Authors
Background
Research based on Self-Determination Theory (Ryan & Deci, 2017) has shown that satisfaction of the basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness is crucial for adolescents to thrive (Soenens & Vansteenkiste, 2023) and experience daily well-being (Thomaes et al., 2017). There are two main roads to experience need satisfaction, that is via support of the social context and via self initiated actions. Most previous studies have focused on the need supportive (or thwarting) role of adolescents’ social context. Individuals’ pro-active attempts to fulfill their psychological needs only recently gained more attention through the concept of need crafting (Laporte et al., 2021). Although evidence suggests that need crafting relates to better mental health among adolescents, the precise role of need crafting in adolescents’ daily functioning is not well understood. The objectives of the present diary study are to gain a better understanding of, first, the benefits of adolescents’ need crafting during the day and, second, the role sleep and morning vitality in setting need crafting intentions.
Method
The sample consisted of 168 adolescents, aged 16-18 years (Mage = 16.63; 76.1% female). Morning and evening measurements were completed for 7 consecutive days. As this study consisted of repeated measurements (i.e., within-level) nested within individuals (i.e., between-level), multilevel models were performed with Lavaan.
Results
Within-level analyses demonstrated that adolescents’ need crafting intentions in the morning were associated positively with vitality at the end of the day, an effect occurring through satisfaction of the basic psychological needs. Further, better self-reported sleep quality and quantity, predicted morning vitality, which in turn predicted more need crafting intentions in the morning
Conclusion
To improve adolescents’ ability to take control of their daily energy, findings indicate the importance of a psychological pathway (i.e., need crafting) and a physical pathway (i.e., sleep). Based on these findings, it may be important to complement need crafting interventions with interventions to improve sleep so that they can reinforce each other in improving adolescents’ mental health. Caregivers can also play a role in adolescents’ ability to generate energy throughout the day. First, they can encourage healthy sleep habits by setting rules for bedtime and by communicating about these bedtime rules in autonomy-supportive ways (Peltz et al., 2020). Second, caregivers could try to facilitate adolescents’ need crafting intentions, for example by having brief conversations in the morning (e.g., during breakfast) about the day ahead that may result in setting need crafting intentions.
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