The states and needs of people that arise when they need something underlie their motives. That is, it is the needs that are the source of activity of each individual. Man is a desiring being, therefore, in reality, it is unlikely that his needs will be fully satisfied. The nature of human needs is such that as soon as one need is satisfied, the next one comes first.

Maslow's pyramid of needs

Abraham Maslow's concept of needs is perhaps the most famous of all. The psychologist not only classified the needs of people, but also made an interesting assumption. Maslow noticed that each person has an individual hierarchy of needs. That is, there are basic human needs - they are also called basic, and additional.

According to the concept of a psychologist, absolutely all people on earth experience needs at all levels. Moreover, there is the following law: basic human needs are dominant. However, high-level needs can also remind of themselves and become motivators of behavior, but this happens only when the basic ones are satisfied.

The basic needs of people are those aimed at survival. At the base of Maslow's pyramid are the basic needs. Human biological needs are the most important. Next comes the need for security. Satisfying human needs for security ensures survival, as well as a sense of the constancy of living conditions.

A person feels the needs of a higher level only when he has done everything to ensure his physical well-being. The social needs of a person lie in the fact that he feels the need to unite with other people, in love and recognition. Once this need has been met, the following come to the fore. The spiritual needs of a person are self-respect, protection from loneliness, and feeling worthy of respect.

Further, at the very top of the pyramid of needs is the need to reveal one's potential, to fulfill oneself. Maslow explained such a human need for activity as a desire to become what he originally is.

Maslow assumed that this need is innate and, most importantly, common to each individual. However, at the same time, it is obvious that people are strikingly different from each other in terms of their motivation. For various reasons, not everyone manages to reach the pinnacle of necessity. Throughout life, people's needs can vary between physical and social, so they are not always aware of the needs, for example, in self-realization, because they are extremely busy satisfying lower desires.

The needs of man and society are divided into natural and unnatural. In addition, they are constantly expanding. The development of human needs occurs due to the development of society.

Thus, we can conclude that the higher the needs a person satisfies, the brighter his individuality is manifested.

Are hierarchy violations possible?

Examples of violation of the hierarchy in the satisfaction of needs are known to everyone. Probably, if the spiritual needs of a person were experienced only by those who are full and healthy, then the very concept of such needs would have long since sunk into oblivion. Therefore, the organization of needs is replete with exceptions.

Needs Satisfaction

An extremely important fact is that the satisfaction of need can never occur on the principle of "all or nothing." After all, if this were the case, then the physiological needs would be saturated once and for life, and then the transition to the social needs of a person would follow without the possibility of a return. There is no need to prove otherwise.

Biological human needs

The bottom level of Maslow's pyramid is those needs that ensure human survival. Of course, they are the most urgent and have the most powerful motivating force. In order for an individual to feel the needs of higher levels, biological needs must be satisfied at least minimally.

Needs for security and protection

This level of vital or vital needs is the need for security and protection. We can safely say that if physiological needs are closely related to the survival of the organism, then the need for security ensures its long life.

Needs for love and belonging

This is the next level of Maslow's pyramid. The need for love is closely related to the desire of the individual to avoid loneliness and be accepted into human society. When the needs at the previous two levels are satisfied, motives of this kind take a dominant position.

Almost everything in our behavior is determined by the need for love. It is important for any person to be included in a relationship, whether it be a family, a work team or something else. The baby needs love, and nothing less than the satisfaction of physical needs and the need for security.

The need for love is especially evident in the adolescent period of human development. At this time, it is the motives that grow out of this need that become leading.

Psychologists often say that typical behavioral traits appear during adolescence. For example, the main activity of a teenager is communication with peers. Also characteristic is the search for an authoritative adult - a teacher and mentor. All teenagers subconsciously strive to be different from everyone else - to stand out from the general crowd. From here comes the desire to follow fashion trends or belong to any subculture.

Need for love and acceptance in adulthood

As a person ages, love needs begin to focus on more selective and deeper relationships. Now needs push people to create families. In addition, it is not the quantity of friendships that becomes more important, but their quality and depth. It is easy to see that adults have far fewer friends than adolescents, but these friendships are necessary for the mental well-being of the individual.

Despite the large number of diverse means of communication, people in modern society are very fragmented. To date, a person does not feel part of the community, perhaps - part of a family that has three generations, but many do not even have this. In addition, children who have experienced a lack of intimacy experience fear of it later in life. On the one hand, they neurotically avoid close relationships, as they are afraid of losing themselves as a person, and on the other hand, they really need them.

Maslow identified two main types of relationships. They are not necessarily marital, but may well be friendly, between children and parents, and so on. What are the two types of love identified by Maslow?

Scarce love

This kind of love is aimed at the desire to make up for the lack of something vital. Scarce love has a definite source - it is unmet needs. The person may lack self-respect, protection, or acceptance. This kind of love is a feeling born of selfishness. It is motivated by the desire of the individual to fill his inner world. A person is not able to give anything, he only takes.

Alas, in most cases, the basis of long-term relationships, including marital ones, is precisely scarce love. The parties to such a union can live together all their lives, but much in their relationship is determined by the inner hunger of one of the participants in the couple.

Scarce love is a source of dependence, fear of losing, jealousy and constant attempts to pull the blanket over yourself, suppressing and subjugating a partner in order to tie him closer to himself.

existential love

This feeling is based on the recognition of the unconditional value of a loved one, but not for any qualities or special merits, but simply for what he is. Of course, existential love is also designed to satisfy human needs for acceptance, but its striking difference is that it does not have an element of possessiveness. The desire to take away from your neighbor what you need yourself is also not observed.

