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 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 level 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 large intrinsic assets (e.g. education, mental health, physical strength, etc.) have more possibilities to satisfy their desires 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.

Man is a socio-biological being, and accordingly, the needs have a different character, or rather levels. Needs determine motives and personalities. This is the fundamental principle of human life as an individual, personality and individuality. From the article you will learn what are the needs and what is their difference, how they develop, what they depend on and what depends on them.

Needs - a mental state, expressed in discomfort, tension, dissatisfaction with some desire.

Needs can be both conscious and unconscious.

• The perceived needs of a person or group become interests.
• Unconscious - make themselves felt in the form of emotions.

The situation of discomfort is solved by satisfying the desire or if it is impossible to satisfy by suppressing or replacing a similar but accessible need. It encourages activity, search activity, the purpose of which is to eliminate discomfort and tension.

Needs are characterized by several features:

• dynamism;
• variability;
• development of new needs as early ones are satisfied;
• the dependence of the development of needs on the involvement of the individual in various spheres and activities;
• the return of a person to the previous stages of development, if lower needs again become unsatisfied.

Needs represent the structure of the personality, they can be characterized as “a source of activity of living beings, indicating the lack of resources (both biological and sociocultural) necessary for the existence and development of the personality” (A. N. Leontiev).

Need development

Any need develops in two stages:

1. Arises as an internal, hidden condition for activity, acts as an ideal. A person compares knowledge about the ideal and the real world, that is, he is looking for ways to achieve it.
2. The need is concretized and objectified, is the driving force of activity. For example, first a person may realize the need for love, and then look for the object of love.

Needs give rise to motives against which the goal emerges. The choice of means to achieve the goal (need) depends on the value orientations of a person. Needs and motives form the direction of the personality.

Basic needs are formed by the age of 18-20 and do not undergo significant changes in the future. The exception is crisis situations.

Sometimes the system of needs and motives develops disharmoniously, which leads to mental disorders and personality dysfunction.

Types of needs

In general, we can distinguish bodily (biological), personal (social) and spiritual (existential) needs:

• The bodily include instincts, reflexes, that is, everything physiological. The maintenance of human life as a species depends on their satisfaction.
• Everything spiritual and social belongs to the personal. That which allows a person to be a person, an individual and a subject of society.
• Existential refers to everything that is connected with the maintenance of the life of all mankind and with the cosmos. This includes the need for self-improvement, development, creation of a new, knowledge, creativity.

Thus, part of the needs is innate and they are identical in people of all nations and races. The other part is acquired needs, which depend on the culture and history of a particular society, group of people. Even the age of a person contributes.

A. Maslow's theory

The most popular classification of needs (aka hierarchy) is Maslow's pyramid. The American psychologist ranked needs from lowest to highest, or from biological to spiritual.

1. Physiological needs (food, water, sleep, that is, everything related to the body and the body).
2. The need for emotional and physical security (stability, order).
3. The need for love and belonging (family, friendship), or social needs.
4. The need for self-esteem (respect, recognition), or the need for evaluation.
5. The need for self-actualization (self-development, self-education, others "self").

The first two needs are the lowest, the rest are the highest. The lower needs are characteristic of a person as an individual (biological being), the higher ones are characteristic of a person and individuality (a social being). The development of higher needs is impossible without the satisfaction of primary ones. However, after their satisfaction, spiritual needs do not always develop.

Higher needs and the desire for their realization determine the freedom of a person's individuality. The formation of spiritual needs is closely connected with the culture and value orientations of society, historical experience, which gradually becomes the experience of the individual. In this regard, we can distinguish between material and cultural needs.

There are several differences between lower and higher needs:

• Higher needs are genetically developed later (the first echoes occur in late adolescence).
• The higher the need, the easier it is to move it away for a while.
• Life on high level needs means good sleep and appetite, the absence of disease, that is, a good quality of biological life.
• Higher needs are perceived by a person as less urgent.
• Satisfaction of higher needs brings great joy and happiness, ensures the development of the individual, enriches the inner world, fulfills desires.

According to Maslow, the higher a person climbs this pyramid, the healthier he is mentally and more developed as a personality and individuality. The higher the need, the more the person is ready for action.

Theory of K. Alderfer

• existence (physiological and the need for security according to Maslow);
• connectedness (social needs and external assessment according to Maslow);
• development (internal assessment and self-actualization according to Maslow).

