1
Supplemental Materials
Table 1. Proportion of participants (N=1,139) from each American state
State
n
% of sample
1. Alabama
12
1.05
2. Alaska
2
0.18
3. Arizona
16
1.40
4. Arkansas
7
0.62
5. California
115
10.10
6. Colorado
24
2.11
7. Connecticut
13
1.14
8. Delaware
5
0.44
9. Florida
89
7.81
10. Georgia
31
2.72
11. Hawaii
6
0.53
12. Idaho
8
0.70
13. Illinois
53
4.65
14. Indiana
20
1.76
15. Iowa
7
0.61
16. Kansas
7
0.61
17. Kentucky
16
1.40
18. Louisiana
8
0.70
19. Maine
8
0.70
20. Maryland
22
1.93
21. Massachusetts
29
2.55
22. Michigan
40
3.51
23. Minnesota
28
2.46
24. Mississippi
3
0.26
25. Missouri
24
2.11
26. Montana
4
0.35
27. Nebraska
7
0.61
28. Nevada
9
0.79
29. New Hampshire
10
0.88
30. New Jersey
30
2.63
31. New Mexico
6
0.53
32. New York
61
5.36
33. North Carolina
47
4.13
34. North Dakota
4
0.35
35. Ohio
55
4.83
36. Oklahoma
5
0.44
37. Oregon
23
2.02
38. Pennsylvania
54
4.74
39. Rhode Island
5
0.44
40. South Carolina
13
1.14
41. South Dakota
0
0.00
42. Tennessee
26
2.28
43. Texas
58
5.09
44. Utah
15
1.32
45. Vermont
5
0.44
46. Virginia
43
3.78
47. Washington
42
3.69
48. West Virginia
5
0.44
49. Wisconsin
18
1.58
50. Wyoming
1
0.09
2
Table 2. Convergent and discriminant validity correlations for need fulfillment measures (below
the diagonal) and respective 95% confidence intervals (above the diagonal)
BPNS
BMPN
Aut.
Com.
Rel.
Aut.
Com.
Rel.
Aut.
(.61, .68)
(.59, .66) (.80, .84)
(.55, .62)
(.63, .70)
Com.
.64
(.61, .68) (.61, .68)
(.74, .79)
(.61, .68)
BPNS
Rel.
.63
.65
(.51, .59)
(.54, .61)
(.70, .76)
Aut.
.65
.55
(.59, .66)
(.62, .68)
.82
Com.
.59
.58
.63
(.60, .67)
BMPN
.76
Rel.
.66
.65
.65
.64
.73
Note: N = 1139; Mono-trait, hetero-method correlations and respective 95% confidence intervals
are boldfaced; BPNS = Basic Psychological Needs Scale; BMPN = Balanced Measure of
Psychological Needs; Aut. = Autonomy; Com. = Competence; Rel. = Relatedness. All
correlations are significant at p < .0001.
3
Measurement Models for Need Fulfillment and Health Complaints
Modeling need fulfillment. In the current study, the BPNS and BMPN were utilized to
assess participants’ global levels of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. In keeping with
previous research using this global assessment strategy, the three need scales were highly
correlated and we accordingly utilized the three composite variables as indictors of a single latent
variable called need fulfillment in a confirmatory factor analysis. Substantively, this represents
the very plausible assumption that, at a global level of assessment, the social contextual
affordances that allow individuals to satisfy each of the three needs are highly interrelated (see
Deci & Ryan, 2000). To increase the degrees of freedom and parsimony of this measurement
model, we constrained the factor loadings of the need fulfillment indicators to be equivalent. It is
important to note, however, that while such equality constraints force the factor loadings of the
unstandardized estimates to be equal, the standardized estimates (reported below) also depend on
the variance of the indicators and may differ from one another. This measurement model
evidenced excellent fit on all indices with CFI = 1.00, RMSEA = 0, SRMR = .002, 𝝌2 (2) =
.0407, p = .9799. The confidence interval for the RMSEA was not applicable in this case because
the model 𝝌2 was greater than the model’s degrees of freedom (Kline, 2011). Each observed
variable served as an effective indicator of need fulfillment, which accounted for 70%, 72%, and
72% of the variance, respectively, in participants’ composite scores for autonomy, competence,
and relatedness.
Modeling health complaints. We similarly conducted a confirmatory factor analysis to
determine whether the four self-report measures of health complaints were satisfactorily related
to the intended latent variable. This measurement model also evidenced excellent fit on all
indices with CFI = 1.00, RMSEA = .0333 (0 - .0759), SRMR = .0115, 𝝌2 (2) = 4.4499, p =
4
.1081. Notwithstanding the single-item measure of subjective illness that only contained
approximately 22% of valid variance, each observed variable served as an effective indicator of
health complaints, which accounted for 54%, 63%, and 37% of the variance, respectively, in
participants’ scores on the PILL, SMUHQ, and Sick Days.
