Psychological need satisfaction and thwarting: A test of Basic Psychological Needs Theory in physical activity contexts

• We examined change scores over 6 months.
• Psychological need thwarting predicts negative affect above psychological need satisfaction.
• Psychological need thwarting cannot be equated with lack of need satisfaction.
• Support for score validity and reliability of the modified PNTS was found.

ObjectivesTo test Basic Psychological Needs Theory (BPNT; Deci & Ryan, 2002) to determine if psychological need thwarting experienced when physically active contributes to the understanding of well-being and ill-being.Design/methodParticipants (N = 155, 67.70% female, Mage = 37.46 years; SDage = 19.89 years) completed assessments of psychological need satisfaction and thwarting, subjective vitality and positive/negative affect during separate testing sessions separated by 6 months.ResultsScores from the modified version of the Psychological Need Thwarting Scale (PNTS-PA; Bartholomew, Ntoumanis, Ryan, & Thøgersen-Ntoumani, 2011) demonstrated discriminant evidence of validity, evidence of internal structure and minimal error variance. Changes in psychological need satisfaction positively predicted positive affect (R2 = .16, p < .05), subjective vitality (R2 = .13, p < .05) and negatively predicted negative affect (R2 = .12, p < .05). Additional regression analyses revealed that changes in psychological need thwarting predicted negative affect (ΔR2 = .11, p < .05), but not positive affect (ΔR2 = .01, p > .05) or subjective vitality (ΔR2 = .04, p > .05) beyond contributions made by psychological need satisfaction.ConclusionsOverall, these results extend the potential utility of the PNTS-PA as an instrument for use with BPNT beyond sport and support Deci and Ryan's (2002) contentions regarding the critical role of psychological need thwarting.