Joint Action and Well-being: The Mediating Role of Psychological Needs

Abstract

Climate change mitigation is one of the most complex challenges humans have ever encountered. To successfully counteract the effects of this crisis, individuals must have a sense of agency. To induce a sense of agency and possibly enhance well-being, the role of collective engagement through joint action is explored, aiming to add new insights to the field. For this purpose, an experiment with two conditions was executed to explore differences in self- and collective agency, prosocial intentions and -behavior, and well-being through satisfaction of psychological needs as proposed in Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000) between people completing an individual or collective task. The results found effects of condition for collective agency and prosocial behavior and that relatedness fully mediates the effect of joint action on well-being. These results strengthen the argument for a more prominent role of collective action in climate change mitigation policy, as joint action increases collective agency, prosocial behavior and well-being through relatedness. However, future research should explore whether similar effects emerge in other collaborative activities and investigate how task design and social dynamics shape psychological impact of joint action.