That person who is able to experience existential love does not seek to remake a partner or somehow change him, but encourages all the best qualities in him and supports the desire to grow and develop spiritually.

Maslow himself described this kind of love as a healthy relationship between people based on mutual trust, respect and admiration.

Self Esteem Needs

Despite the fact that this level of needs is designated as the need for self-esteem, Maslow divided it into two types: self-esteem and respect from other people. Although they are closely related to each other, it is often extremely difficult to separate them.

A person's need for self-respect is that he must know that he is capable of much. For example, that he will successfully cope with the tasks and requirements assigned to him, and that he feels like a full-fledged person.

If this type of need is not satisfied, then there is a feeling of weakness, dependence and inferiority. Moreover, the stronger such experiences, the less effective human activity becomes.

It should be noted that self-respect is healthy only when it is based on respect from other people, and not on status in society, flattery, and so on. Only in this case, the satisfaction of such a need will contribute to psychological stability.

It is interesting that the need for self-esteem manifests itself in different ways in different periods of life. Psychologists have noticed that young people who are just starting to start a family and look for their professional niche need respect from the outside more than others.

Needs of self-actualization

The highest level in the pyramid of needs is the need for self-actualization. Abraham Maslow defined this need as the desire of a person to become what he can become. For example, musicians write music, poets compose poetry, artists draw. Why? Because they want to be themselves in this world. They need to follow their nature.

For whom is self-actualization important?

It should be noted that not only those who have some kind of talent need self-actualization. Everyone, without exception, has his own personal or creative potential. Each person has his own calling. The need for self-actualization is to find your life's work. The forms and possible ways of self-actualization are very diverse, and it is at this spiritual level of needs that the motives and behavior of people are most unique and individual.

Psychologists say that the desire to maximize self-realization is inherent in every person. However, the people Maslow called self-actualizing are very few. No more than 1% of the population. Why do those incentives that should encourage a person to activity not always work?

Maslow in his works indicated the following three reasons for such unfavorable behavior.

Firstly, a person's ignorance of his capabilities, as well as a misunderstanding of the benefits of self-improvement. In addition, there are ordinary self-doubts or fear of failure.

Secondly, the pressure of prejudice - cultural or social. That is, a person's abilities can go against the stereotypes that society imposes. For example, stereotypes of femininity and masculinity can prevent a young man from becoming a talented makeup artist or dancer, and a girl from achieving success, for example, in military affairs.

Third, the need for self-actualization can run counter to the need for security. For example, if self-realization requires a person to take risky or dangerous actions or actions that do not guarantee success.

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The needs of the individual (need) is the so-called source of personal activity, because it is the needs of a person that are his motivating reason for actions in a certain way, forcing him to move in the right direction. Thus, need or need is such a personal state in which the dependence of subjects on certain situations or conditions of existence is revealed.

Personal activity is manifested only in the process of satisfying its needs, which are formed during the upbringing of the individual, introducing him to social culture. In its primary biological manifestation, necessity is nothing but a certain state of the organism, expressing its objective need (desire) for something. Thus, the system of needs of the individual directly depends on the lifestyle of the individual, the interaction between the environment and the sphere of its use. From the standpoint of neurophysiology, need means the formation of some kind of dominant, i.e. the appearance of excitation of special brain cells, characterized by stability and regulating the required behavioral actions.

Types of personality needs

Human needs are quite diverse and today there is a huge variety of their classifications. However, in modern psychology, there are two main classifications of types of needs. In the first classification, needs (needs) are divided into material (biological), spiritual (ideal) and social.

The realization of material or biological needs is connected with the individual species existence of the individual. These include - the need for food, sleep, clothing, security, home, intimate desires. Those. need (need), which is due to biological need.

Spiritual or ideal needs are expressed in the knowledge of the world that surrounds, the meaning of existence, self-realization and self-respect.

The desire of the individual to belong to any social group, as well as the need for human recognition, leadership, dominance, self-affirmation, attachment of others in love and respect, is reflected in social needs. All these needs are divided into important types of activity:

• labor, work - the need for knowledge, creation and creation;

• development - the need for training, self-realization;

• social communication - spiritual and moral needs.

The needs or needs described above have a social orientation, therefore they are called sociogenic or social.

In another type of classification, all needs are divided into two types: need or need for growth (development) and conservation.

The need for preservation combines such needs (needs) - physiological: sleep, intimate desires, hunger, etc. These are the basic needs of the individual. Without their satisfaction, the individual is simply not able to survive. Further the need for security and preservation; abundance - the comprehensiveness of the satisfaction of natural needs; material needs and biological.

The need for growth combines the following: the desire for love and respect; self-actualization; self-respect; knowledge, including life meaning; needs for sensual (emotional) contact; social and spiritual (ideal) needs. The above classifications make it possible to highlight the more significant needs of the subject's practical behavior.

OH. Maslow put forward the concept of a systematic approach to the study of the psychology of the personality of subjects, based on the model of personality needs in the form of a pyramid. Hierarchy of personality needs according to A.Kh. Maslow is the behavior of an individual, directly dependent on the satisfaction of any of his needs. This means that the needs at the top of the hierarchy (realization of goals, self-development) guide the behavior of the individual to the extent that his needs at the very bottom of the pyramid are satisfied (thirst, hunger, intimate desires, etc.).

