-reports, so none measures a functional deficit, the kind of evidence QUESTION-369 asks for.
  • The field confuses satisfaction, frustration, support and thwarting in places; the BPNSFS’s frustration items are negatively coded satisfaction items (LIT-1978).
  • No criterion for need-hood is offered, and the two-dimensional model is neither endorsed nor rejected.

Standing in the record

A map of the scales by which needs are measured, for QUESTION-369.

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