The social needs of a person are the desires and aspirations inherent in the individual as a representative of the human race.

Humanity is a social system, outside of which the development of the individual is impossible. A person is always part of a community of people. Realizing social aspirations and desires, he develops and manifests himself as a person.

Belonging to a human society determines the emergence of human social needs. They are experienced as desires, drives, aspirations, brightly colored emotionally. They form the motives of activity and determine the direction of behavior, replace each other as some desires are realized and others are actualized.

Biological desires and the nature of people are expressed in the need to maintain vitality and the optimal level of functioning of the body. This is achieved by satisfying the need for something. People, like animals, have a special form of satisfying all kinds of biological needs - unconscious instincts.

The question of the nature of needs remains debatable in the scientific community. Some scientists reject the social nature of desires and drives, others ignore the biological basis.

Types of social needs

Social aspirations, desires, inclinations are conditioned by people's belonging to society and are satisfied only in it.

  1. "For oneself": self-identification, self-affirmation, power, recognition.
  2. "For others": altruism, gratuitous help, protection, friendship, love.
  3. "Together with others": peace on Earth, justice, rights and freedoms, independence.
  • Self-identification consists in the desire to be similar, similar to a particular person, image or ideal. The child identifies with the parent of the same gender and is aware of being a boy/girl. The need for self-identification is periodically updated in the process of life, when a person becomes a schoolboy, student, specialist, parent, and so on.
  • Self-affirmation is necessary, and it is expressed in the realization of potential, well-deserved respect among people and the assertion by a person of himself as a professional in his favorite business. Also, many people strive for power and vocation among people for their own personal purposes, for themselves.
  • Altruism is gratuitous help, even to the detriment of one's own interests, prosocial behavior. A person cares about the other individual as about himself.
  • Unfortunately, selfless friendship is a rarity these days. A true friend is valuable. Friendship should be disinterested, not for the sake of profit, but because of the mutual disposition towards each other.
  • Love is the strongest desire of each of us. As a special feeling and type of interpersonal relationship, it is identified with the meaning of life and happiness. It is difficult to overestimate her. This is the reason for the creation of families and the appearance of new people on Earth. The vast majority of psychological and physical problems from unsatisfied, unrequited, unhappy love. Each of us wants to love and be loved and have a family. Love is the most powerful stimulus, motivation for personal growth, it inspires and inspires. The love of children for parents and parents for children, love between a man and a woman, for one's business, work, city, country, for all people and the whole world, for life, for oneself is the foundation for the development of a harmonious, holistic personality. When a person loves and is loved, he becomes the creator of his life. Love fills it with meaning.

Each of us on Earth has universal human social desires. All people, regardless of nationality and religion, want peace, not war; respect for their rights and freedoms, not enslavement.

Justice, morality, independence, humanity are universal values. Everyone wants them for themselves, their loved ones, humanity as a whole.

While realizing your personal aspirations and desires, you must also remember about the people around you. By harming nature and society, people harm themselves.

Classification of social needs

In psychology, several dozens of different classifications of needs have been developed. The most general classification defines two types of desires:

1. Primary or congenital:

  • biological or material needs (food, water, sleep, and others);
  • existential (security and confidence in the future).

2. Secondary or acquired:

  • social needs (for belonging, communication, interaction, love, and others);
  • prestigious (respect, self-respect);
  • spiritual (self-realization, self-expression, creative activity).

The most famous classification of social needs was developed by A. Maslow and is known as the "Pyramid of Needs".

This is a hierarchy of human aspirations from the lowest to the highest:

  1. physiological (food, sleep, carnal and others);
  2. need for security (housing, property, stability);
  3. social (love, friendship, family, belonging);
  4. respect and recognition of the individual (both by other people and by oneself);
  5. self-actualization (self-realization, harmony, happiness).

As can be seen, these two classifications equally define social needs as desires for love and belonging.

The Importance of Social Needs

Natural physiological and material desires are always paramount, since the possibility of survival depends on them.

The social needs of a person are assigned a secondary role, they follow the physiological ones, but are more significant for the human personality.

Examples of such significance can be observed when a person is in need, giving preference to the satisfaction of a secondary need: a student, instead of sleeping, is preparing for an exam; the mother forgets to eat when caring for the baby; a man endures physical pain, wanting to impress a woman.