The combined measurement model. We next tested a correlated two-factor model that
simultaneously examined whether the need fulfillment and health complaints indicators were
reflective of the intended latent variables. The factor loadings of the need fulfillment indicators
were constrained to be equivalent. This measurement model evidenced poor fit with CFI = .9550,
RMSEA = .0910 (.0782 - .1044), SRMR = .0721, 𝝌2 (15) = 152.31, p < .0001. Due to the less
than satisfactory model fit, we examined the matrix of correlation residuals for secondary
loadings and respecified the model so that need fulfillment also loaded on both the single-item
subjective illness scale and on the PILL. This respecified model exhibited excellent fit with CFI
= .9927, RMSEA = .0396 (.0240 - .0552), SRMR = .0219, 𝝌2 (13) = 35.221, p < .001 and BIC
values favored the modified model (BIC = 140.36) over the preceding model without crossloadings (BIC = 243.43). As illustrated below in Figure 1 of the Supplemental Materials, the
absolute values of the secondary loadings in the modified model were in the small (-.16) to
moderate (-.33) range, suggesting that the secondary loadings had a negligible effect on the
meaning of the latent factors and theoretically important parameter estimates. We accordingly
utilized this modified measurement model in all subsequent analyses.
5
6
Ancillary Analyses
The SMUHQ contains items for common health symptoms and minor illnesses as well as
items for more serious and chronic health problems. In this supplementary section, we
accordingly consider a more nuanced set of analyses using participants’ responses on this
instrument.
In a first set of ancillary analyses, we followed Watson and Pennebaker (1989) and
conducted a principal components analysis of the SMUHQ items with data from the 614
participants that completed all of the items on this scale (see Method section). The results of this
procedure revealed a broad first component that accounted for 18.15% of the common variance.
We constructed a Symptoms checklist using the appropriate items with the strongest loadings on
this first principal component and excluded those items pertaining to any specific illnesses (cf.
Watson & Pennebaker, 1989). The SMUHQ items included in this Symptoms checklist were:
abdominal or stomach pain, constipation, diarrhea, headache (not migraine), indigestion,
migraine headache, sore throat, vomiting, and water retention (bloating). Correlational analyses
indicated that participants’ scores on this newly formed SMUHQ-Symptoms checklist (M = 2.44,
SD = 2.20, α = .74) were redundant with the scores obtained on the full SMUHQ measure, r =
.86. Nevertheless, we replaced the SMUHQ with this newly formed SMUHQ-Symptoms
checklist as an indicator of health complaints in a revised set of structural analyses examining the
fit of Model 1 (i.e., Model 1’) and Model 2 (i.e., Model 2’). The results of these analyses are
detailed in the Supplemental Materials (Tables 3, 4, and 5). The overall fit of these revised
models was acceptable and the respective path estimates did not substantively differ from those
previously obtained in the results of the main analyses.
7
In a second set of ancillary analyses, we used the SMUHQ to identify and omit data from
those participants suffering from more serious and chronic health problems that were uncommon
(i.e., less than 2.5%) within our sample. We additionally identified and omitted data from those
participants with the highest scores on the BIDR-IM and BIDR-SDE subscales (i.e., scores 2.5
SDs or greater above the mean). Table 6 in the Supplemental Materials details the number of
participants omitted for each major health problem and for each type of social desirability
response bias. Taking into account the participant overlap among these exclusion criteria, a total
of 197 participants were omitted in a subsequent set of analyses in which we once again reestimated Model 1(i.e., Model 1”) and Model 2 (i.e., Model 2”). The results of these analyses are
detailed in the Supplemental Materials (Tables 3, 7, and 8). Once again, the overall fit of these
revised models was acceptable and the respective path estimates did not substantively differ from
those previously obtained in the results of the main analyses. This suggests that the observed
effects are driven neither by the outlying cases of participants suffering from serious health
problems nor by outlying cases of social desirability response biases.
8
Table 3. Fit indices for ancillary structural equation models
CFI RMSEA 90% CI RMSEA SRMR
χ2(df)
BIC
2
.96
.0635
(.0541, .0732)
.0378 𝝌 (30) = 163.65, p < .0001 338.89
Model 1’
.93
.0659
(.0593, .0726)
.0416 𝝌2 (61) = 353.90, p < .0001 662.32
Model 2’
.0528
(.0421, .0639)
.0338 𝝌2 (30) = 106.06, p < .0001 276.40
Model 1’’ .97
.0577
(.0502, .0631)
.0369 𝝌2 (61) = 245.45, p < .0001 545.24
Model 2’’ .95
Note: CFI = Comparative Fit Index; RMSEA = Root Mean Square Error of Approximation;
CI 90% = 90% confidence interval of RMSEA; SRMR = Standardized Root Mean Square
Residual; χ2(df) = Model Chi-Square with associated degrees of freedom; BIC = Bayesian
Information Criterion.
