Source
Ryan et al. (2022), LIT-1967, Psychological Bulletin 148, 813–842, read in NOTE-1500 from the authors’ accepted manuscript (OSF preprint gk5cy). The manuscript has no page numbers; sections are named.
What was actually shown
The map. 60 meta-analyses, 58 published, found from the authors’ databases, the SDT website and five databases searched in 2021, sorted into Table 1 (mini-theories) and Table 2 (applied domains). Relationships motivation theory “has no entry in its column within Table 1” (Method).
Where the support is. “Whereas CET, OIT, and BPNT mini-theories have received strong meta-analytic support, support is much thinner where COT and GCT are concerned. In each case, only one primary meta-analysis exists” (Summary and Conclusions). The COT section itself reviews two (Hagger and Hamilton 2021; Murphy and Steel 2021), the GCT section two (Bradshaw et al. 2022; Dittmar et al. 2014): “one or two” in the title follows the sections.
What kind of support. “their typical (though not invariant) reliance on cross-sectional datasets”; causal evidence comes from the experimental (Deci et al. 1999) and intervention meta-analyses (Gillison et al. 2019; Su and Reeve 2011; Sheeran et al. 2020, r = .11 on behaviour). “a high degree of heterogeneity in many study findings … accounts of heterogeneity have been far from comprehensive” (Heterogeneity in Effect Sizes).
The named gaps.
- Need frustration: “The proposition that frustration of these needs is associated with ill-being has yet to be meta-analytically investigated” (BPNT Summary).
- Integration: Howard et al. 2017 “did not support the differentiation of integrated regulation from identified regulation”, partly for “too few studies measuring integration”; Van den Broeck et al. 2021 found it “rarely measured … and where it was measured it did not show differentiation” (OIT; Work and Organizations).
- Goal contents: mediation by need satisfaction “has yet to be meta-analytically established for intrinsic aspirations” (GCT Summary).
- CET’s mediation proposition, that felt autonomy and competence “mediate the relations between external events and their … effects”, is stated, and no meta-analysis of the mediation is reported (CET).
The map could have come out otherwise: the theory’s own founder could have reported meta-analyses of RMT or need frustration, or of integration, and did not find them.
What this does not say
- That the supported findings are true. The review re-pools nothing and grades no meta-analysis for bias; its “meta-analytically true” is the included meta-analyses’ conclusions. It is not preregistered.
- That the map is complete. English only; seeded from the authors’ own databases; to July 2021. Later meta-analyses (for example of need frustration) are outside it.
- That it is independent. The lead author co-founded the theory and several included meta-analyses are the authors’ own.
- Anything about the primary studies. Howard et al. 2017 (LIT-1996) is reported here second-hand.
Connections
- THEORY-054. The integration gap is its first promote_when clause, unmet in the meta-analytic literature to 2021.
- THEORY-052. The need-frustration gap is the evidence its promote_when asks for, and none exists at the meta-analytic level.
- THEORY-049. CET’s mediation proposition is stated, not meta-analytically tested, as its promote_when says.
- QUESTION-369. The BPNT evidence the review lists is need satisfaction correlated with well-being, the kind the question says cannot settle what a need is.