Testing the moderating effect of basic psychological need satisfaction on adolescents’ arts activity engagement and subjective wellbeing

Introduction Arts participation is widely assumed to benefit adolescent wellbeing, yet reported associations vary across samples and instruments. Drawing on self-determination theory, this study examined whether autonomy, competence and relatedness satisfaction moderate the association between arts activity engagement and subjective wellbeing. Need satisfaction was assessed at the general rather than activity-specific level. Methods A cross-sectional questionnaire was administered to 1,036 secondary students recruited through stratified cluster sampling from school-organized arts programs in eastern China, covering 12 schools and 38 intact classes. Measurement quality was assessed using confirmatory factor analysis and reliability and validity indices. Hierarchical regression with mean-centered predictors, bootstrap simple slopes and Johnson-Neyman analyses were conducted in R and jamovi. Models were re-estimated using class-level cluster-robust standard errors and random-intercept multilevel models. Results Engagement was positively associated with subjective wellbeing across model families. In separate models, competence satisfaction showed an interaction accounting for an additional 3.3% of variance, relatedness satisfaction for 1.3%, and autonomy satisfaction for 0.2%, with the autonomy interaction not statistically significant. In the simultaneous model, only the competence interaction remained significant. The difference between competence and relatedness interaction coefficients was not statistically reliable. Robustness analyses across gender, grade, administration mode, alternative outcomes and outlier exclusion supported the reported pattern. Discussion General competence satisfaction was the most consistently supported moderator of the engagement-wellbeing association in this sample. The ordering of the moderation estimates is descriptive, and the cross-sectional findings indicate conditional associations rather than causal effects. Instructional and relational conditions surrounding arts participation warrant direct experimental investigation.