There are also potential (non-actualized) needs and actualized ones. The main driver of personal activity is the internal conflict (contradiction) between the internal conditions of existence and external ones.

All types of needs of the individual, located on the upper levels of the hierarchy, have a different level of severity in different people, but without society, no person can exist. A subject can become a full-fledged personality only when he satisfies his need for self-actualization.

Social needs of the individual

This is a special kind of human need. It consists in the need to have everything necessary for the existence and life of an individual, any social group, society as a whole. This is an internal motivating factor of activity.

Public needs are people's need for work, social activity, culture, and spiritual life. Needs created by society are those needs that are the basis of social life. Without motivating factors for meeting needs, production and progress in general are impossible.

Also, social needs include the needs associated with the desire to form a family, joining various social groups, teams, with various areas of production (non-production) activities, the existence of society as a whole. Conditions, factors of the external environment that surround the individual in the course of his life, not only contribute to the emergence of needs, but also form opportunities to satisfy them. In human life and the hierarchy of needs, social needs play one of the defining roles. The existence of an individual in society and through it is the central area of ​​manifestation of the essence of man, the main condition for the realization of all other needs - biological and spiritual.

They classify social needs according to three criteria: the needs of others, their own needs, and joint needs.

The needs of others (needs for others) are the needs that express the generic basis of the individual. It consists in the need for communication, protection of the weak. Altruism is one of the expressed needs for others, the need to sacrifice one's own interests for others. Altruism is realized only through the victory over egoism. That is, the need “for oneself” must be transformed into the need “for others”.

Own need (need for oneself) is expressed in self-affirmation in society, self-realization, self-identification, in the need to take one’s place in society and the team, the desire for power, etc. Such needs, therefore, are social, which cannot exist without needs “for others ". Only through doing something for others, it is possible to realize their desires. Take any position in society, i.e. to achieve recognition for oneself is much easier to do without hurting the interests and claims of other members of society. The most effective way of realizing one's selfish desires will be one in which the movement contains a share of compensation to satisfy the claims of other people, those who can claim the same role or the same place, but can be satisfied with less.

Joint needs (needs "together with others") - express the motivating power of many people at the same time or society as a whole. For example, the need for security, freedom, peace, change in the existing political system, etc.

Needs and motives of the individual

The main condition for the life of organisms is the presence of their activity. In animals, activity is manifested in instincts. But human behavior is much more complicated and is determined by the presence of two factors: regulatory and incentive, i.e. motives and needs.

The motives and system of needs of the individual have their own main features. If a need is a need (deficiency), the need for something and the need to eliminate something that is in excess, then the motive is a pusher. Those. the need creates a state of activity, and the motive gives it a direction, pushes the activity in the required direction. Necessity or necessity, first of all, is felt by a person as a state of tension inside, or manifests itself as reflections, dreams. This encourages the individual to search for the object of need, but does not give direction to activities to satisfy it.

The motive, in turn, is the motivating reason for achieving the desired or, conversely, avoiding it, to carry out activities or not. Motives can be accompanied by positive or negative emotions. Satisfaction of needs always leads to the removal of tension, the need disappears, but after a while it may arise again. With motives, the opposite is true. The goal and the motive itself do not coincide. Because the goal is where or what a person aspires to, and the motive is the reason for which he aspires.

Goals can be set for a variety of reasons. But it is also possible that the motive shifts to the goal. This means the transformation of the motive of activity directly into a motive. For example, a student first learns lessons because his parents force him to, but then interest awakens and he begins to study for the sake of studying. Those. it turns out that the motive is an internal psychological stimulus of behavior or actions, which is stable and encourages the individual to carry out activities, giving it meaning. A need is an internal state of feeling of need, which expresses the dependence of a person or animals on certain conditions of existence.

Needs and interests of the individual

The category of needs is inextricably linked with the category of interests. Interests are always based on needs. Interest is an expression of the purposeful attitude of an individual to any kind of his needs.

The interest of a person is not so much directed precisely at the subject of need, as directed at such social factors that make this subject more accessible, mainly these are the various benefits of civilization (material or spiritual), which ensure the satisfaction of such needs. Interests are also determined by the specific position of people in society, the position of social groups and are the most powerful incentives for any activity.

Interests can also be classified depending on the direction or the bearer of these interests. The first group includes social, spiritual and political interests. To the second - the interests of society as a whole, group and individual interests.

The interests of the individual express its orientation, which largely determines its path and the nature of any activity.

In its general manifestation, interest can be called the true cause of social and personal actions, events, which stands directly behind the motives - the motives of individuals participating in these very actions. Interest can be objective and objective social, conscious, realizable.

An objectively effective and optimal way to meet needs is called objective interest. Such an interest is of an objective nature, does not depend on the consciousness of the individual.

An objectively effective and optimal way to meet the needs of public space is called an objective social interest. For example, there are a lot of stalls and shops in the market, and there is definitely an optimal path to the best and cheapest product. This will be a manifestation of objective social interest. There are many ways to make various purchases, but among them there will definitely be one that is objectively optimal for a particular situation.