A person strives for activity in society, socially useful work, establishing positive interpersonal relationships, wants to be recognized and successful in the social environment. It is necessary to satisfy these desires for successful coexistence with other people in society.

Such social needs as friendship, love, and family are of unconditional importance.

Using the example of the relationship between the social need of people for love, the physiological necessity of carnal relations and the instinct of procreation, one can understand how interdependent and connected these attractions are.

The instinct of procreation in the interaction of a man and a woman is complemented by care, tenderness, respect, mutual understanding, common interests, love arises.

Personality is not formed outside of society, without communication and interaction with people, without meeting social needs.

Examples of children raised by animals (there have been several such incidents in the history of mankind) are a vivid confirmation of the importance of love, communication, and society. Such children, having got into the human community, could not become its full-fledged members. When a person experiences only primary attractions, he becomes like an animal and actually becomes one.

Social needs are a special kind of human needs. Needs, the need for something necessary to maintain the vital activity of the organism of the human person, social group, society as a whole. There are two types of needs: natural and socially created.

Natural needs are the daily needs of a person for food, clothing, shelter, etc.

Social needs are the needs of a person in labor activity, socio-economic activity, spiritual culture, i.e. in everything that is a product of social life.

Needs act as the main motive that prompts the subject of activity to real activity aimed at creating conditions and means for satisfying his needs, i.e., to production activity. They encourage a person to activity, express the dependence of the subject of activity on the outside world.

Needs exist as objective and subjective connections, as an attraction to the object of need.

Social needs include the needs associated with the inclusion of the individual in the family, in numerous social groups and collectives, in various areas of production and non-production activities, in the life of society as a whole.

The conditions surrounding a person not only give rise to needs, but also create opportunities for their satisfaction. The fixation of social needs in the form of value orientations, the realization of the real possibilities for their implementation and the determination of ways and means to achieve them means a transition from the stage of motivation to activity to the stage of more or less adequate reflection of needs in the human mind.

The needs of people, a social group (community) is an objective necessity for the reproduction of a given community of people in its specifically concrete social position. The needs of social groups are characterized by mass manifestation, stability in time and space, invariance in the specific conditions of life of representatives of the social group. An important property of needs is their interconnectedness. It is advisable to take into account the following major types of needs, the satisfaction of which ensures normal conditions for the reproduction of social groups (communities):

1) production and distribution of goods, services and information required for the survival of members of society;

2) normal (corresponding to existing social norms) psychophysiological life support;

3) knowledge and self-development;

4) communication between members of society;

5) simple (or extended) demographic reproduction;

6) upbringing and education of children;

7) control over the behavior of members of the society;

8) ensuring their safety in all aspects. The theory of labor motivation of an American psychologist and sociologist A. Maslow reveals human needs. Classifying human needs, he divides them into basic and derivative, or meta-needs. The merit of Maslow's theory consisted in explaining the interaction of factors, in discovering their driving force.

This concept is further developed in the theory F. Herzberg, called motivational-hygienic. Here are the higher and lower needs.

Types of social needs

Social needs are born in the process of human activity as a social subject. Human activity is an adaptive, transformative activity aimed at producing means to satisfy certain needs. Since such activity acts as a practical application of sociocultural experience by a person, in its development it acquires the character of a universal social production-consumer activity. Human activity can be carried out only in society and through society, it is performed by an individual in interaction with other people and is a complex system of actions determined by various needs.

Social needs arise in connection with the functioning of man in society. These include the need for social activities, self-expression, ensuring social rights, etc. They are not set by nature, are not laid down genetically, but are acquired during the formation of a person as a person, his development as a member of society, are born in the process of human activity as a social subject.

A distinctive feature of social needs, with all their diversity, is that they all act as requirements for other people and belong not to an individual, but to a group of people united in one way or another. The general need of a certain social group is not only made up of the needs of individual people, but also itself causes a corresponding need in an individual. The need of any group is not identical to the need of an individual, but is always in something and somehow different from it. A person belonging to a certain group relies on the needs common with it, but the group forces him to obey its requirements, and in obeying, he is among the dictators. Thus, a complex dialectic of interests and needs of an individual, on the one hand, and those communities with which he is connected, on the other hand, arises.

