↑ Human needs. Basic types of needs.
One of the motives of human activity is need. A need
is a need or lack of something necessary to maintain the life of an organism, a human person, a social group, or society as a whole. Needs are the internal stimulator of human activity.
Needs have different classifications. The main types of human needs are: biological, social, spiritual
.
Biological needs (organic)
are associated with the physical body and their satisfaction is necessary to maintain life and development. These needs include: the need to breathe, consume food and water, move, rest and sleep. These also include a number of other more complex, but vitally important needs such as: thermal comfort, balanced nutrition, procreation, protection from disease.
A person can live: without food for 40-45 days, without water for 7-10 days, without sleep for 4 days, without air for 3 to 5 minutes.
This type of need is characteristic of all living beings. They are also called natural, physiological, natural, biogenic, organic
or
vital
(“vita” - “life”).
Social needs
- this is a person’s need for communication with other people, mutual understanding, social activities, public recognition, etc.
Spiritual (ideal) needs
- these are the needs for self-realization, creating beauty, acquiring new knowledge and experience, and self-improvement. Spiritual needs act as a desire to create spiritual values, creativity, and spiritual communication. There is no limit to the realization of this type of needs, and there are no boundaries in the choice of means and ways to satisfy them.
Biological, social and spiritual needs are interconnected. In humans, biological needs in their essence, unlike animals, become social. For most people, social needs dominate over ideal ones: the need for knowledge often acts as a means of acquiring a profession and taking a worthy position in society.
Strong personality
Throughout life, a person can find himself in extreme situations, which become a test of how strong his inner core is - individuality and personality. How rooted and part of the “I” are his beliefs, principles, worldview, etc.
Austrian psychiatrists Bruno Bettelheim and Viktor Frankl, who were imprisoned in concentration camps during World War II, wrote that a person’s very life sometimes depends on the preservation of individuality. The conditions of the concentration camps led not only to physical exhaustion, but also to the destruction of personality - the goal of the fascists was to lower prisoners to the level of an individual occupied only with biological needs. In practice, although such an individual became an “ideal” obedient prisoner, he quickly lost the will to live, memory, abilities and even the instinct of self-preservation.
Frankl and Bettelheim, by their own admission, were helped to survive only by the desire to preserve their individuality - to continue mental work, to set life goals for themselves, even if their realization was unlikely at that time. So, Bettelheim, deprived of the ability to write, composed a book in his head, and Frankl, together with a group of doctors, organized a secret service for psychological assistance to other prisoners. A strong personality, as the highest stage of development, is characterized by the ability to overcome life circumstances, placing spiritual values not only above material, but also above biological needs.
So, we figured out what personality is in social science and how this term differs from concepts such as “individual” and “man”. In addition to the theoretical material, we offer a short test.
↑ Pyramid of needs by A. Maslow
Of the many different classifications of needs, the most popular is the hierarchical (
hierarchy is the placement of elements from lowest to highest) pyramid of psychologist Abraham Maslow.
PRIMARY (INGENATE) NEEDS
The first two stages are primary or congenital,
since if these needs are not satisfied, a person will not be able to engage in other activities, and all his aspirations will be aimed at realizing precisely these needs.
For example, if he is hungry, then all his thoughts, desires and actions will be about food. A person's life depends on it. Such needs include physiological
and
existential . Physiological needs
are essential for survival. These include the needs for food, water, respiration, shelter, rest and reproduction.
Existential
include needs for security and confidence in the future include needs for protection from physical and psychological dangers from the outside world and confidence that physiological needs will be satisfied in the future.
SECONDARY (ACQUIRED) NEEDS
All other needs A. Maslow defined as secondary or acquired.
Social
needs or needs for belonging and love, for social connections, affection, caring for another person and attention to oneself, participation in shared activities.
Prestigious
or, in other words, the need for self-esteem, evaluation or respect from other people, recognition, success and appreciation, career growth.
Prestige
is a measure of society’s recognition of a person’s merits.
Every person, to a greater or lesser extent, has a need for competition, a desire to stand out, to be better than someone else, and to be respected by others. Therefore, the desire to achieve a higher position in society, to enter prestigious, popular faculties, to make a career, to achieve prosperity - these are prestigious needs.