The ideas of the subject of activity about how to better satisfy their needs is called conscious interest. Such interest may coincide with the objective one or differ slightly, or it may have an absolutely opposite direction. The immediate cause of almost all the actions of subjects is precisely the interest of a conscious nature. Such interest is based on the personal experience of a person. The path that a person goes to meet the needs of the individual is called realizable interest. It can completely coincide with the interest of a conscious nature, or absolutely contradict it.

There is another kind of interests - this is a product. This variety is both a way to satisfy needs and a way to satisfy them. A product may or may not appear to be the best way to meet a need.

Spiritual needs of the individual

The spiritual needs of the individual is a directed striving for self-realization, expressed through creativity or through other activities.

There are 3 aspects of the term spiritual needs of the individual:

• The first aspect is the desire to master the results of spiritual productivity. It includes familiarization with art, culture, science.

• The second aspect lies in the forms of expression of needs in the material order and social relations in today's society.

• The third aspect is the harmonious development of the individual.

Any spiritual needs are represented by the inner impulses of a person to his spiritual manifestation, creativity, creation, creation of spiritual values ​​and their consumption, to spiritual communications (communication). They are caused by the inner world of the individual, the desire to withdraw into oneself, to focus on what is not related to social and physiological needs. These needs encourage people to engage in art, religion, culture, not in order to satisfy their physiological and social needs, but in order to understand the meaning of existence. Their hallmark is insatiability. For the more internal needs are satisfied, the more intense and stable they become.

There are no limits to the progressive growth of spiritual needs. The limitation of such growth and development can only be the amount of wealth of a spiritual nature accumulated earlier by mankind, the strength of the individual's desires to participate in their work and his capabilities. The main features that distinguish spiritual needs from material ones:

• needs of a spiritual nature arise in the mind of the individual;

• needs of a spiritual nature are inherently necessary, and the level of freedom in choosing ways and means to satisfy such needs is much higher than that of material ones;

• the satisfaction of most needs of a spiritual nature is connected mainly with the amount of free time;

• in such needs, the connection between the object of need and the subject is characterized by a certain degree of disinterestedness;

• the process of meeting the needs of a spiritual nature has no boundaries.

Yu. Sharov singled out a detailed classification of spiritual needs: the need for labor activity; the need for communication aesthetic and moral needs; scientific and educational needs; the need for recovery; military duty. One of the most important spiritual needs of a person is knowledge. The future of any society depends on the spiritual foundation that will be developed among today's youth.

Psychological needs of the individual

The psychological needs of an individual are those needs that are not reduced to bodily needs, but do not even reach the level of spiritual ones. Such needs usually include the need for affiliation, communication, etc.

The need for communication in children is not an innate need. It is formed through the activity of surrounding adults. Usually actively begins to manifest itself by two months of life. Adolescents, on the other hand, are convinced that their need for communication brings them the opportunity to actively use adults. Insufficient satisfaction of the need for communication has a detrimental effect on adults. They immerse themselves in negative emotions. The need for acceptance lies in the desire of an individual to be accepted by another person by a group of people or by society as a whole. Such a need often pushes a person to violate generally accepted norms and can lead to antisocial behavior.

Among the psychological needs, the basic needs of the individual are distinguished. These are needs that, if not met, young children will not be able to fully develop. They seem to stop in their development and become more prone to certain diseases than their peers, in whom such needs are satisfied. So, for example, if the baby is regularly fed, but grows up without proper communication with the parents, his development may be delayed.

The basic needs of the personality of adults of a psychological nature are divided into 4 groups: autonomy - the need for independence, independence; need for competence; the need for meaningful interpersonal relationships for the individual; the need to be a member of a social group, to feel loved. This also includes a sense of self-worth, and a need for recognition by others. In cases of non-satisfaction of basic physiological needs, the physical health of the individual suffers, and in cases of non-satisfaction of basic psychological needs, the spirit (psychological health) suffers.

Motivation and needs of the individual

Motivational processes of an individual have in themselves the direction of achieving or, conversely, avoiding the set goals, to realize a certain activity or not. Such processes are accompanied by various emotions, both positive and negative, for example, joy, fear. Also, during such processes, some psychophysiological stress appears. This means that motivational processes are accompanied by a state of excitement or agitation, and there may also be a feeling of decline or a surge of strength.

On the one hand, the regulation of mental processes that affect the direction of activity and the amount of energy needed to perform this very activity is called motivation. And on the other hand, motivation is still a certain set of motives, which gives direction to the activity and the very internal process of motivation. Motivational processes directly explain the choice between different options for action, but which have equally attractive goals. It is motivation that affects perseverance and perseverance, with the help of which an individual achieves his goals, overcomes obstacles.

A logical explanation of the causes of actions or behavior is called motivation. Motivation may be different from real motives or consciously applied in order to disguise them.

Motivation is quite closely related to the needs and needs of the individual, because it appears when desires (needs) or a lack of something arise. Motivation is the initial stage of physical and mental activity of an individual. Those. it is a kind of motivation to produce actions by a certain motive or process of choosing reasons for a particular line of activity.

It should always be borne in mind that completely similar, at first glance, actions or actions of the subject can be completely different reasons, i.e. their motivation may be very different.

Motivation can be external (extrinsic) or internal (intrinsic). The first is not related to the content of a particular activity, but is due to external conditions relative to the subject. The second is directly related to the content of the activity process. A distinction is also made between negative and positive motivation. Motivation based on positive messages is called positive. And motivation, which is based on negative messages, is called, respectively, negative. For example, a positive motivation would be - "if I behave well, then they will buy me ice cream", a negative one - "if I behave well, then they will not punish me."

