Citation: Mosca, O.; Milani, A.; Fornara, F.; Manunza, A.; Krys, K.; Maricchiolo, F. Basic Psychological Needs, Good Societal Development and Satisfaction with Life: The Mediating Role of the Environment. Sustainability 2023, 15, 13794. https://doi.org/10.3390/ su151813794 Academic Editor: Gianpiero Greco Received: 19 August 2023 Revised: 12 September 2023 Accepted: 13 September 2023 Published: 15 September 2023 Copyright: © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). sustainability Article Basic Psychological Needs, Good Societal Development and Satisfaction with Life: The Mediating Role of the Environment Oriana Mosca 1, * ,† , Alessandro Milani 2,† , Ferdinando Fornara 1 , Andrea Manunza 1 , Kuba Krys 3 and Fridanna Maricchiolo 4 1 Department of Education, Psychology, Philosophy, University of Cagliari, 09126 Cagliari, Italy; ffornara@unica.it (F.F.); andrea.manunza@unica.it (A.M.) 2 Department of Psychology of Developmental and Socialization Processes, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy; a.milani@uniroma1.it 3 Institute of Psychology, Polish Academy of Sciences, 01-447 Warsaw, Poland; kuba@krys.pl 4 Department of Education Science, University of Roma Tre, 00185 Rome, Italy; fridanna.maricchiolo@uniroma3.it * Correspondence: oriana.mosca@unica.it † These authors contributed equally to this work. Abstract: Seminal work on laypeople’s perspectives on societal development is the foundation of our renovated interest in good development and its relationship with well-being. The present study aims to analyze the relationship between individual basic psychological needs satisfaction, people’s visions of good societal development in the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals, and well-being in terms of Satisfaction with Life. To reach this aim, we administered an online survey to a general sample (N = 206, F = 69.4% M = 28.6%, mean age of 33.39 years, and sd = 12.33) with different measures: (a) 3 Basic Psychological Needs (i.e., Autonomy, Relatedness, and Competence) Satisfaction Scale; (b) an ad hoc built Attitude towards the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Scale; (c) Satisfaction with Life Scale. We conducted an Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) on the scale about attitudes toward the SDGs, correlation analyses between the investigated variables, and a series of mediation analyses with the three basic psychological needs satisfaction as IVs, the factors emerging from the EFA as mediators (i.e., Environment, Equity, Health) and Satisfaction with Life as the DV. The results showed that only the Environment component of the SDGs Scale mediated the relation between Basic Psychological Needs and Satisfaction with Life. The implications of these findings are discussed in light of different theoretical frameworks, like the Basic Psychological Needs Theory (BPNT), the Person-Culture fit theory, and the Affordances Theory. Keywords: attitude toward Sustainable Development Goals; satisfaction with life; basic psychological needs; good societal development 1. Introduction Despite the growing interest in social development as well as sustainability and the expanding amount of research on these topics, there is no agreement on which specific social development paths should be pursued [1] to also achieve social well-being. Eco- nomic prosperity—which appeared to be the dominant answer in the second half of the twentieth century [2–4]—has emerged as not fully explaining the process by which such development paths should be pursued [5–7]. In the 1960s, indeed, as many affluent Western societies acknowledged the limits of economic growth and post-materialistic values gained prominence, the concept of the good life evolved. This shift prompted the introduction of terms like “quality of life” and “well-being”. In contrast, older terms like “happiness” were revitalized, conveying the idea that a fulfilling life extended beyond material welfare [8]. Consequently, life satisfaction emerged as a central focus in this new avenue of research. It is thus critical to identify new social development paradigms [2,7,9], even though the Sustainability 2023, 15, 13794. https://doi.org/10.3390/su151813794 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability