ABSTRACT
The workplace is a source of many variables that influence psychological well-being. These variables, for example, include the nature of one’s work tasks and work roles, the manner in which one is treated by other people at work, and pay level. In the current chapter I review the hypothesized causes of the most popular conceptualization of employee well-being: global job satisfaction. I invoke the three psychological needs identified by self-determination theory (SDT; Deci & Ryan, 2000; Ryan & Deci, 2000)—the needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness—as a framework for interpreting previous research findings. I conclude the chapter by discussing how this framework could be used to guide future studies of the causes of job satisfaction and I discuss methodological challenges to testing the proposed needs-based model.
