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Olivér Lubics1,2, Tímea Magyaródi2, and Henriett Nagy2
1Doctoral School of Psychology, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary, 2Institute of Psychology, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary
What does a volunteer need to experience their work as meaningful, feel satisfied, and stay engaged without burning out or leaving the organization? Many volunteer coordinators have probably asked themselves similar questions when facing the challenge of maintaining long-term volunteer engagement. There are many ways to approach this issue, but as a psychologist, I have always been especially interested in the underlying motivational factors: What are the fundamental needs of volunteers that, when satisfied, help them thrive and remain engaged, but when frustrated, contribute to distress and withdrawal?
Fortunately, when considering basic psychological needs, we do not have to begin from scratch. Self-Determination Theory (SDT) provides a well-established framework supported by decades of research. According to SDT, all individuals, regardless of culture, age, or gender, possess three fundamental psychological needs: autonomy (the experience of choice and self-governance), competence (feeling capable and effective), and relatedness (experiencing meaningful, reciprocal connections with others). When these needs are satisfied, they function as psychological nutrients that promote optimal functioning and well-being; conversely, when these needs are frustrated, they actively drive ill-being and distress. This frustration manifests when individuals feel pressured and controlled (autonomy frustration), plagued by failure and self-doubt (competence frustration), or rejected and excluded (relatedness frustration).
But do humans really have only these three psychological needs?
Not necessarily. A few years ago, Finnish philosopher Frank Martela proposed that beneficence (the feeling that we have a positive impact on others) may represent another important psychological need. This idea immediately resonated with me; I realized that this concept would be particularly valuable to test among volunteers, given that the desire to help others is, after all, one of their primary motivations.
This led to our central research questions: Does the satisfaction of autonomy, competence, and relatedness during volunteer work predict well-being, and conversely, does the frustration of these same needs uniquely drive ill-being? And furthermore, could beneficence represent a distinct fourth psychological need, operating through these exact same mechanisms within volunteering contexts?
How did we investigate this, and what did we find?
To address these questions, our study published in Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly examined a sample of 650 formal volunteers across 33 Hungarian nonprofit organizations. We aimed to capture both the positive and negative sides of the volunteer experience. We assessed the meaningfulness of volunteer work, volunteer satisfaction, and general well-being (including emotional, social, and psychological well-being). At the same time, we examined ill-being through burnout and intentions to leave the organization.
Overall, our findings showed that the “3+1” psychological needs significantly contributed to predicting volunteer experiences.
Regarding well-being, each of the four needs was related to multiple positive outcomes. The exact patterns differed depending on whether we looked at meaningfulness, volunteer satisfaction, or general well-being, but all four needs played a meaningful role.
One particularly important finding was that beneficence satisfaction predicted every volunteer well-being indicator even beyond autonomy, competence, and relatedness. In other words, the feeling that “my volunteering makes a positive difference” appears to provide something unique. Volunteers who experienced their work as having a positive impact tended to report greater meaningfulness, satisfaction, and well-being.
When we turned to the negative experiences, a somewhat different picture emerged. Burnout and intentions to leave were mainly predicted by autonomy frustration and relatedness frustration. Volunteers were more likely to struggle when they felt they lacked freedom in their work or when they experienced difficulties forming positive relationships within their volunteer environment.
We did not find that beneficence frustration uniquely predicted ill-being after accounting for the other needs. However, this result should be interpreted carefully: Volunteers rarely reported feeling that their actions were actually harming others, so there may simply have been little variation in this experience.
We also examined whether volunteers could be grouped according to their patterns of need satisfaction and frustration. Four different profiles emerged. The volunteers who were doing best (who reported the highest well-being and the lowest burnout and intention to leave) were those with the highest levels of need satisfaction and the lowest levels of frustration. In contrast, volunteers characterized by lower satisfaction and higher frustration showed the poorest outcomes.
What can volunteer coordinators take away from these findings?
If organizations want to support volunteer well-being, they need to consider all four psychological needs. Beneficence satisfaction can be supported by making volunteers’ positive impact visible: For example, through regular feedback about how their work helps others. Autonomy can be fostered by offering meaningful choices in tasks and scheduling, while competence can be strengthened through clear expectations, training, and opportunities to develop skills. Finally, relatedness can be promoted by creating supportive teams and a sense of belonging.
At the same time, preventing burnout requires a different focus: reducing need frustration. Specifically, organizations should aim to minimize environments where volunteers feel controlled or excluded, as our findings indicate that autonomy frustration and relatedness frustration are the primary drivers of volunteer distress.
Our findings also highlight that need satisfaction and frustration are not simply opposites. A volunteer organization can simultaneously contain elements that support needs (such as a meaningful mission) and elements that frustrate them (such as poor leadership). Effective volunteer management therefore requires a dual approach: strengthening what helps volunteers thrive while also identifying and removing the factors that undermine their experience.
And what about that bonus question: Does our study prove that beneficence is officially a fourth basic psychological need? The short answer is no, but we did not rule it out either. To formally make that claim, we would, at the very least, need to find a clear, direct pathway between beneficence frustration and ill-being. Interestingly, while we did find that exact connection in our other study using a general sample, it did not emerge here among the volunteers. But whether beneficence is officially labeled a “need” or not, its importance in the real world is undeniable; and our ultimate hope is that society will come to fully recognize and value the vital prosocial work that volunteers carry out every single day.
Click here to read the free full-text article: Lubics, O., Magyaródi, T., & Nagy, H. (2026). Basic Psychological Needs and Beneficence in the Volunteer Experience: Exploring Satisfaction, Frustration, and Their Links to Well-Being and Ill-Being. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 0(0).
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