Motivation can be individual, i.e. aimed at maintaining the constancy of the internal environment of his body. For example, avoidance of pain, thirst, the desire to maintain an optimal temperature, hunger, etc. It can also be group. It includes caring for children, searching for and choosing one's place in the social hierarchy, etc. Cognitive motivational processes include various gaming and research activities.

Basic needs of the individual

The basic (leading) needs of the needs of the individual can differ not only in content, but also in terms of the level of conditioning by society. Regardless of gender or age, as well as social class, every person has basic needs. A. Maslow described them in more detail in his work. He proposed a theory based on the principle of hierarchical structure ("Hierarchy of Personal Needs" according to Maslow). Those. Some needs of the individual are primary in relation to others. For example, if a person is thirsty or hungry, he will not really care whether his neighbor respects him or not. Maslow called the absence of an object of need scarce or scarce needs. Those. in the absence of food (an object of need), a person will strive by any means to make up for such a deficit in any way possible for him.

Basic needs are divided into 6 groups:

1. These include primarily physical need, which includes the need for food, drink, air, sleep. This also includes the need of the individual in close communication with subjects of the opposite sex (intimate relationships).

2. The need for praise, trust, love, etc. is called emotional needs.

3. The need for friendship, respect in a team or other social group is called a social need.

4. The need to get answers to the questions posed, to satisfy curiosity are called intellectual needs.

5. Belief in divine authority or simply the need to believe is called a spiritual need. Such needs help people find peace, experience trouble, etc.

6. The need for self-expression through creativity is called creative need (needs).

All of the listed needs of the individual are part of each person. Satisfaction of all basic needs, desires, needs of a person contributes to his health and positive attitude in all his actions. All basic needs necessarily have a cyclical process, direction and tension. All needs in the processes of their satisfaction are fixed. Initially, the satisfied basic need temporarily subsides (extinguishes) in order to emerge with even greater intensity over time.

Needs that are expressed more weakly, but repeatedly satisfied, gradually become more stable. There is a certain pattern in fixing needs - the more diverse the means used to fix needs, the more firmly they are fixed. In this case, the needs become the basis of behavioral actions.

Need determines the entire adaptive mechanism of the psyche. The objects of reality are reflected as probable obstacles or conditions for meeting needs. Therefore, any basic need is equipped with peculiar effectors and detectors. The emergence of basic needs and their actualization directs the psyche to determine the corresponding goals.

Speaker of the Medical and Psychological Center "PsychoMed"

This article fully meets the needs of all those confused in life who have recently had the thought “I don’t know what I want from life”.

All our desires are rooted in 7 human needs.. I divided them into 2 broad categories: physical and psychological.

And if you dig deeper into these needs, then you can really find out what you need from life. Everything, absolutely everything that you have ever wanted or may want, falls under one of the human needs outlined below.

These 7 human needs underlie all our feelings, thoughts and actions and explain any behavior, ours or someone else's. They summarize our entire complex and sometimes inexplicable psychology.

So, it's time to get to know yourself:

Human physical needs

We live, guided by the main instinct - the instinct of self-preservation. The more life-threatening the situation we find ourselves in, the more discomfort it will cause us. So, as far as our physiological needs are concerned, here nature has prioritized for us.

Lack of oxygen will kill a person in seconds, so we want to breathe more than anything. Extreme cold can destroy us in a matter of hours. Thirst will take a little longer. A little more “pleasant” in this list of human needs would be hunger…

Physical comfort is so programmed into human needs that even when all of our basic needs are met, we will still try to improve them. People will “by inertia” move to about Greater homes, even when it's not necessary. We will eat long before the onset of hunger, and some of us still spend 4 hours a day on gas-polluted roads, returning from work to the country, thinking that it is better for their body - the air is cleaner in the country ...

Conclusion: Knowing how comfort is exaggerated in our understanding, you can stop improving what is already good (the comfort of your life) and pay attention to other needs that you still have absolutely not satisfied.

You will be able to understand why the quality of your life does not improve with the addition of comfort - comfort is already enough, you must pay attention to other human needs that you have completely neglected.

Psychological needs of a person

We will live at the same time. One of them is real, small, physical. Another is lived in our minds, in our thoughts - psychological. It is much larger than real life. All fears, dreams, desires and experiences are basically invented by us, massaged by our brain in debt and in large numbers and do not exist at all in the real world.

The psychological needs of a person require more attention in the modern world, since the physiological ones are already easily satisfied, thanks to the achievements of mankind and the increased standard of living.

Stability is a basic psychological human need. It can be summarized in a simple sentence: the belief that it will not get worse. Unlike the previous point, stability is a psychological concept based on our thoughts, and not on objective reality. Stability is the mirror image of physical comfort in our minds, the belief that our primary need, physical comfort, will continue.

3. Novelty

Novelty is a constant human need, which, if not satisfied, causes us serious discomfort in the form of boredom. We love to learn, watch different movies, travel to new places, experience fresh sensations and even get nervous when the dishes on our plate are repeated throughout the day! Novelty is one of the strongest human needs, which increases in importance immediately after stability is achieved, and begins to conflict with it.

In search of stability, people marry and find permanence. But after it comes the need for novelty and their joint future is no longer so predictable. We often don't know what we want, not because of stupidity, but because our needs conflict. And in different periods of time, our desires change, balancing between stability and novelty. This should be accepted as a normal phenomenon, and not ask yourself the question: “what is wrong with me?”.