The following three types of needs (cognitive, aesthetic and spiritual) are the aspirations of the “soul” and are considered the highest human needs.
Cognitive needs
- this is a study of the surrounding world, reality in order to obtain new knowledge, impressions, and the desire for purposeful creative activity.
They are also called cognitive needs .
Aesthetic needs
- this is a person’s spiritual desire for harmony and beauty, art and creativity. Thanks to these needs, the world has theaters, exhibitions, museums, art galleries, ballet, music and dance.
At the topmost step are spiritual needs
or the need to realize one’s potential and grow as an individual
(self-development, self-improvement)
.
Realizing his needs, the individual builds his life in accordance with them.
The needs of lower levels require satisfaction and, therefore, influence human behavior before the needs of higher levels begin to affect motivation. At any given moment in time, a person will strive to satisfy the need that is more important or strong for him. Before the next level need becomes the most powerful determinant of human behavior, the lower level need must be satisfied.
«When the strongest and most priority needs are satisfied, the needs that follow them in the hierarchy arise and require satisfaction. When these needs are satisfied, a transition occurs to the next step in the ladder of factors that determine human behavior.
" Psychologists K. Hall and G. Lindsay
If basic needs are not realized, then they are replaced by pseudo-needs
, for example, the need for luxury goods, alcohol, gambling, etc.
One should remember about reasonable limitation of needs, since, firstly, not all human needs can be fully satisfied, and secondly, needs should not contradict the moral norms of society.
Reasonable needs
- these are the needs that help the development in a person of his truly human qualities: the desire for truth, beauty, knowledge, the desire to bring good to people, etc.
Imaginary needs
- artificially created by man, the implementation of which can be dispensed with (for example, smoking).
Since with the development of a person as an individual his potential capabilities expand, the need for self-expression can never be fully satisfied. Therefore, the process of motivating behavior through needs is endless.
A person experiencing hunger will first seek to find food, and only after eating will he try to build a shelter. Living in comfort and security, a person will first be motivated to activity by the need for social contacts, and then will begin to actively strive for respect from others. Only after a person feels inner satisfaction and respect from others will his most important needs begin to grow in accordance with his potential. But if the situation changes radically, then the most important needs can change dramatically. Needs underlie the emergence of interests and inclinations.
How does Maslow's pyramid work?
The highest meaning of a person’s destiny is to identify and develop one’s personal abilities, talents and capabilities. For each of us, personal growth and self-realization are ultimately important in life.
A person’s path to a higher purpose is Maslow’s pyramid, which requires a visual diagram of a person’s movement towards personal growth.
Every person is worthy and capable of personal growth, self-development, and the formation and expression of their unique self. The problem of many contemporaries is that they cannot reveal their talents and find applications for themselves. Often such people are firmly “stuck” at the lower levels of the pyramid - they are content with the achieved attributes of prosperity, comfort and security.
Many devote almost all their time to work they don’t like, and there is no energy or time left for their own development. At the same time, a person, covering physical needs, often does not feel successful and does not feel satisfaction from life. Such people suffer from the fact that their personal fulfillment in life does not occur.
Every person is capable of rising to the “top” of the pyramid. On the way to the top, to self-expression, a person is hampered by many blocking factors - from lack of self-esteem to victim syndrome.
Personal evolution may be interrupted due to dissatisfaction at lower levels. For example, loss of a job leaves the need for security unsatisfied, and unhappy love or divorce leaves the need for love and respect unsatisfied.
In psychology, Maslow’s pyramid model is used to understand which stages are not achieved and are preventing one from achieving success and inhibiting self-realization. Perhaps, a person is prevented from moving upward by “unclosed” base (lower-level) needs and lack of recognition in society.
Children in secondary schools and students, for example, have a greater need for safety and respect in the classroom or group. Only in conditions of acceptance and recognition will they be able to develop effectively and reveal their potential.
Some people simply do not want to engage in self-development, because it is not easy and, in their opinion, boring. Self-development and work on oneself takes time, but not every person is ready to “sacrifice” their time for personal growth. You can compare this to the fact that a person cannot save money for a large expensive item because he is not ready to give up small, not always necessary, purchases.
