Assessing Autonomy, Competence, and Relatedness Briefly Validating Single-Item Scales for Basic Psychological Need Satisfaction

Abstract

The satisfaction of the psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness have been established as central components of human well-being, predictive of various positive behavioral and psychological outcomes. However, in many contexts, they need to be assessed very briefly, sometimes with just one item. Recent research has shown that well-designed single-item scales of relatively unidimensional constructs can perform surprisingly well. Accordingly, this project aimed to create and validate single-item scales for the three needs. In Study 1 (n = 353, UK), we generated new items based on careful examination of the construct definitions and tested them alongside established multi-item need satisfaction scales. In Study 2 (n = 335, US), we replicated these results using a shorter time span (need satisfaction yesterday). Study 3 (n = 327, UK) compared the performance to a few other brief need satisfaction scales. In all studies, the new single items loaded excellently on respective longer scales and correlated with criterion variables at near identical levels as the longer scales. Given that the performance of the single-item scales was comparable to the established multi-item scales, they are recommended as valid and useful measures of need satisfaction for research context requiring very brief measures.