9
Table 4. Parameter estimates for revised Model 1’ (with newly constructed SMUHQ-Symptoms checklist)
A. Direct effects
unstandardized SE standardized
Household Income  Subjective SES
.47
.03
.49 ***
Subjective SES  Need Fulfillment
.17
.02
.28 ***
Household Income  Need Fulfillment
.06
.02
.10 **
Income Inequality  Need Fulfillment
-4.06
1.99
-.06 *
Subjective SES  Health Complaints
-.06
.02
-.10 *
Household Income  Health Complaints
-.04
.02
-.08 †
Income Inequality  Health Complaints
-2.70
2.23
-.04
Need Fulfillment  Health Complaints
-.21
.04
-.21 ***
B. Test of theoretically relevant indirect effects
Sobel’s Z
Household Income Need Fulfillment Health Complaints
-2.44, SE = .01, p < .05
Subjective SES  Need Fulfillment Health Complaints
-4.07, SE = .01, p < .001
Income Inequality Need Fulfillment Health Complaints
1.88, SE = .46, p = .061
2
C. R for endogenous variables
Subjective SES
.24
Need Fulfillment
.12
Health Complaints
.09
D. Standardized factor loadings for latent constructs
Need Fulfillment
Health Complaints
Autonomy
.83
Competence
.85
Relatedness
.85
Subjective Illness
-.35
.31
PILL
-.17
.69
Sick Days
.61
SMUHQ-Symptoms
.66
Note: *** p < .001,** p < .01, †p < .10; single arrowheads () represent direct effects; all listed parameter
estimates rounded to the nearest hundredth
10
Table 5. Parameter estimates for revised Model 2’ (with newly constructed SMUHQ-Symptoms checklist)
E. Direct effects
unstandardized SE standardized
Household Income  Subjective SES
.48
.03
.50 ***
Subjective SES  Need Fulfillment
.21
.02
.33 ***
Household Income  Need Fulfillment
.07
.02
.12 **
Income Inequality  Need Fulfillment
-6.86
2.21
-.10 **
Subjective SES  Health Complaints
-.06
.03
-.10 *
Household Income  Health Complaints
-.03
.02
-.06
Income Inequality  Health Complaints
-2.50
2.30
-.04
Need Fulfillment  Health Complaints
-.16
.05
-.16 **
Income Inequality  Social Desirable Responding
2.46
.06
.04 ***
Sex  Subjective SES
.06
.06
.03
Sex  Household Income
.08
.06
.04
Sex  Need Fulfillment
-.15
.04
-.12 ***
Sex  Health Complaints
-.38
.04
-.33 ***
Sex  Social Desirable Responding
.07
.02
.07 ***
Age  Subjective SES
-.02
.00
-.11 ***
Age  Household Income
.02
.01
.11 ***
Age  Need Fulfillment
.01
.00
.05
Age  Health Complaints
-.01
.00
-.10 **
Age  Social Desirable Responding
.02
.07
.24
F. Test of theoretically relevant indirect effects
Sobel’s Z
Household Income Need Fulfillment Health Complaints
-2.24, SE = .01, p < .05
Subjective SES  Need Fulfillment Health Complaints
-3.01, SE = .01, p < .01
Income Inequality Need Fulfillment Health Complaints
-2.23, SE = .48, p < .05
2
G. R for main endogenous variables
Subjective SES
.25
Need Fulfillment
.18
Health Complaints
.17
H. Standardized factor loadings for latent constructs
Need Fulfillment
Health Complaints
Social Desirable Responding
Autonomy
.67
.49
Competence
.69
.50
Relatedness
.67
.50
Subjective Illness
-.38
.31
-.11
PILL
-.16
.67
-.18
Sick Days
.60
-.08
SMUHQ-Symptoms
.66
-.05
BIDR-IM
.60
BIDR-SDE
.88
Note: *** p < .001,** p < .01; single arrowheads () represent direct effects; all listed parameter estimates
rounded to the nearest hundredth; sex: female = -1, male = 1
11
Table 6. Number of participants suffering from serious and chronic health problems as identified on the
SMUHQ and those with the highest scores on the BIDR subscales
SMUHQ items
n
Anorexia
7
Appendicitis
5
Benign tumor
9
Blackouts
24
Breast cancer
5
Broken bones
24
Bulimia
9
Cancer (non-specific)
4
Colitis
10
Emphysema
3
Gall bladder problems
17
Hernia
18
Liver problem
9
Mononucleosis
3
Multiple sclerosis
1
Paralysis
2
Seizures
10
Skin cancer
5
Thrombosis (blood clots)
3
Ulcer
18
Venereal disease (including herpes)
17
BIDR
IM
21
SDE
19
Total number of excluded participants
197
(with overlap among exclusion criteria)
Note: SMUHQ = Southern Methodist University Health Questionnaire; BIDR = Balanced Inventory of
Desirable Responding; IM = Impression Management; SDE = Self-Deceptive Enhancement
12
Table 7. Parameter estimates for revised Model 1” (N = 910; participants suffering from serious illness
and those with the highest scores on the BIDR-IM and BIDR-SDE scales were omitted from the analyses).