Social needs are needs defined by society (society) as additionally obligatory to basic needs. For example, to ensure the process of eating (basic need), social needs will be: a chair, a table, forks, knives, plates, napkins, etc. In different social groups, these needs are different and depend on the norms, rules, mentality, living habits and other factors that characterize social culture. At the same time, the presence in the individual of objects that society considers necessary can determine his social status in society.

With a wide variety of social needs of a person, one can distinguish more or less distinct individual levels of needs, each of which shows both its specificity and its hierarchical connections with lower and higher ones. For example, these levels include:

    social needs of an individual (as a person, individuality) - they act as a ready-made, but also a changing product of social relations;

    family-related social needs - in different cases they are more or less broad, specific and strong, and most closely adjoin biological needs;

    social needs universal - arise, as a person, thinking and acting individually, at the same time includes his activity in the activity of other people, society. As a result, an objective need arises for such actions and states that at the same time provide the individual with both community with other people and his independence, i.e. existence as a special person. Under the influence of this objective necessity, the needs of a person develop, directing and regulating his behavior in relation to himself and to other people, to his social group, to society as a whole;

    the need for justice on the scale of humanity, society as a whole is the need for improvement, "correction" of society, in overcoming antagonistic social relations;

    social needs for development and self-development, improvement and self-improvement of a person belong to the highest level of the hierarchy of personality needs. Each person, to one degree or another, is characterized by the desire to be healthier, smarter, kinder, more beautiful, stronger, etc.

Social needs exist in an infinite variety of forms. Without trying to present all the manifestations of social needs, we classify these groups of needs according to three criteria:

    needs "for others" - needs that express the generic essence of a person, i.e. the need to communicate, the need to protect the weak. The most concentrated need "for others" is expressed in altruism - in the need to sacrifice oneself for the sake of another. The need “for others” is realized by overcoming the eternal egoistic principle “for oneself”. The existence and even "cooperation" in one person of opposite tendencies "for oneself" and "for others" is possible, as long as it is not about individual and deep needs, but about the means of satisfying one or another - about the needs of service and their derivatives. The claim to even the most significant place “for oneself” is easier to realize if, at the same time, the claims of other people are not offended as far as possible;

    the need "for oneself" - the need for self-affirmation in society, the need for self-realization, the need for self-identification, the need to have one's place in society, in a team, the need for power, etc. The needs “for oneself” are called social because they are inextricably linked with the needs “for others”, and only through them can they be realized. In most cases, needs "for oneself" act as an allegorical expression of needs "for others"; needs "together with others" unite people to solve urgent problems of social progress. A vivid example: the invasion of the Nazi troops on the territory of the USSR in 1941 became a powerful incentive for organizing a rebuff, and this need was of a universal nature.

Ideological needs are among the most social human needs. These are human needs in an idea, in explaining life circumstances, problems, in understanding the causes of ongoing events, phenomena, factors, in a conceptual, systemic vision of the picture of the world. The implementation of these needs is carried out through the use of data from natural, social, humanitarian, technical and other sciences. As a result, a person develops a scientific picture of the world. Through the assimilation of religious knowledge by a person, a religious picture of the world is formed in him.

Many people, under the influence of ideological needs and in the process of their implementation, develop a multipolar, mosaic picture of the world with a predominance, as a rule, of a scientific picture of the world in people with a secular upbringing and a religious one in people with a religious upbringing.

The Need for Justice is one of the actualized and functioning needs in society. It is expressed in the ratio of rights and obligations in the mind of a person, in his relationship with the public environment, in interaction with the social environment. In accordance with his understanding of what is fair and what is unfair, a person evaluates the behavior, actions of other people.

In this regard, a person can be oriented:

    to uphold and expand, first of all, their rights;

    on the predominant performance of their duties in relation to other people, the social sphere as a whole;

    to a harmonious combination of their rights and obligations in solving social and professional tasks.

aesthetic needs play an important role in human life. The realization of the aesthetic aspirations of the individual is influenced not only by external circumstances, conditions of life and human activity, but also by internal, personal prerequisites - motives, abilities, volitional preparedness of the individual, understanding of the canons of beauty, harmony in the perception and implementation of behavior, creative activity, life in general according to the laws of beauty, in an appropriate relation to the ugly, base, ugly, violating the natural and social harmony.

