The Self-Determination Theory (SDT) claims that autonomous motivation is a basic psychological need for all humans across cultures. When this need is met, individuals are predicted to experience well-being. However, it has been argued that autonomous motivation is not a basic need in the Chinese culture due to their philosophical background. Furthermore, commonly used instruments to measure well-being have been criticised for not measuring low arousal positive affect such as “harmony” or “peace of mind” which have been argued to more accurately target well-being for the Chinese population. The aim of this thesis is to give an overview of the psychological and cognitive neuroscientific research relating to intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, well-being and the associated cultural controversy. Additionally, a questionnaire-based study is reported which examine motivation type and well-being of 183 university students in China and in Sweden through self-reported data. The results support the SDT by showing that intrinsic motivation is correlated to well-being for both samples. Furthermore, the Swedish students experienced higher well-being compared to the Chinese students measured by the traditional “western” instruments. However, the Swedish and the Chinese students reported very similar peace of mind. This indicates that the commonly used instruments might not target well-being accurately universally. Limitations of the study and directions of future research is suggested in the discussion.