I. Direct effects
unstandardized SE standardized
Household Income  Subjective SES
.47
.03
.49 ***
Subjective SES  Need Fulfillment
.17
.02
.29 ***
Household Income  Need Fulfillment
.06
.02
.11 **
Income Inequality  Need Fulfillment
-5.72
2.20
-.09 **
Subjective SES  Health Complaints
-.09
.03
-.15 **
Household Income  Health Complaints
-.02
.02
-.03
Income Inequality  Health Complaints
-2.52
2.43
-.04
Need Fulfillment  Health Complaints
-.17
.05
-.18 ***
J. Test of theoretically relevant indirect effects
Sobel’s Z
Household Income Need Fulfillment Health Complaints
-2.31, SE = .01, p < .05
Subjective SES  Need Fulfillment Health Complaints
-3.36, SE = .01, p < .001
Income Inequality Need Fulfillment Health Complaints
2.14, SE = .46, p < .05
K. R2 for endogenous variables
Subjective SES
.24
Need Fulfillment
.13
Health Complaints
.08
L. Standardized factor loadings for latent constructs
Need Fulfillment
Health Complaints
Autonomy
.83
Competence
.84
Relatedness
.84
Subjective Illness
-.35
.31
PILL
-.15
.66
Sick Days
.58
SMUHQ
.76
Note: *** p < .001,** p < .01, †p < .10; single arrowheads () represent direct effects; all listed parameter
estimates rounded to the nearest hundredth
13
Table 8. Parameter estimates for revised Model 2” (N = 910; participants suffering from serious illness and
those with the highest scores on the BIDR-IM and BIDR-SDE scales were omitted from the analyses).
M. Direct effects
unstandardized SE standardized
Household Income  Subjective SES
.48
.03
.50 ***
Subjective SES  Need Fulfillment
.21
.03
.34 ***
Household Income  Need Fulfillment
.07
.02
.11 **
Income Inequality  Need Fulfillment
-8.71
2.41
-.13 **
Subjective SES  Health Complaints
-.09
.03
-.14 **
Household Income  Health Complaints
-.01
.03
-.02
Income Inequality  Health Complaints
-1.96
2.47
-.03
Need Fulfillment  Health Complaints
-.15
.05
-.15 **
Income Inequality  Social Desirable Responding
2.62
.06
.04 ***
Sex  Subjective SES
.02
.05
.01
Sex  Household Income
.06
.06
.03
Sex  Need Fulfillment
-.15
.04
-.13 ***
Sex  Health Complaints
-.41
.05
-.35 ***
Sex  Social Desirable Responding
.04
.02
.04 *
Age  Subjective SES
-.02
.00
-.10 ***
Age  Household Income
.02
.01
.14 ***
Age  Need Fulfillment
.01
.00
.06
Age  Health Complaints
-.00
.00
-.03
Age  Social Desirable Responding
.02
.03
.23
N. Test of theoretically relevant indirect effects
Sobel’s Z
Household Income Need Fulfillment Health Complaints
-2.03, SE = .01, p < .05
Subjective SES  Need Fulfillment Health Complaints
-2.74, SE = .01, p < .01
Income Inequality Need Fulfillment Health Complaints
-2.26, SE = .57, p < .05
O. R2 for main endogenous variables
Subjective SES
.25
Need Fulfillment
.20
Health Complaints
.18
P. Standardized factor loadings for latent constructs
Need Fulfillment
Health Complaints
Social Desirable Responding
Autonomy
.68
.47
Competence
.70
.48
Relatedness
.68
.47
Subjective Illness
-.37
.31
-.10
PILL
-.14
.64
-.17
Sick Days
.56
-.08
SMUHQ
.76
-.11
BIDR-IM
.59
BIDR-SDE
.89
Note: *** p < .001,** p < .01; single arrowheads () represent direct effects; all listed parameter estimates
rounded to the nearest hundredth; sex: female = -1, male = 1