Well-being as Need Fulfillment: Implications for Theory, Methods, and Practice

The most prominent concept championed by human resource professionals, point solution providers, and the mental health care industry is the construct of holistic well-being. Despite the tremendous attention focused on well-being, the concept lacks theoretical consensus among its proponents. Like the concept of engagement, this field cries out for clearly stated definitions that embed the concept within a theoretical framework, allowing theory development to avoid the prolific category errors of the past 50 years. This paper argues for a more sophisticated approach to the concept of well-being, grounding it in the vast psychological literature on human motivation. Herein lies the contribution of our paper; we argue that the apparent diversity of operational definitions employed by academics and practitioners can be understood as tentative attempts to draw ever nearer to key motivational concepts, without ever quite getting there. We review the leading definitions of well-being in the literature and find that they are reducible to a core set of human motives, each backed by full research traditions of their own, which populate a comprehensive model of twelve human motivations. We propose that there is substantial value in adopting a comprehensive motivational taxonomy over current approaches, which have the effect of snowballing ever more dimensions and elements. We consider the impact of setting well-being concepts in existing motivational constructs for each of the following: (a) theory, especially the development of well-being frameworks; (b) methods, including the value of applying a comprehensive, structural approach; and (c) practice, where we emphasize the practical advantages of clear operational definitions.