An active long life is an important component of the human factor. Health is the most important prerequisite for understanding the world around us, for self-affirmation and self-improvement of a person, therefore the first and most important human need is health. The integrity of the human personality is manifested, first of all, in the relationship and interaction of the mental and physical forces of the body. The harmony of the psychophysical forces of the body increases the reserves of health. Replenish your health reserves through rest.

  1. Sociology exam answers
  2. Theoretical premises in sociology. Social knowledge in antiquity. Plato, Aristotle and private property
  3. Theoretical premises of sociology. Social knowledge in modern times
  4. The emergence of sociology in the first half of the XIX century. and forerunners of general sociology
  5. positivist sociology of O. Comte
  6. Classical stage in the development of sociology. The positivist sociologist Herbert Spencer
  7. Classical stage in the development of sociology. Socio-philosophical theory of Marxism
  8. Classical stage in the development of sociology. Georg Simmel
  9. Classical stage in the development of sociology. Émile Durkheim
  10. Classical stage in the development of sociology. Max Weber
  11. Classical stage in the development of sociology. The "understanding" sociology of Max Weber
  12. Subject and object of modern sociology
  13. Structure and functions of sociology
  14. Modern Western sociology (classification of modern sociological trends according to P. Monson)
  15. Symbolic interactionism (G. Blumer)
  16. Phenomenological sociology (A. Schutz)
  17. Integrative sociological theory of J. Habermas
  18. Theories of social conflict (R. Dahrendorf)
  19. Development of sociology in Russia
  20. Integral sociology P. A. Sorokina
  21. The concept of social
  22. Social and societal systems
  23. Society as a societal system
  24. Types of societies. Classification
  25. Social laws and social relations
  26. Social activity and social action
  27. Social connections and social interaction
  28. social institution
  29. social organization. Types of organizations and bureaucracy
  30. Social community and social group
  31. Sociology of small groups. small group
  32. social control. Social norms and social sanctions
  33. Deviant behavior. Causes of deviation according to E. Durkheim. Delinquent behavior
  34. Public opinion and its functions
  35. Bulk Actions
  36. Socio-political organization of society and its functions
  37. Relationship between society and the state
  38. social change
  39. Social movements and their typologies
  40. Sociology of religion. Functions of Religion
  41. Social management and social planning
  42. Post-industrial society. Global system
  43. Information society and e-government
  44. General characteristics of the world community and the world market
  45. Modern trends in international economic relations. Criteria for socio-economic progress
  46. International division of labor
  47. Virtual network communities, telework. Information stratification
  48. Russia's place in the world community
  49. The concept of culture. Types and functions of culture
  50. What are cultural universals. Basic elements of culture
  51. Sociocultural supersystems
  52. The concept of "personality". Sociology of personality
  53. Personality socialization
  54. Periodization of personality development (according to E. Erickson)
  55. The concepts of social status and social role
  56. Socio-role conflict and social adaptation
  57. Social needs. The concept of human needs (A. Maslow, F. Herzberg)
  58. The concept of social structure
  59. Social inequality and social stratification. Types of social stratification
  60. Cumulative socioeconomic status
  61. Social stratum and social class. social stratification
  62. The concept of social mobility, its types and types
  63. Channels of vertical mobility (according to P. A. Sorokin)
  64. Major changes in the social stratification of Russian society
  65. The social structure of modern Russian society as a system of groups and layers (according to T. I. Zaslavskaya)
  66. Middle class and discussions about it
  67. What is marginality? Who are the marginals?
  68. The concept of the family and its functions
  69. The main types of modern family
  70. Functions of social conflicts and their classification
  71. Subjects of conflict relations
  72. Mechanisms of social conflict and its stages
  73. Managing social conflict
  74. Sociology of labor. Its main categories
  75. The main schools of Western sociology of labor (F. Taylor, E. Mayo, B. Skinner)
  76. Stimulation and motives of work
  77. Labor collectives, their types
  78. Conflicts in production: their types and types
  79. Causes of conflicts in production teams. Social tension. Functions of industrial conflict
  80. Economics as a special sphere of public life and economic sociology
  81. General characteristics of the labor market
  82. Unemployment and its forms
  83. Sociology of regions
  84. Sociology of settlement and the concept of demography. Population
  85. Population reproduction and social reproduction
  86. Socio-territorial communities. Sociology of city and countryside
  87. The process of urbanization, its stages. Migration
  88. The main categories of ethnosociology. ethnic community, ethnos
  89. Sociological research and its types
  90. Sociological Research Program
  91. Sociological research methods: survey, interview, questioning, observation
  92. Document analysis
  93. Literature
  94. Content

