Source
Kermavnar, Avsec, Huang and Desmet (2024), LIT-1988, Frontiers in Psychology 15; read in NOTE-1509.
What was actually shown
The search (§2): Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed and ProQuest, 21 August 2023, two reviewers, PRISMA; 121 eligible studies, 32 primary describing 31 original scales, 89 adapting 20 of them. 23 scales rest on self-determination theory, 8 on other typologies.
The states measured (§3.2.2): satisfaction 21, satisfaction and frustration 4 (BPNSFS, GNSF, NSFS, PNSS-S), support 3, frustration 1 (PNFS-PA, 2020), thwarting 1 (PNTS, Bartholomew et al. 2011, LIT-1954), support and thwarting 1 (IBQ). Every one is a self-report questionnaire (the review’s scope), of experience or of the perceived social environment.
The faults it documents (§§4.2.2–4.3.3): the terms used interchangeably (two named studies); double-barrelled items joining frustration to thwarting; items meant for satisfaction that ask about thwarting; the BPNSFS’s frustration scales built from “the 12 negatively coded items” of a satisfaction measure; reverse-scored items read as “absence of satisfaction” by one team and as “need frustration” by another.
The needs (Table 4): autonomy in 27 scales, relatedness 24, competence 23, more than 30 others in one to three each.
What this does not say
- What makes a need basic. The review records “a current lack of consensus” and applies no criterion.
- Which model is right. “We neither endorse nor critique” the two-dimensional model (§5).
- That the scales are invalid. It reports what the developers did, not tests of its own. Its one validity verdict, on the BPNSFS, is Murphy et al.’s (THEORY-1311), stated more firmly than they state it.
- How often the terms are confused. The interchangeable use is shown by example, not counted.