Compensating need satisfaction across life boundaries: A daily study

Abstract

Self-determination theory suggests that satisfaction of an individual’s basic psychological needs (for competence, autonomy, and relatedness) is key for wellbeing. This has gained empirical support in multiple life domains, but little is known about the way that need satisfaction interacts between work and home. Drawing from ideas of work-home compensation, we expect that the benefits of need satisfaction in the home domain are reduced when needs are satisfied in the work domain. We tested this hypothesis with a daily diary study involving 91 workers. Results showed that individuals particularly benefit from satisfaction of their need for competence in the home domain when it is not satisfied during the working day. No such interactions were found between the needs for autonomy or relatedness. Our study highlights that the interaction of need satisfaction across domains represents a boundary condition for the beneficial effects of need satisfaction