By the way, the older we get, the more we learn in this world, which means that the less new things surround us, and over the years, boredom can become a serious problem. Adults, instead of self-knowledge that has grown with experience, due to the boredom that has appeared, begin to “search for themselves” more and more, while in fact they are looking not for themselves, but for novelty, which is rapidly disappearing from their lives with each new experienced sensation.

4. Significance

The human need, which is perhaps the most insatiable, is our significance, importance. We are ready to forgive the person who accidentally bruised us and at the same time apologized, but we can cling to the throat of someone who thought bad about us. Deep in our minds, we think that the ratio of us to all of humanity is not 1:5,000,000,000 (billions), but 1:1. Me and the world.

At the same time, we must understand that our significance performs the most important function in human evolution. The psychological need to be significant sets a high standard for us and we strive to be better. We invent an image for ourselves and go out of our way to live up to it. We strive to gain the respect of others and are willing to pay a high price for it. We are ready to work, study 12 hours a day, only to be better than others or surpass ourselves yesterday.

Since childhood, we dream of becoming firefighters, astronauts or surgeons, because we think that what we will do will make us significant. We believe that the profession of our dreams will give us importance in the eyes of other people.

Think back to your childhood. For me, when I was 5 years old, a firefighter in a helmet and boots looked more significant than the president of the country.

Today's human evolution, about which I will no doubt write separate posts, owes much to the human need for significance.

5. Communication

The human need for communication explains the huge number of languages ​​that have formed on the planet. If you analyze your life, you will notice that the best feelings you have in life are connected with other people. We cannot alone. We fear imprisonment not so much because it will limit our freedom of movement, but because we will be cut out of our usual social circle. Communication is a human need that can either conflict with all other needs or help satisfy them if it happens to the right people. That is why our happiest moments and greatest misfortunes are connected with other people - communication with them is intertwined with several basic human needs at once.

6. Growth

If you combine the two human needs of relevance and novelty, you will get growth. Personal growth, bank account growth, improvements. This need is so strong in us that it exists apart from the rest. We want to develop, we think about how to change ourselves, and we can’t even stop at 1-2 glasses during the celebration, because the feeling of intoxication is growing. We are always short of everything. We need to improve everything. Self-improvement is a separate need that exists in each of us.

7. Desire to help others

The last human need is the desire to help others. I put it last, because this one is the least connected with the instinct of self-preservation and therefore works weaker than the others. Moreover, we cannot give to another what we ourselves do not have.

People first earn money, and then they engage in philanthropy.

The desire to help people comes last on the list of human needs, but this does not mean that we have to live to old age to engage in philanthropy. Helping others develops many other success-enhancing qualities in us and shows up in our behavior to varying degrees from an early age.

Summing up, it must be recalled that all our desires are rooted in the 7 human needs mentioned above. And if the thought “I don’t know what I want” still bothers you, then you need to

1. break down the needs mentioned above down to the smallest detail
2. detect multiple conflicts between them and
3. set your own priorities.

It is not as difficult as it seems if you do it methodically and spend some time on it. You are easier than you think.

The needs of a person necessary for his life activity are water, air, nutrition and protection from environmental hazards. These needs are called basic because they are necessary for the body.

Basic needs differ from others in that their deficiency causes a clear adverse outcome - dysfunction or death. In other words, it is what is needed for a safe and healthy life (e.g. food, water, shelter).

In contact with

In addition to this, people have needs of a social nature: communication in a family or group. Needs can be psychological or subjective, such as the need for self-esteem and respect.

Needs are a need experienced and perceived by a person. When this need is supported by purchasing power, it can become an economic demand.

Types and description of needs

As it is written in the 6th grade social studies textbook, needs are divided into biological, necessary for anyone to live, and spiritual, which are necessary for understanding the world around us, gaining knowledge and skills, achieving harmony and beauty.

For most psychologists, a need is a psychological function that prompts action, giving purpose and direction to behavior. It is an experienced and perceived need or need.

Basic needs and human development (driven by the human condition) are few, finite, and classified as distinct from the conventional notion of ordinary economic “desires,” which are endless and insatiable.

They are also constant in all human cultures, and over historical periods of time can be understood as a system, that is, they are interconnected and interactive. There is no hierarchy of needs in this system (beyond the basic need for existence or survival), since simultaneity, complementarity, and trade-offs are features of the satisfaction process.

Needs and wants are the subject of interest and form a common substratum for sections:

• philosophy;
• biology;
• psychology;
• social sciences;
• economy;
• marketing and politics.

The well-known academic model of needs was proposed by the psychologist Abraham Maslow in 1943. His theory suggests that humans have a hierarchy of psychological desires that range from basic physiological or lower needs such as food, water and security to higher ones such as self-fulfillment. People tend to spend most of their resources (time, energy and finances) trying to satisfy basic needs before higher desires.

Maslow's approach is a generalized model for understanding motivation in a wide variety of contexts, but can be adapted to specific contexts. One difficulty with his theory is that concepts of "needs" can change radically among different cultures or between different parts of the same society.

The second notion of necessity is presented in the work of the professor of political economy Yana Gou, which published information on human needs in the context of social assistance provided by the welfare state. Together with Professor of Medical Ethics Len Doyle, he also published The Theory of Human Need.

