Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.5559/di.20.3.05
ASPIRATIONS AND WELL-BEING: EXTRINSIC VS. INTRINSIC LIFE GOALS
Majda RIJAVEC
orcid.org/0000-0001-6361-9968
; Faculty of Teacher Education, Zagreb
Ingrid BRDAR
; Faculty of Arts and Science, Rijeka
Dubravka MILJKOVIĆ
; Faculty of Teacher Education, Zagreb
Abstract
The present study explored whether participants can be classified
into groups according to their intrinsic and extrinsic life goals
and how these groups differ in satisfaction of basic
psychological needs and well-being. Four questionnaires were
administered to 835 college students: Aspiration Index (Kasser
and Ryan, 1996), The Basic Psychological Needs Scale (Gagnè,
2003), Subjective Vitality Scale (Ryan and Frederick, 1997) and
The Satisfaction with Life Scale (Diener at al., 1985). K-Means
cluster analysis was used to classify individuals on the basis of
their life aspirations: importance, present attainment and
likelihood of future attainment. The same four-cluster solution
was obtained for all three measures. The first cluster included
individuals high on extrinsic and low on intrinsic life goals. The
second contained students high on intrinsic and low on extrinsic
aspirations. The third group included students with high scores
on both intrinsic and extrinsic goals, and the fourth those with
low scores on both kinds of goals. The group with high scores
on both intrinsic and extrinsic goals had the highest scores on
measures of well-being, followed by the group with high intrinsic
and low extrinsic aspirations. These two groups had also higher
values for all basic psychological needs compared to groups
with low scores on intrinsic values. These findings suggest that
both intrinsic and extrinsic goals can contribute to well-being.
Keywords
life goals; intrinsic goals; extrinsic goals; psychological needs; well-being
Hrčak ID:
72445
URI
Publication date:
10.10.2011.
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