African Journal of Research in Personnel and Counselling Psychology (AJRPCP)

2009, 1 (1), 74-81

Psychological Needs Satisfaction and Adolescent

Students Self Esteem
Sesan O. Mabekoje
Olusola O. Okubanjo
Department of Educational Foundations and Counselling
Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye.

This study investigated the role of needs satisfaction in adolescents self-

esteem. Three hypotheses were raised to determine; (i) the relationship
between self-esteem and the various dimensions of psychological needs
satisfaction vis--vis autonomy, relatedness and competence (ii) the
prediction of self-esteem by the combined and relative effects of
psychological needs satisfaction; and (iii) difference in self-esteem by the
satisfaction of the need for autonomy, relatedness and competence.
Sample included 387 students randomly selected from eight secondary
schools in an education zone in Ogun State, Nigeria. Two validated
instruments were used for the collection of data. Results indicated that the
dimension of psychological needs satisfaction are related and also
predicted self-esteem. Significant differences also exist in adolescent
students self-esteem by the level of their autonomy, competence and
relatedness.

Key Words: Psychological Needs Satisfaction; Autonomy;

Competence; Relatedness; Adolescent; Students; Self-
esteem

The concept of self-esteem has become the topic of debate in educational and psychological
circles in recent years. The concept is taken to refer to the belief that a person is accepted,
connected unique, powerful and capable. In fact, it reflects a persons overall evaluation or
appraisal of his or her own worth. Synonyms of self-esteem include self-worth, self-regard and
self-respect (Huitt, 2004). The school plays a major role in building or lowering students' self
esteem. A learning environment that offers encouragement, praise and opportunities for
accomplishment will promote the development of positive self, while children who lack
opportunities to experience in-school success are likely to feel frustrated. Rubin (1999)
identifies low self esteem as the underlying factor and difficulty in working independently and
completing assignments. Smith while describing students' self-esteem, links it to learners
social environmental cues, teacher's attitudes and other variables.
According to Smith, improving the self-esteem of students involves teachers' considering
their own self-esteem because teachers with high self-esteem are more effective teachers. The
teacher who is committed to enhancing self esteem must develop a classroom environment
that promotes self-esteem in an atmosphere of positive social values. Family background has
also been studied alongside self-esteem of elementary and middle school children involving
independent variables of gender, grade level, race, socio economic status and family structure,
it was found that students living with both biological parents have greater self-esteem than
those living with other family structures (Garner, 1995).
______________________________________________________________________________________
Corresponding Author: Sesan O. Mabekoje, E-mail: sesan.mabekoje@yahoo.ca
 PSYCHOLOGICAL NEEDS SATISFACTION 75

Peasoner (1994) reports findings which show that low self esteem is closely associated
with various forms of crime and violence, thus explaining why many rehabilitation and
correction programmes do not curb violent and abusive behaviors. Since individuals need a
high self-esteem to cope effectively with the demands of life, the development of a child's self
esteem is perhaps the most important barometer of future success (McKay & Fanning, 2001).
The theory of psychological needs defines them within the framework of Self
Determination Theory (SDT) as those nutriments that must be procured by a living entity to
maintain its growth, integrity and health (Ryan & Dec, 2000). These needs are three namely:
autonomy, competence and relatedness. According to Ryan and Deci, consideration of basic
needs is important in providing explanatory utility for a large number of seemingly disparate
phenomenon across a wide range of human endeavors, development epochs, and domain of
activity.
Sheldon, Ryan and Reiss (1996) see psychological needs as particular qualities of
experience that all people require to thrive. It is important to note that when a need is fulfilled,
it promotes integration and well-being, and when thwarted, fosters fragmentation and ill-
being. Deci and Ryan have argued that in humans, at least, three types of nutriments are
functionally essential to ongoing personal growth, integrity and well-being, and when
thwarted, foster fragmentation and ill-being. The need for competence is fulfilled by the
experience that one can effectively bring about desired effects and outcomes. The need for
autonomy involves perceiving that one's activities are endorsed by or congruent with the self,
and the need for relatedness pertains to the feeling that one is close and connected to
significant others.
It has been postulated that fulfillment of all these basic needs is essential and necessary
for growth, integrity and well-being (Deci, Ryan, Gagne, Leone, Usonor & Kornazhava,
2000). The point is stressed that well-being suffers whenever circumstances are such that
people do not experience satisfaction of all three needs. According to SDT, the satisfaction of
these three needs is required for development and maintenance of intrinsic motivation,
facilitating the integration of extrinsic motivation, fostering intrinsic aspirations, and
becoming integrated with respect to the regulation of one's emotion.
However, with extrusive literature summarizing that emotional well-being is reliably
related to several personality traits (Myers, 1992; Myers & Diener, 1995) and White (1963)
auguring that the need to feel competent is a basic organism propensity that underlies self-
esteem and self-confidence; this study was stimulated to explaining the influence of the
satisfaction of psychological needs on school going adolescent's self-esteem.
In carrying out the study three hypotheses were formulated and tested
1. There is no significant relationship between adolescents' self-esteem and psychological
needs satisfaction.
2. There is no significant contribution of satisfaction for the need for autonomy, relatedness
and competence in the prediction of adolescents' self-esteem.
3. There is no significant difference in the self-esteem between adolescents' with low and
those with high satisfaction of psychological needs.