Their view goes beyond the emphasis on psychology, it can be said that the needs of the individual represent a "cost" in society. One who cannot meet his needs will function poorly in society.

According to Gou and Doyle, everyone has an objective interest in preventing serious harm that prevents him from striving to achieve his vision of what is good. This drive requires the ability to participate in a social setting.

In particular, each individual must have physical health and personal autonomy. The latter includes the ability to make informed choices about what to do and how to implement it. This requires mental health, cognitive skills and the ability to participate in society and make collective decisions.

Needs Satisfaction Issues

Researchers identify twelve broad categories of "intermediate needs" that define how needs for physical health and personal autonomy are met:

• adequate food and water;
• adequate housing;
• safe working environment;
• clothes;
• safe physical environment;
• appropriate medical care;
• childhood safety;
• meaningful primary relationships with others;
• physical security;
• economic security;
• safe birth control and childbearing;
• appropriate basic and intercultural education.

How satisfaction details are determined

Psychologists point to the rational identification of need using modern scientific knowledge, consideration of the actual experience of people in their daily lives and democratic decision making. Satisfaction of human needs cannot be imposed "from above".

Individuals with greater intrinsic assets (eg education, mental health, physical strength, etc.) are better able to meet their wants and needs.

Other types

In their works Karl Marx defined people as "needy beings" who experienced suffering in the process of learning and working to meet their needs, which were both physical and moral, emotional and intellectual necessities.

According to Marx, the development of people is characterized by the process of satisfying their needs, they develop new desires, implying that in some way they create and remake their own nature. If people satisfy their need for food through crop and animal husbandry, then a higher level of social self-knowledge is required to satisfy spiritual thirst.

People differ from other animals because their life activity, work is dictated by the satisfaction of needs. They are universal natural beings capable of turning all nature into the object of their needs and their activities.

The conditions for people, as social beings, are given by labor, but not only by work, since it is impossible to live without relationships with others. Work is a social activity because people work with each other. Humans are also free beings, capable of reaching objective possibilities generated by social evolution during their lifetime based on their conscious decisions.

Freedom should be understood both in a negative sense (freedom to decide and establish relationships) and in a positive sense (dominion over natural forces and the development of human creativity of basic human forces).

Summing up, it should be noted that the main interrelated features of people are as follows:

• people are conscious beings;
• people are social beings.

Humans tend to be universal, which manifests itself in the three previous traits and makes them natural-historical, universal conscious entities.

Rosenberg's Necessity Model

Model Marshall Rosenberg"Compassionate Communication", known as "Hate Communication", defines the difference between universal needs (what sustains and motivates human life) and specific strategies used to satisfy one's needs. Feelings are perceived neither as good nor bad, neither right nor wrong, but as indicators of whether human needs are being met or not. Essential needs are highlighted.

People also talk about the needs of the community or organization. These may include demand for a particular type of business, for a particular government program or organization, or for people with special skills. This example presents the logical problem of reification.

§ 2 The needs of society and ways to meet them

What is a need

A powerful engine of the economy are the needs of society.

Needs- a lack or need for something necessary for the life of people.

Human needs are important distinctive features, which distinguish it from the rest of the animal world. What are they?

First feature. People's Needs change historically quantitatively and qualitatively. These changes are noticeable during the transition from one era of development of the economy and culture of society to another. Take, for example, people who lived at the beginning of the last century.

They did not even imagine in their fantasies that there could be such extraordinary things that have become familiar to our contemporaries - televisions, computers, space stations and much more.

The second feature. Human requests are very change throughout his life. It is one thing for an infant who experiences predominantly physiological needs, and it is completely another for an adult who has mastered a certain specialty.

Third feature. People even of the same age very often have needs, requests, preferences do not match. It is no coincidence that in Russia there are popular sayings and expressions: “There are no comrades for taste and color”, “Tastes do not argue”.

Fourth feature. Modern civilization (the level of material and spiritual culture) knows multiple levels of needs person:

Physiological needs (food, water, shelter, etc.);

The need for security (protection from external enemies and criminals, help in case of illness, protection from poverty);

The need for social contacts (communication with people who have the same interests; in friendship and love);

The need for respect (respect from other people, self-respect, in the acquisition of a certain social position);

The need for self-development (to improve all the capabilities and abilities of a person).

The listed forms of human needs can be visually depicted in the form of a pyramid (Fig. 1.1).

Rice. 1.1. Pyramid of needs of modern man

It is especially important to say about image (external and internal appearance) of the future specialist. As for the appearance of a graduate of a technical school, college, he is usually influenced by the generally accepted norms of culture, fashion and other circumstances. The development of high qualities of his internal image, in which developed needs are manifested, largely depends on the student himself:

Erudition (reading, deep knowledge in various fields of human activity);

Developed intellect (creative thinking);

High culture of human communication;

Fluency in one or two foreign languages;

Ability to use a computer;

High moral behavior.

The 21st century is characterized by a comprehensive development of needs and a high image of specialists.

How does the level of needs of the members of society rise in the course of history? This largely depends on the interaction of social production and the urgent needs of people.

How are demand and production related?

The connection between production and needs is two-way: direct and reverse. Let's consider this connection in more detail.

Production directly and directly affects needs in several ways.

1. The level of production activity determines, in to what extent can it satisfy the demands of people. If, suppose, the country does not produce the required amount of goods (be it bread or cars), then the needs of the people will not be adequately satisfied. In this case, the growth of needs will become impossible.