Human needs as a source of his activity

08.04.2015

Snezhana Ivanova

The very needs of a person are the basis for the formation of a motive, which in psychology is considered as the “engine” of a personality ...

Man, like any living being, is programmed by nature to survive, and for this he needs certain conditions and means. If at some point in time these conditions and means are absent, then a state of need arises, which causes the appearance of a selective response of the human body. This selectivity ensures the occurrence of a response to stimuli (or factors) that are currently the most important for normal life, life preservation and further development. The experience by the subject of such a state of need in psychology is called a need.

So, the manifestation of a person's activity, and, accordingly, his life activity and purposeful activity, directly depends on the presence of a certain need (or need), which requires satisfaction. But only a certain system of human needs will determine the purposefulness of his activities, as well as contribute to the development of his personality. The very needs of a person are the basis for the formation of a motive, which in psychology is considered as a kind of “engine” of a personality. and human activity directly depends on organic and cultural needs, and they, in turn, give rise to, which directs the attention of the individual and its activity to various objects and objects of the world with the aim of their knowledge and subsequent mastery.

Human needs: definition and features

Needs, which are the main source of personality activity, are understood as a special internal (subjective) feeling of a person's need, which determines his dependence on certain conditions and means of existence. The activity itself, aimed at satisfying human needs and regulated by a conscious goal, is called activity. The sources of personality activity as an internal motivating force aimed at satisfying various needs are:

  • organic and material needs (food, clothing, protection, etc.);
  • spiritual and cultural(cognitive, aesthetic, social).

Human needs are reflected in the most persistent and vital dependencies of the organism and the environment, and the system of human needs is formed under the influence of the following factors: the social conditions of people's lives, the level of development of production and scientific and technological progress. In psychology, needs are studied in three aspects: as an object, as a state, and as a property (a more detailed description of these values ​​is presented in the table).

The Importance of Needs in Psychology

In psychology, the problem of needs has been considered by many scientists, so today there are quite a lot of different theories that understand needs as needs, as well as the state, and the process of satisfaction. For example, K. K. Platonov I saw in needs, first of all, a need (more precisely, a mental phenomenon of reflecting the needs of an organism or personality), and D. A. Leontiev considered needs through the prism of activity in which it finds its realization (satisfaction). Famous psychologist of the last century Kurt Lewin Under the needs, first of all, he understood the dynamic state that occurs in a person at the moment he performs some action or intention.

An analysis of various approaches and theories in the study of this problem allows us to say that in psychology, the need was considered in the following aspects:

  • as a need (L.I. Bozhovich, V.I. Kovalev, S.L. Rubinstein);
  • as an object of satisfaction of need (A.N. Leontiev);
  • as a necessity (B.I. Dodonov, V.A. Vasilenko);
  • as the absence of good (V.S. Magun);
  • as an attitude (D.A. Leontiev, M.S. Kagan);
  • as a violation of stability (D.A. McClelland, V.L. Ossovsky);
  • as a state (K. Levin);
  • as a systemic reaction of the personality (E.P. Ilyin).

Human needs in psychology are understood as dynamically active states of the personality, which form the basis of its motivational sphere. And since in the process of human activity, not only the development of the individual takes place, but also changes in the environment, needs play the role of the driving force of its development, and here their subject content is of particular importance, namely the volume of the material and spiritual culture of mankind that affects the formation of needs. people and their satisfaction.

