Psychological Need Satisfaction, Personal Well-Being, and Ecological Sustainability

This article presents a need-based theory to explore the potential compatibility of ecological sustainability and personal well-being. Relevant theoretical and empirical evidence is reviewed to demonstrate how ecological degradation can interfere with the satisfaction of needs for safety/security, competence, relatedness, and autonomy, thus causing lower well-being, and how ecologically sustainable environments and behavior can promote satisfaction of these four needs and thus higher well-being. Three avenues for interventions and policy change are then described, each of which has empirical evidence suggesting it holds promise for simultaneously promoting higher personal well-being and greater ecological sustainability. These include shifting individuals’ values from extrinsic, materialistic aims to intrinsic aims, helping individuals live voluntarily simple lifestyles, and supporting people’s desires for “time affluence.”