2. The transition of production to a new level of scientific and technological progress radically renews the objective world and the way of life of people, gives rise to qualitatively different needs. For example, the release and sale of VCRs and personal computers causes a desire to purchase them.

3. production in many ways affects the way people consume useful things and thereby determines a certain household

culture. For example, primitive man was quite content with a piece of meat fried on a fire, which he tore into pieces with his hands. Our contemporary for cooking from the same piece of roast meat requires a gas, electric stove or grill, as well as cutlery.

In turn, needs reverse action for production activities.

1. Needs are a prerequisite and determine the direction of human creative activity. Each farm plans in advance its production of useful products, taking into account the identified needs.

2. Rising needs often overtakes production. It is noteworthy that garment factory workers are eager to find out in advance what new clothes are developed in fashion houses, taking into account the new level of needs.

3. The rise of needs gives them lead role in the progressive development of production - from its lowest level to ever higher ones.

The development of needs directly depends in several directions on the level of production. The latter experiences manifold reverse action from the needs of society.

The study of the interaction between production and needs makes it possible to understand the place and role of new needs of people in the circulation of economic goods.

What is the role of needs in the circulation of goods

First of all, it is important to pay attention to the special nature of the development of the economy - its circular motion.

Just as the cycle of substances is constantly taking place on Earth, in economic activity circulation of economic benefits. Manufactured useful things disappear in the process of their consumption and are re-created in the same or modified form. Such a cycle is a prerequisite for the continuous maintenance and renewal of human life.

The circuit under consideration consists of five main links that are inextricably linked:

Rice. 1.2. Circulation of economic goods

Production;

Distribution;

consumption of goods;

K needs updating.

Now let's look at how the economic cycle works. The chain of inextricable dependencies between its individual links is clearly shown in Fig. 1.2.

Let us consider the cycle of created goods on a concrete example of a peasant economy. The producer first grows, for example, vegetables. Then he distributes them: he keeps some for himself and his family, and the rest goes for sale. In the market, vegetables that are superfluous for the family are exchanged for products that are needed in the household (for example, meat, shoes). Finally, material goods reach the final point - personal consumption. If the needs of a peasant family increase (in connection, say, with the increase in the family), then the production of vegetables will probably expand.

Now we can imagine the circulation of products in the most general form.

The beginning of the cycle is production - the process of creating useful goods. At this time, workers adapt the substance and energy of nature to meet human needs.

Distribution subject to income from industrial activities. The distribution process determines the share of all participants in such activities in the wealth created.

The benefits received from the distribution are often not needed for personal consumption in the amount received. Since people need completely different things, it happens exchange, during which the benefits received are exchanged for other things necessary for a person.

Consumption - the final stage of the movement of the product, which goes to meet the needs of people. As existing needs are met, new ones arise.

Needs are interconnected with all links circulation of blessings. In the process of consumption, there are new requests, which cause a renewal of production.

It may seem that the cycle of goods described here theoretically unambiguously characterizes the relationship between production and needs. However, in practice in many countries there are different options for the ratio of production and needs. What are these options?

What are the modern options for changing production and the needs of society

In the entire world economy at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century, there are three main types of relationships between production, on the one hand, and the needs and consumption of the population, on the other.

First option. In some countries, the long decline of the economy leads to a decrease in both consumption and needs. This process can be likened to a spiraling movement with decreasing circles, such as we observe, say, in the funnel of a whirlpool. Such a plight can be seen, in particular, in certain African countries (for example, in the Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia), where at the end of the 20th century. per capita income declined.

Second option. In some African and Asian countries, the output of a relatively limited range of diverse products is growing very slowly. In this case, the needs are traditional and only gradually expand.

The first and second options characterize a clearly abnormal correlation between changes in production and needs.

Third option. It is possible to recognize the simultaneous growth of the production of the national product and the increase in the level of needs and consumption as normal. The natural rise in needs in this case goes in two directions: vertically and horizontally.

The improvement of people's lives is manifested in the growth of needs vertically.

Prolonged economic disruption in a number of countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States in the 1990s. had a negative impact on the value of the national product (domestic production) per 1 inhabitant and on household consumption expenditures. For example, in 2002 (as a percentage of 1990) such expenses amounted to: in Belarus - 131%, in Kazakhstan - 60%, in Ukraine - 59%.

Rice. 1. . Elevation of the needs associated with the car

Such a change can be traced in the example of people's attitudes towards buying a car (Fig. 1.3).

Rise of Needs horizontally associated with the expansion of consumption by ever wider segments of the population of products of higher quality. This change becomes more noticeable the longer the period of time under study is. We find confirmation of this in Table. 1.4.

Table 1.4

Provision of the population of Russia with durable goods (per 100 families, pieces)

As the German statistician E. Engel established, if the money income of the population grows, then it spends relatively less money on food products, buys more industrial consumer goods (shoes, clothing, etc.), and with a further increase in income, it acquires high-quality items and durable goods.

The most rapid rise in needs vertically and horizontally in the 20th century. characteristic of Western - economically the most developed countries. Here, the growth of production and consumption can be likened to an upward spiral with expanding turnovers.

All the considered options for changing production and needs have a common feature. They express in one form or another contradiction between what people would like to have and what the real economy gives them.

Contradiction between needs and production - main contradiction economic activity in any society.

In the next section, we will find out in what ways and means the main contradiction of the economy is resolved.

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