In order to understand the essence of needs as a driving force, it is necessary to take into account a number of important points highlighted E.P. Ilyin. They are as follows:

  • the needs of the human body must be separated from the needs of the individual (at the same time, the need, that is, the need of the body, may be unconscious or conscious, but the need of the individual is always conscious);
  • a need is always associated with a need, by which it is necessary to understand not a deficit in something, but a desire or a need;
  • from personal needs it is impossible to exclude the state of need, which is a signal for choosing a means of satisfying needs;
  • the emergence of a need is a mechanism that includes human activity aimed at finding a goal and achieving it as a need to satisfy the need that has arisen.

Needs are passive-active in nature, that is, on the one hand, they are due to the biological nature of a person and the lack of certain conditions, as well as his means of subsistence, and on the other hand, they determine the activity of the subject to overcome the deficit that has arisen. An essential aspect of human needs is their social and personal nature, which finds its manifestation in motives, motivation and, accordingly, in the entire orientation of the individual. Regardless of the type of need and its focus, they all have the following features:

  • have their object and are the awareness of need;
  • the content of needs depends primarily on the conditions and methods of their satisfaction;
  • they are able to reproduce.

In the needs that form human behavior and activity, as well as in production motives, interests, aspirations, desires, inclinations and value orientations, the basis of the individual's behavior lies.

Types of human needs

Any human need initially represents the organic interweaving of biological, physiological and psychological processes, which determines the presence of many types of needs, which are characterized by strength, frequency of occurrence and ways to satisfy them.

Most often in psychology, the following types of human needs are distinguished:

  • isolated according to origin natural(or organic) and cultural needs;
  • distinguished by direction material needs and spiritual;
  • depending on the area to which they belong (fields of activity), they distinguish the needs for communication, work, rest and knowledge (or educational needs);
  • according to the object, needs can be biological, material and spiritual (they also distinguish human social needs;
  • by their origin, needs can be endogenous(there are waters due to internal factors) and exogenous (caused by external stimuli).

Basic, fundamental (or primary) and secondary needs are also found in the psychological literature.

The greatest attention in psychology is paid to three main types of needs - material, spiritual and social (or public needs), which are described in the table below.

Basic types of human needs

material needs of a person are primary, since they are the basis of his life. Indeed, in order for a person to live, he needs food, clothing and housing, and these needs were formed in the process of phylogenesis. spiritual needs(or ideal) are purely human, as they primarily reflect the level of development of the individual. These include aesthetic, ethical and needs for knowledge.

It should be noted that both organic and spiritual needs are characterized by dynamism and interact with each other, therefore, for the formation and development of spiritual needs, it is necessary to satisfy the material ones (for example, if a person does not satisfy the need for food, then he will experience fatigue, lethargy, apathy and drowsiness, that cannot contribute to the emergence of a cognitive need).

Separately, one should consider public needs(or social), which are formed and developed under the influence of society and are a reflection of the social nature of man. Satisfaction of this need is necessary for absolutely every person as a social being and, accordingly, as an individual.

Classification of needs

Since the moment psychology became a separate branch of knowledge, many scientists have made a large number of attempts to classify needs. All these classifications are very diverse and basically reflect only one side of the problem. That is why, to date, a unified system of human needs that would meet all the requirements and interests of researchers from various psychological schools and trends has not yet been presented to the scientific community.

  • natural desires of a person and necessary (it is impossible to live without them);
  • natural desires, but not necessary (if there is no way to satisfy them, then this will not lead to the inevitable death of a person);
  • desires that are neither necessary nor natural (for example, the desire for fame).

Informational author P.V. Simonov needs divided into biological, social and ideal, which in turn can be the needs of need (or preservation) and growth (or development). According to P. Simonov, social needs of a person and ideal ones are divided into needs “for oneself” and “for others”.

Quite interesting is the classification of needs proposed by Erich Fromm. A well-known psychoanalyst identified the following specific social needs of a person:

  • a person's need for connections (belonging to a group);
  • need for self-affirmation (sense of importance);
  • the need for affection (the need for warm and reciprocal feelings);
  • the need for self-awareness (one's own individuality);
  • the need for a system of orientation and objects of worship (belonging to a culture, nation, class, religion, etc.).