The Problem
Studies have severally indicated advantages of high self-esteem on various students' learning
outcomes. Yet, improvement in the achievement of students has not reached the desired level.
It is believed that improving the level of adolescents' self-esteem would greatly solve the
problem.
However, various factors have been found to accounts for or improve adolescents' self-
esteem. There is, however a need to explore the influence of the satisfaction of psychological
needs and adolescents' self-esteem. The present study therefore seeks to find the influence of
satisfaction of psychological needs on adolescents' self-esteem.
76 PSYCHOLOGICAL NEEDS SATISFACTION

METHOD
Design
This study adopted the descriptive survey research in which a set of questionnaire was used in
gathering data for the study. This design was embraced because the variables to be studied
already existed and there was no need for any manipulation.

Participants
Participants consisted of 387 students (male = 174, female = 213) randomly selected from
eight secondary schools in Ijebu North Local Government Area of Ogun State. Fifty students
were initially sampled by random selection from each of the eight schools making 400
students sampled for the study. The 387 completely filled, returned and useable questionnaires
were included in the analysis. The mean age was 16.19 years (standard deviation 1.57 years,
range 13.18 years) involved in the study.

Measures
Self-esteem
The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSE) was originally developed by Rosenberg (1965, 1979)
to measure adolescents global feelings of self-worth or self-acceptance, and is generally
considered the standard against which other measures of self-esteem are compared. It includes
10 items that are usually using a four-point response ranging from strongly disagree to
strongly agree. Sample items are I feel that I have a number of good characteristics and In
general, I am satisfied with myself Extensive and acceptable reliability (internal consistency
and test-retest) and validity (convergent and discriminate) information exists for the
Rosenberg Self Esteem Scale (Blascovich & Tomaka, 1991) A Cronbach alpha a = .86 was
reported by Assor, Roth & Deci (2004).

Psychological Needs Satisfaction

Psychological needs satisfaction was assessed with a 21-item questionnaire adapted from a
measure of needs satisfaction at work developed by Ilardi, Leone, Kasser and Ryan (1993)
which assesses the extent to which people generally experience satisfaction of their three
intrinsic needs autonomy, competence, and relatedness. There are 6 items for competence, 8
items for relatedness, and 7 items for autonomy, to which participants responded on 5-point
Likert-type scales ranging from 1 (not true at all) to 7 (definitely true). Examples of items are.
I generally feel free to express my ideas and opinions and In my daily life, I frequently
have to do what I am told (autonomy), I pretty much keep to myself and don't have a lot of
social contact and I consider the people I regularly interact with to be my friends
(relatedness), and I have been able to learn interesting new skills recently and Most days I
feel a sense of accomplishment from what I do (competence)

Procedure
The participants were met in their schools. The researchers duly briefed the participants that
the study was an academic exercise and the data would be used only for the purpose of the
research. The instruments were administered and collected from the students the same day.
Upon completing the measure, participants were debriefed and thanked for their participation.
The 387 completely filled and submitted questionnaires were analyzed using the Multiple
(Stepwise) Regression Analysis. Result were tested for significance at the .05 level
 PSYCHOLOGICAL NEEDS SATISFACTION 77

