• Predicting Meaning in Life from Basic Psychological Need Satisfaction: A Tripartite Approach Using the 3DM Scale

Meaning in life is central to psychological well-being, which Self-Determination Theory proposes is grounded in satisfaction of the basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. While prior research has largely treated meaning in life as a global construct, this study used the Three-Dimensional Meaning in Life Scale (3DM) in a community sample of 832 adults in Singapore to examine component-level predictions between psychological need satisfaction and meaning in life as coherence, purpose, and significance. It was hypothesised that all three needs would positively correlate with all three meaning components, with autonomy, competence, and relatedness expected to emerge as the strongest unique predictors of coherence, purpose, and significance, respectively. Hypotheses were tested using correlations and age-controlled hierarchical regressions. Results indicated all three needs were significant unique predictors across meaning components. Competence emerged as the strongest predictor within each model, while relatedness was more prominent for significance than for coherence and purpose. These findings support psychological need satisfaction as an important foundation for meaning, suggesting that experiences of life as coherent, directed, and worthwhile may be shaped by processes implicated in broader well-being. Adopting the tripartite model revealed component-specific differentiation that may have been obscured by global meaning scores, particularly relatedness’s stronger role for significance. Future integrated models should account for shared variance among meaning components. Practical applications include tailoring meaning-centred interventions to specific components by targeting clients’ most relevant psychological needs.