THE DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF AN INTEGRATED ASSESSMENT OF IRRATIONAL BELIEFS CONCERNING BASIC PSYCHOLOGICAL NEEDS: THE RATIONAL EMOTIVE SELF-DETERMINATION SCALE FOR WORKERS

Aug. 2025

Murat Artiran

Pinar Tinaz

Ömer Faruk Simsek

Anthony Miller

Katia Correa Vione

Martin James Turner

Introduction: Recently a new approach to understanding human behaviour has emerged that integrates rational emotive behaviour therapy (REBT) from the cognitive behavioural tradition, and self-determination theory (SDT) from the humanistic tradition. In the current study, we develop a psychometric that conceptualizes this new approach in organisational settings; the rational emotive self-determination scale for work (RESD-W). The RESD-W assesses respondents’ irrational beliefs (from REBT) concerning the basic psychological needs (from SDT), namely perceptions of autonomy, competence, and relatedness within their work life. The RESD-W builds on initial validations of the RESD in adolescent populations (RESD-A).

Methods: In the current paper, the psychometric properties of the 16-item RESD-W were examined across five studies, in which the factor structure, the reliability of the scale, and construct and criterion-oriented validity of the RESD-W were assessed.

Results: Analyses confirmed theoretical expectations and yielded good psychometric properties. Scores in the RESD-W were associated with anxiety and depression, and negative emotions in the workplace.

Discussion: The results are discussed regarding practice, highlighting that work related psychological wellbeing may be predicated on the integration of irrational beliefs and basic psychological needs.

OUR COMMENT

The RESD-W study offers compelling evidence that irrational beliefs about autonomy, competence, and relatedness are closely tied to negative emotions, anxiety, and depression in the workplace. Yet these findings cannot be understood solely within the cognitive-behavioral framework. They must be situated within a broader socio-economic context where organisational norms and digital environments actively produce and reinforce these beliefs. The contemporary workplace is already saturated with economic codes that elevate productivity, efficiency, and competition into unquestioned values. When these codes are internalised as irrational beliefs—“I must always be competent,” “I must prove my worth through performance,” “I must be recognised by others”—the result is a systematic erosion of well-being. The RESD-W does not just measure private cognitions; it reveals the psychic impact of collective economic imperatives.

Social media amplifies these pressures by creating a constant backdrop of comparison and visibility. Platforms like LinkedIn, Instagram, or TikTok endlessly showcase curated performances of success, consumption, and productivity, injecting into individuals the conviction that their value depends on being visibly competent, autonomous, and connected. In this sense, irrational beliefs are not mere distortions of thought but reflections of a wider economic unconscious—a structure of desire and recognition shaped by neoliberal capitalism and its digital machinery. The workplace and the social media feed become two sides of the same apparatus, continually reinforcing each other: the demand to produce, the drive to consume, and the need to display success.

The RESD-W’s significance lies in demonstrating how mental health at work is not only a matter of individual resilience or rational thinking, but the outcome of cultural and economic logics that colonize self-perception. Interventions cannot remain confined to correcting irrational thoughts at the individual level. They must also confront the systemic pressures—organisational metrics, digital virality, algorithmic promotion of success—that shape those thoughts in the first place. This opens the way to a more radical clinical and policy agenda: decoupling psychological well-being from the codes of productivity and visibility, and creating spaces where recognition, competence, and relatedness can exist outside the compulsions of consumption and performance.