The theory is distinguished by two more provisions:

• several needs can be involved at the same time;
• the lower the satisfaction of the higher need, the stronger the desire to satisfy the lower (we are talking about replacing the inaccessible with the available, for example, love with sweet).

Theory of E. Fromm

In Fromm's concept, needs are classified on the basis of the unity of man and nature. The author identifies the following needs:

1. The need for communication and interindividual bonds (love, friendship).
2. The need for creativity. Regardless of the type of specific activity, a person creates the world around him and society itself.
3. The need for a sense of deep roots that guarantee the strength and security of being, that is, an appeal to the history of society, the family.
4. The need to strive for assimilation, the search for an ideal, that is, the identification of a person with someone or something.
5. The need for knowledge and development of the world.

It is worth noting that Fromm adhered to the concept of the influence of the unconscious on a person and attributed needs just to this. But in Fromm's concept, the unconscious is the hidden potential of the individual, the spiritual forces assigned to each person from the very beginning. And also an element of commonality, unity of all people is brought into the subconscious. But the subconscious, as well as the described needs, breaks down on the logic and rationality of the world, clichés and taboos, stereotypes. And most of the needs remain unfulfilled.

The theory of acquired needs D. McClelland

• the need to achieve or accomplish;
• the need for human connection or affiliation;
• the need for power.

• if children are encouraged to control others, then a need for power is formed;
• with independence - the need for achievement;
• when establishing friendship, the need for attachment.

The need to achieve

A person strives to excel other people, to stand out, to achieve established standards, to be successful, to solve complex problems. Such people themselves choose situations where they will be responsible for everyone, but at the same time they avoid too simple or too complex.

The need to join

A person strives to have friendly, close interpersonal relationships based on a close psychological connection, avoids conflicts. Such people are focused on situations of cooperation.

Need for power

A person seeks to create conditions and requirements for the activities of other people, manage them, control them, enjoy authority, decide for other people. A person receives satisfaction, being in a position of influence and control. Such people choose situations of competition, competition. They care about status, not performance.

Afterword

Satisfaction of needs is important for the adequate development of the individual. If biological needs are ignored, a person can get sick and die, and if higher needs are not satisfied, neuroses develop, and other psychological problems arise.

It is worth noting that there are exceptions to the rule “first meet some needs - then develop others”. We are talking about creators and warriors who can set themselves higher goals, despite unmet physical needs, such as hunger and lack of sleep. But for the average person, the following data is characteristic:

• physiological needs are satisfied by 85%;
• in safety and protection - by 70%;
• in love and belonging - by 50%;
• in self-esteem - by 40%;
• in self-actualization - by 10%.

Needs are closely related to the social situation of human development and the level of socialization. Interestingly, this relationship is interdependent.

To determine your own needs, you first have to figure out what they are in general. Psychologists at different times tried to classify human needs, one of the most successful attempts is considered the theory of the "Pyramid", formed in 50-60s of the 20th century by the American psychologist A. Maslow.

Pyramid of Needs

At the bottom rung, the so-called pyramid, are the vital needs. These needs are born together with a person. From the first minute of life there is a need to breathe, eat, drink, sleep. It is thanks to these needs that the normal functioning of the child's body is ensured, and he essentially has no choice whether to satisfy them or not, since this is inherent in unconditioned reflexes.

After their satisfaction, a person has new needs, consisting in the desire for security. Thus, having received food and having slept, a person tries to find a place in which he will be comfortable. Conversely, a hungry, thirsty person neglects the instinct of self-preservation in order to satisfy more necessary needs.

The next step in the pyramid is the need for belonging: the feeling of being a part of any system, society. After that, a person strives not only to belong, but also to stand out among his own environment, to achieve respect and success in any field. This need begins to manifest itself at the age of 11-15, when a teenager, on the one hand, tries to join a group, and on the other, to stand out in it as much as possible.

The top of the pyramid is crowned by the need for self-realization and self-actualization. That is, a person wants not just to work and benefit himself and society, but also to do what he has the ability to do. The example of the Roman emperor Diocletian is very indicative here. At the dawn of his reign, he left the throne and took up agriculture, and to all questions about the reasons for such an act, smiling, he answered: “If you saw what kind of cabbage I grew, you would not ask me.”

Need or desire

Needs and desires differ from each other in that the latter are often socially conditioned. For example, someone really wants to live in a big house. What is it? Only the person himself can answer this question. If only in this way he can feel that he has achieved success - this is the need for respect. But to strive for status housing, just because everyone wants it, is just a desire.