RESULTS

Hypothesis One. There are no significant relationship between adolescents self esteem and
psychological needs satisfaction

Table 1:
Descriptive Statistics and Correlation Matrix of the Relationship among the variables of the
Study
(N = 387)

Self-esteem Autonomy Competence Relatedness Psy. Needs

Satisfaction
Self-esteem .214(**) .203(**) .188(**) .307(**)
Autonomy .151(**) .028 .561(**)
Competence .227(**) .739(**)
Relatedness .649(**)
Psy. Needs Satisfaction
Mean 18.01 30.05 28.66 38.36 97.07
Std. Deviation 3.46 5.24 6.25 5.78 11.31
** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

The results in Table 1 revealed that there are significant relationships between adolescents'
self-esteem and need for autonomy (r(386) = .214; p< 05); need for competence (r(386) =
.203; p<;05); and need for relatedness (r(386) = .188; p<05);. The null hypothesis which states
that there are no significant relationships between psychological needs satisfaction and
adolescents' self-esteem was by this finding rejected. This indicates that adolescents' self
esteem is correlated with the satisfaction of their psychological needs.

Hypothesis Two: There is no significant contribution of satisfaction for the need for
autonomy, relatedness and competence in the prediction of adolescents' self-esteem.

Table 2:
Model Summary and Analysis of Variance of Multiple Regression Analysis of Dimensions of
Autonomy, Relatedness and Competence

R R2 R2 (adj.) R2 Beta
Step 1 .214 .046 .043 .046
Autonomy .141*
Relatedness .182
Competence .174

Step 2 .281 .079 .074 .033

Autonomy .138*
Relatedness .109*
Competence .140

Step 3 .312 .097 .090 .018

Autonomy .124*
Relatedness .091
Competence .007
78 PSYCHOLOGICAL NEEDS SATISFACTION

The results in Table 2 showed that there is a significant contribution of autonomy

relatedness and competence in the prediction of adolescents' self-esteem. When autonomy was
first entered into the regression model, a significant prediction of adolescents' self-esteem.
When the need for relatedness was introduced into the regression model, a significant
prediction was also revealed (R = .281; R2 = .079; R2 (adj) = .074; p<.05). This indicates that
the satisfaction of the psychological need for autonomy and relatedness together accounted for
7.9% of the variance in adolescents' self-esteem. Invariably, the satisfaction of the need for
relatedness was able to contribute additional 3.3% to the prediction of adolescents' self-
esteem.
Again, when satisfaction of the need for competence was entered into the regression
model, a significant combined contribution of the satisfaction of the three psychological needs
into the prediction of adolescents' self esteem was shown (R = 313; R2 = .097; R2 (adj) = .090;
p <.05) This in effect means it contributed 9.7% to the variance in adolescents' self-esteem.
This shows that the satisfaction of the need for competence was able to contribute additional
1.8% to the variance in adolescents' self-esteem.
The null hypothesis of no significant contribution of satisfaction of satisfaction of the
need for autonomy, relatedness and competence to the prediction of adolescent' self-esteem
was related by this finding. Relatively, the satisfaction of the need for autonomy happens to be
the most powerful predictor of adolescents' self-esteem than relatedness and competence in
that order.

Hypothesis Three: There is no significant difference in the self-esteem between

adolescents with low and those with high satisfaction of psychological needs.

Table 3:
Independent t-test Analysis of Self esteem of Adolescent students with high and low
psychological needs satisfaction

Low high Mean df t Sig.

No Mean Std. No Mean Std. diff. (2-
Dev. Dev. tailed)
Autonomy 179 17.14 3.12 208 18.75 3.56 1.61 385 4.71 .000
Competence 231 17.67 3.46 156 18.51 3.40 0.84 385 2.35 .000
Relatedness 202 17.25 3.24 185 18.84 3.50 1.59 385 4.64 .000

The results in Table 3 indicated that there are significant differences in the self-esteem
between adolescents with low and those with high satisfaction of the need for autonomy (tcal
= 4.17>tcri = 1.96; df = 385; p< .05); between those with low and high satisfaction of the
need for competence (tcal = 2.35> tcri = 1.96; df = 385; p<05); and between those with low
and those with high satisfaction of the need for competence (tcal 4.74>tcri = 1.96; df = 385;
p<.05).
The null hypothesis of no significant difference in the self-esteem between adolescents
with low and those with satisfaction of psychological needs was by the findings of this study
rejected. The results imply that adolescents' self esteem is relative to the satisfaction of their
psychological needs with those with great satisfaction of psychological needs having higher
self-esteem.

