Contribution
It widens Kasser and Ryan 1993, which compared financial success with three intrinsic aspirations in late adolescents, to three extrinsic aspirations (financial success, social recognition, appealing appearance) and four intrinsic ones (self-acceptance, affiliation, community feeling, physical fitness), in an adult community sample as well as students. It gives the factor-analytic case that the two kinds are distinct, and the pattern of correlations with well-being that goal contents theory was later built on.
Key insight
What matters is not how much one aspires but which aspirations are relatively central. Overall importance is entered first, so that “variance due to having generally high importance or likelihood ratings is controlled before considering the relationship of the content of goals to well-being” (p. 283); only then do intrinsic and extrinsic contents part. Extrinsic goals “do not provide satisfaction in and of themselves; instead, their allure usually lies in the presumed admiration that attends them” (p. 280).
Assumptions
- Aspiration Index (Kasser and Ryan 1993, extended): 32 aspirations, each rated for importance and for likelihood on 5-point scales; 14 subscale means; α importance .59–.87 (Study 1), .72–.89 (Study 2) (pp. 282, 284).
- Overall scores are the average “across all domains for each dimension” (p. 282), so the intrinsic and extrinsic summaries enter after a score built from them.
- Guiding principles: a rank-ordering of the seven domains (after Braithwaite and Law), α .39–.85 (Study 1), .51–.84 (Study 2) (pp. 282, 284).
- Outcomes, all self-report: self-actualization, vitality, CES-D, HSCL anxiety, physical symptoms; in Study 2 also narcissism (NPI) and a 14-day twice-daily mood and symptom diary (n = 97) (pp. 282, 284).
Key results
Study 1: 100 adults, 18–79 years (M = 38), 76% women, 41% return rate (pp. 281–283)
- Two factors for both importance and likelihood (Table 2, p. 282): intrinsic loadings .60–.77, extrinsic .75–.87 on importance.
- Intrinsic and extrinsic importance r = .20; likelihood r = .41 (p. 282).
- Table 3 (p. 283), standardized β after overall importance: intrinsic with self-actualization .40***, vitality .46***, depression −.35**, physical symptoms −.35**; extrinsic with self-actualization −.52***, vitality −.60***, depression .29, anxiety .25, physical symptoms .46** (in the table’s notation ** p < .05, *** p < .01). Likelihood: intrinsic with self-actualization .59***, depression −.45**; extrinsic −.57***, depression .44**.
- Gender: males with high extrinsic importance had more physical symptoms, F(1, 92) = 5.81; females with low intrinsic likelihood more anxiety and depression. Income was unrelated (p. 283).
Study 2: 192 students, 107 women (pp. 283–285)
- Table 4 (p. 285), after overall importance: intrinsic with self-actualization .59***, vitality .31***, narcissism −.31***, physical symptoms −.35**; extrinsic with self-actualization −.67***, vitality −.34***, depression .30**, narcissism .35***, physical symptoms .43**, positive affect −.35*. Likelihood: extrinsic with self-actualization −.90***, vitality −.44***, depression .48***, positive affect −.70***.
- Social desirability (Marlowe–Crowne) correlated with intrinsic importance .19 and likelihood .27, not with extrinsic; entering it first left the pattern, “except that depression and physical symptom results became marginally significant for importance ratings” (p. 285).
- Women rated intrinsic aspirations higher, men extrinsic importance higher (Table 5, p. 286); no gender interactions.
What the paper does not test
- Reasons for pursuing goals. “it would be interesting to examine whether the well-being outcomes associated with intrinsic versus extrinsic goals differ when the reasons one pursues the goals are considered” (p. 286). No regulation measure is in either study.