The need to be able to distinguish between these two concepts is explained by the assumption of psychologists that the satisfaction of all needs at the same time can give a person a feeling of happiness, while having fulfilled another desire, you may feel disappointed, because it was not at all what you need.

So, the way to define your own needs:

1. look at each of the steps of Maslow's pyramid and figure out what they mean to you personally;
2. think about how you could meet your own needs;
3. sit in a quiet place and imagine that you have already succeeded, only as realistically as possible. How do you feel? Are there pleasant sensations that you are ready to call happiness? In this case, these are your needs, you can start planning for their implementation.

A prerequisite for this or that act, the source of human activity is a need. People carry out various activities, not inventing them, but needing their results. In "The Dialectic of Nature" F. Engels wrote:
"People are accustomed to explain their actions from their thinking, instead of explaining them from their needs ...".

The need determines the orientation of the organism, individual, personality, social community to the creation and implementation of the conditions of existence and development. The conditions necessary for human life and development are divided into three groups:
a) conditions for the life and development of a person as a natural organism (hence the natural or organic needs);
b) conditions for the life and development of a person as an individual, as a representative of the human race (conditions for communication, knowledge, work);
c) conditions for the life and development of a given person as a person, to satisfy a wide system of his individualized needs. All these conditions form the optimal parameters of human life, his psychophysiological homeostasis.

A need is a need felt by a person to eliminate deviations from the parameters of life that are optimal for him as a biological being, individual and personality.

The most significant, basic needs determine the direction of the entire human psyche - his feelings, thinking, will and sensory systems.

There are potential needs (non-actualized) and actualized needs - the current mental state of tension, discomfort caused by a mismatch between the internal and external conditions of the life of a given individual. This contradiction of internal and external expressed in need is the main factor of human activity.

Needs can be divided into the main types of human activity:
1) the needs associated with labor - the needs of knowledge and creation;
2) developmental needs - the need for play, learning, self-realization;
3) the needs associated with social communication, social identification - moral and spiritual needs.

All these needs are socially conditioned, generated in a certain human society and therefore are called sociogenic.

In addition, a large scope of human needs is due to biological necessity. These needs are called biogenic (vital, from Latin vita - life). These include: 1) the need for security, self-preservation; 2) the need for energy recovery and physical activity; 3) the need to prepare to overcome obstacles (one of the areas for the realization of this need is learning and physical play); 4) the need for procreation.

Abraham Harold Maslow (1908–1970), an American psychologist, proposed the concept of a systematic study of personality psychology based on an analysis of the hierarchy of its value-semantic formations. Maslow created a hierarchical model of personality motivation (Motivation and Personality, 1954) and believed that higher needs guide human behavior to the extent that lower needs are satisfied.

Natural, organic human needs arise without special formation, while all social needs arise only in the process of education. However, even organic human needs are socialized. Depending on what social values ​​the needs are associated with, their different levels are distinguished - higher and lower.

Antisocial behavior is associated with the transition beyond the so-called reasonable needs. Unreasonable needs are hypertrophied needs of lower levels that prevent the development of needs of higher levels. Only the hard work of the individual and the whole society to raise needs can limit unreasonable needs - the hypertrophy of materialism, businessism, utilitarianism.

Material consumption for a socialized personality is primarily a condition for its creative activity. If animals act only in order to consume, then a person consumes in order to act, create, and ensure the progress of social development.

Exorbitant material consumption, which has become an end in itself, is a sign of desocialization of the individual.

The needs of people depend on the historically established level of production and consumption, on the conditions of human life, traditions and dominant tastes in a given social group.

Unlike animals, which have a stable range of needs, human needs are constantly expanding (as their productive capabilities expand).

The historical process of human development is characterized by the objective law of the rise of human needs. For an individual, however, a regression of needs is possible - "spreading" in breadth of the needs of lower levels.

All needs have direction, tension, cyclicality.

From a neurophysiological point of view, a need is the formation of a dominant - a stable excitation of certain brain mechanisms that organize and regulate the necessary behavioral acts.

Needs are fixed in the process of their satisfaction. Satisfied need first fades, but then arises with greater intensity. Weak needs in the process of their repeated satisfaction become more persistent.

A need becomes the basis of a behavioral act only if there are or can be created means and conditions for its satisfaction (object of activity, instrument of activity, knowledge and methods of action). The more diverse the means of satisfying a given need, the more firmly they are fixed.

