The self-concordance model of university students: Life goals, basic need satisfaction, and subjective well-being

This study examined effects of Turkish university students? life goals and goal-self concordance on their need satisfaction and subjective well-being (SWB). Participants of the study were composed of 1474 students from 14 state universities in Turkey. These students were 777 males and 697 females who ranged in age from 18 to 28 with a mean of 21.6 (SD=2.1). In order to gather data Life Goals Scale, Negative-Positive Affect Schedule (PANAS), Satisfaction with Life Scale, Basic Psychological Need Satisfaction Scale (in general), and Goal Motivation Scale were used. The data were analysed by using SPSS and LISREL. Pearson Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient, t-test, one way ANOVA, and path analysis were performed to test the hypotheses mentioned in the current study. Results demontsrated that female students gave more importance to instrinsic life goals and attractiveness (subscale of extrinsic life goals) compaired to males. In addition, students? perceptions of instrinsic goals varied based on the variable of faculty types, but no significant diffirences were found in views of extrinsic goals. Instrinsic and extrinsic goals were not significantly different among grades. Instrinsic goals were more significantly associated with need satisfaction and SWB than extrinsic goals. In other words, having instrinsic goals is more effective on need satisfaction and SWB than having extrinsic goals. Moreover, the results showed that students gave more importance to their personal reasons than their relational reasons in pursuing their goals. As a result, personal goal motivation was more significant predictor of need satisfaction and SWB than relational goal motivation. Suprisingly, results indicated that goal-self concordance of university students is more likely to be similar with the charecteristics of individualistic culture rather than collectivist culture. Results were discussed in relation to relevant literature and some suggestions were presented for the future research.