Claims
| id | claim | strength | support |
|---|---|---|---|
| C1 | Intrinsic and extrinsic aspirations form two separate factors | moderate | varimax PCA, two samples, Table 2 |
| C2 | Relative centrality of extrinsic aspirations goes with lower self-actualization and vitality and more physical symptoms | moderate | two samples, hierarchical regressions, Tables 3, 4; self-report, cross-sectional |
| C3 | Relative centrality of intrinsic aspirations goes with higher well-being | moderate | the same regressions; see Limitations on whether C2 and C3 are separate tests |
| C4 | The pattern holds across age, gender and income | weak | Study 1 n = 100 with 24 men; a few gender interactions |
| C5 | The pattern is not social-desirability response | weak | Study 2 only; two effects dropped to marginal |
| C6 | Extrinsic aspirations harm well-being | weak | the paper says “no conclusions regarding causality can be made” (p. 286); three explanations offered, none tested |
Concepts
- Extrinsic aspirations — financial success, social recognition, appealing appearance: goals that “depend on the contingent reactions of others” and are “typically engaged in as means to some other end” (p. 280).
- Intrinsic aspirations — self-acceptance, affiliation, community feeling, physical fitness: “expressive of desires congruent with actualizing and growth tendencies” (p. 280).
- Relative centrality — an aspiration’s importance with the overall importance of all aspirations controlled (pp. 281–283).
- Importance vs likelihood — how much one values a goal vs how likely one thinks it is to happen (p. 282).
Connections
It extends Kasser and Ryan 1993 and cites Deci and Ryan 1985a (LIT-1955) for the control orientation as “a focus on obtaining rewards or praise from others” (p. 281). Ryan et al. 2022 (LIT-1967) cite it among goal contents theory’s sources; Bradshaw et al. 2022 there confirm that relative-centrality scoring, as here, is what produces the negative extrinsic association.
Bearing on the record
- NOTE-439’s C4, a correction to the registration. The registration filed this paper for NOTE-439’s C4, “Extrinsic aspirations predict lower well-being, beyond the reasons for pursuing them”. The paper supports the first half only. It has no measure of reasons and names the second half as a future question (p. 286). NOTE-439’s own support for C4 is Carver and Baird (pp. 244–245 of LIT-558), which this paper does not include.
- QUESTION-369. The paper ties extrinsic goals to well-being through need satisfaction in its theory, “likely to satisfy basic and inherent psychological needs” (p. 280), but measures no need. It is evidence that aspiration content correlates with well-being, not that needs are needs.
- THEORY-054. Its caveat is THEORY-054’s distinction in another form: goals such as religiosity “may not, on the basis of their surface content, be a priori accordant or discordant with integrative and actualizing processes … the relationship … likely depends on whether the reasons one pursues the goals are more autonomous or controlled” (p. 286).
- No instruction for machine-learning practice.
Limitations
- Self-report, cross-sectional, one culture (the authors’ own list, p. 286), with low α for some guiding-principle subscales (.39).
- The intrinsic and extrinsic Step-2 tests are close to one contrast estimated twice. The overall score is the average across the seven domains, four intrinsic and three extrinsic (p. 282). With it held fixed, the intrinsic and extrinsic summaries can vary only together and in opposite directions. Were the overall score exactly the domain-weighted mean of the two, the two Step-2 tests would be one test with opposite signs; the unequal significance in Table 3 (depression: intrinsic −.35 at p < .05, extrinsic .29 not significant) shows it is not exactly that, which the paper does not explain. So “differential correlates” of intrinsic and extrinsic goals are largely one finding about their balance, not two.
- A 41% response rate in Study 1; mostly white, Rochester.
- Mediating explanations are offered, not tested: insecurity, less self-actualizing activity, or lower attainment (pp. 285–286).
- Results by single aspiration domain are not reported (“for the sake of brevity”, note 3, p. 287).
Open questions
- Does the relative centrality of extrinsic aspirations predict well-being once the autonomy of the reasons for pursuing them is controlled? (Sheldon et al.’s later tests are not held by the record.)
- Does need satisfaction mediate the association, measured rather than assumed? Dittmar et al. 2014, as Ryan et al. 2022 report, say yes for materialism.