GENERAL DISCUSSION

The findings of this study are of significance to the understanding of adolescents' well
being. The results of the study indicate that self-esteem is correlated with the three basic
psychological needs of autonomy, competence and relatedness. This finding supports the work
 PSYCHOLOGICAL NEEDS SATISFACTION 79

of Deci, Schwartz, Seinman & Ryan (1981), Myers and Diener (1995) and Myers (1992)
that emotional well-being is reliably related to several personality traits including self-esteem.
Also the research works of Deci and Ryan (1991) and Ryan (1995) have shown how need
fulfillment is functionally related to intrinsic motivation (an important psychological growth
process) which invariably enhances personality, integration and the promotion of 'self'.
Specifically, Ryan and Deci (2000) report that the satisfaction of the basic psychological
needs secures high self-esteem for the individual. According to the SDT (1985), needs are by
definition, essential and universal and they are the nutrients without which peoples
psychological health will not flourish. Thus, these three needs are important whether or not
people report wanting them (Deci & Ryan, 2000) and students cannot afford to toy with the
satisfaction of these needs, otherwise their well-being will diminish.
The finding also indicates that a combination of the satisfaction of autonomy competence
and relatedness needs could enhance adolescents' self-esteem. The result even though minimal
but all the same significant, shows that satisfaction of the three basic psychological needs
accounted for 7.9% of the variance in adolescents self esteem. However, it was obvious that
the satisfaction of autonomy needs contributed most significantly to adolescents' self-esteem
out of the three basic needs; with autonomy accounting for 40% competence, 3.3% and
relatedness having 1.8% of the variance.
Generally, autonomy refers to self-governance. It concerns the extent to which people
authentically or genuinely concur with the forces that influence their behavior. That
satisfaction of autonomy needs is the most potent of all the basic psychological needs for
adolescent' self esteem further lends credence to Deci and Ryan (2000) report that the need for
autonomy is a unique and a controversial focus of SDT research. Whereas relatedness and
competence is relatively acceptable to many theorists, SDT researchers are essentially alone in
their empirical exploration of the concept of autonomy. In a study of Sheldon, Elliot, Kim and
Kasser (2001) on what's satisfying about satisfying wants? In other words, what experimental
contents and characteristics make people happiest, and this qualifies and psychological needs?
Autonomy as a basic psychological need that is purely self-direction and self-determination
concerns the ability of the individual to perceive the forces that influence their behavior as
being valuable, helpful and congruent sources of information that support their initiative.
Findings of the study also shows that adolescents' self-esteem is relative to the satisfaction
of their psychological needs with students having great satisfaction of psychological needs
having higher self esteem. This findings support the works of Deci and Ryan (1980, 1985,
1995, 2000) that individual who have basic psychological needs satisfied would develop and
function in healthy or optimal ways. More specifically, Reis, Sheldon, Cable and Ryan (2000)
research findings show that people who are higher in the traits of autonomy and competence
report greater well-being including self-esteem. Thus, the higher the satisfaction of the
psychological needs of the individuals, the easier it becomes for that individual to experience
growths, integrity and health. It has also been reported that students who have their
psychological needs satisfied are successful at promoting their intrinsic motivation (Kasser &
Ryan, 1996; Sheldon & Kasser, 1995; Ryan, 1995).

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

This study concluded that the satisfaction of psychological needs would significantly, though
with small affect size, influence adolescent students' self-esteem. The satisfaction of autonomy
is most important in adolescents' self-esteem. The level of autonomy, relatedness and
competence also affected the self-esteem of adolescents.
It is therefore recommended that further investigation be made into other factors that
could influence adolescents' self-esteem.
Deliberate efforts should be made by parents and school administration to provide
opportunities that would engender the satisfaction of autonomy, relatedness and competence.
80 PSYCHOLOGICAL NEEDS SATISFACTION

Home and school environments should be structured in such a way tha the psychological
needs would be met.

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