Need determines the entire adaptive mechanism of the psyche. In this case, the objects of reality are reflected as possible conditions (or obstacles) for satisfying the need. As P. Milner notes, needs are equipped with its detectors and effectors.

The emergence of certain urgent needs, their actualization organizes the psyche to set appropriate goals. At the same time, external influences are selectively covered by the dominant motivational activity of the individual.

The meaning of the word "need" can be guessed intuitively. It clearly comes from the verbs "require", "required". This word means some thing, phenomenon or quality of the surrounding world, which is necessary for a person in a given situation. You can learn more about this concept, its diverse manifestations and meaning from the proposed article.

Concept disclosure

Need is the subjective need of an individual (or social group) to receive one or another object of the surrounding reality, which is a prerequisite for maintaining a normal and comfortable life.

In the human lexicon, there are concepts similar in meaning - "need" and "request". The first is usually used in a situation where a person experiences a shortage of something, the second relates to the field of marketing and is associated with the purchasing power of a person or group of people. Unlike need and demand, need is the need to receive both material and spiritual benefits. So it's a broader concept. It can include both needs and requests.

What are the needs

There is a wide variety of forms this phenomenon. For example, material needs are singled out - those that are associated with obtaining certain resources (money, goods, services) necessary for an individual to maintain good health and mood.

Another large group is spiritual needs. This includes everything related to emotions, self-knowledge, development, self-realization, enlightenment, security, etc. In other words, this is the need for a person to receive what was created by the consciousness of other people.

The third broad group is social needs - that is, those that are associated with communication. This may be the need for friendship and love, attention, approval and acceptance by other people, finding like-minded people, the opportunity to speak out, etc.

Detailed classifications of needs are available in sociology, psychology, and economics. Now we will consider one of the most popular.

Pyramid of Needs

The hierarchy of needs created by the American psychologist Abraham Maslow is widely known. This classification is interesting in that it is a seven-step pyramid. It clearly presents the basic needs of the individual and the role they play. Let us describe successively all these seven steps, from the bottom to the top.

7. At the base of Maslow's pyramid are physiological needs: thirst, hunger, the need for warmth and shelter, sexual desire, etc.

6. Slightly higher is the need for security: security, self-confidence, courage, etc.

5. The need to be loved, to love, to feel one's belonging to people and places.

4. The need for approval, respect, recognition, success. This and the previous stage already include social needs.

3. At a higher level of the pyramid, there is a need for knowledge of the surrounding world, as well as for obtaining skills and abilities.

2. Almost at the top are aesthetic needs: comfort, harmony, beauty, cleanliness, order, etc.

1. And finally, the top of the pyramid represents the need for self-actualization, which includes knowing yourself, developing your abilities, finding your own life path and achieving personal goals.

good or bad

To satisfy a need means to perform a certain action, to receive something in one form or another. But can needs be bad? By themselves, no. However, in some cases, people choose unhealthy ways of satisfaction. For example, smoking with friends (colleagues, fellow students) as a ritual of association helps to satisfy the need for friendship, respect, etc., but is harmful to physical health. How to avoid it? You just need to find replacement options that will satisfy the need, but not be bad habits and self-destructive actions.

There is also an opinion that material needs are something bad, and their satisfaction hinders the spiritual development of a person. But in reality, a variety of physical goods (consumer goods, educational tools, transport, communications) allow you to get food, comfort, education, rest, communication and other components of a harmonious life. A person first satisfies simpler and more urgent needs, and then moves on to complex ones related to creativity, spiritual growth and self-improvement.

What to do with the need

Life without satisfaction of spiritual and social needs is difficult, but possible. Another thing is physical needs, or, in other words, needs. It is impossible to do without them, since they are responsible for maintaining the life of the body. Higher needs are a little easier to ignore than basic ones. But if you completely ignore the desire of the individual to be loved, respected, successful, developed, this will lead to an imbalance in the psychological state.

Satisfaction of human needs begins with the lowest step of the pyramid (physiological needs) and then gradually moves up. In other words, it is impossible to satisfy the higher (social or spiritual) needs of the individual until the simplest, basic ones are satisfied.

Conclusion

Need is what makes both the individual and society as a whole move and develop. The need for something pushes you to look for or invent ways to get what you want. It can definitely be said that without needs, the development of man and the progress of society would be impossible.