Inconclusive evidence for necessity effects of basic psychological need satisfaction on employee well-being: Re-examining Ding et al. (2026)

Using Necessary Condition Analysis (NCA), Ding et al. concluded that employees must experience sufficient satisfaction of their basic psychological needs at work in order to attain high levels of well-being. However, necessity effects obtained with NCA can emerge even in the absence of genuine necessity relations because correlations between variables may create similar patterns. In the present study, we reanalyzed the findings reported by Ding et al. by comparing the observed necessity effects with benchmark values expected from correlation alone. Most of the reported effects (96.4%) were located within or below the estimated ranges of spuriousness, indicating that they were no larger than would be expected under conditions where no true necessity mechanism exists. Consequently, the results reported by Ding et al. provide little support for the conclusion that psychological need satisfaction constitutes a necessary condition for employee well-being. We argue that applications of NCA should routinely incorporate assessments of ranges of spuriousness and that necessity claims should be restricted to effects that clearly exceed these ranges.