But the most popular among all existing classifications was the unique system of human needs of the American psychologist Abraham Maslow (better known as the hierarchy of needs or the pyramid of needs). The representative of the humanistic direction in psychology based his classification on the principle of grouping needs by similarity in a hierarchical sequence - from lower needs to higher ones. A. Maslow's hierarchy of needs is presented in the form of a table for ease of perception.

Hierarchy of needs according to A. Maslow

Main groups Needs Description
Additional psychological needs in self-actualization (self-realization) maximum realization of all the potentials of a person, his abilities and personality development
aesthetic the need for harmony and beauty
cognitive the desire to learn and know the surrounding reality
Basic psychological needs in respect, self respect and appreciation the need for success, approval, recognition of authority, competence, etc.
in love and belonging the need to be in a community, society, to be accepted and recognized
in safety the need for protection, stability and security
Physiological Needs physiological or organic needs for food, oxygen, drink, sleep, sex drive, etc.

Having proposed their classification of needs, A. Maslow clarified that a person cannot have higher needs (cognitive, aesthetic and the need for self-development), if he has not satisfied the basic (organic) needs.

Formation of human needs

The development of human needs can be analyzed in the context of the socio-historical development of mankind and from the standpoint of ontogenesis. But it should be noted that both in the first and in the second case, material needs will be the initial ones. This is due to the fact that they are the main source of activity of any individual, pushing him to maximum interaction with the environment (both natural and social)

On the basis of material needs, the spiritual needs of a person developed and transformed, for example, the need for knowledge was based on satisfying the needs for food, clothing and housing. As for aesthetic needs, they were also formed due to the development and improvement of the production process and various means of life, which were necessary to provide more comfortable conditions for human life. Thus, the formation of human needs was determined by socio-historical development, during which all human needs developed and differentiated.

As for the development of needs during a person's life path (that is, in ontogenesis), here everything also begins with the satisfaction of natural (organic) needs, which ensure the establishment of relationships between a child and adults. In the process of satisfying basic needs, children develop needs for communication and cognition, on the basis of which other social needs appear. An important influence on the development and formation of needs in childhood is provided by the process of education, through which the correction and replacement of destructive needs is carried out.

Development and formation of human needs according to A.G. Kovalev must obey the following rules:

  • needs arise and are strengthened through the practice and systematic consumption (that is, habit formation);
  • the development of needs is possible in conditions of expanded reproduction in the presence of various means and ways of satisfying it (the emergence of needs in the process of activity);
  • the formation of needs occurs more comfortably if the activity necessary for this does not exhaust the child (lightness, simplicity and a positive emotional mood);
  • the development of needs is significantly influenced by the transition from reproductive to creative activity;
  • the need will be strengthened if the child sees its significance, both personally and socially (assessment and encouragement).

In addressing the question of the formation of human needs, it is necessary to return to the hierarchy of needs of A. Maslow, who argued that all human needs are given to him in a hierarchical organization at certain levels. Thus, from the moment of his birth, in the process of his growing up and personality development, each person will consistently manifest seven classes (of course, this is ideal) of needs, ranging from the most primitive (physiological) needs and ending with the need for self-actualization (the desire for maximum realization the personality of all its potentialities, the most complete life), and some aspects of this need begin to manifest themselves not earlier than adolescence.

According to A. Maslow, a person's life at a higher level of needs provides him with the greatest biological efficiency and, accordingly, a longer life, better health, better sleep and appetite. In this way, purpose of satisfying needs basic - the desire for the emergence of higher needs in a person (in knowledge, in self-development and self-actualization).

The main ways and means of meeting needs

Satisfaction of human needs is an important condition not only for its comfortable existence, but also for its survival, because if organic needs are not met, a person will die in a biological sense, and if spiritual needs are not satisfied, then the individual as a social entity dies. People, satisfying different needs, learn in different ways and learn different means to achieve this goal. Therefore, depending on the environment, conditions and the individual himself, the goal of satisfying needs and the ways to achieve it will differ.

In psychology, the most popular ways and means of satisfying needs are:

  • in the mechanism of formation of individual ways for a person to meet their needs(in the process of learning, the formation of various connections between stimuli and subsequent analogy);
  • in the process of individualization of ways and means of satisfying basic needs, which act as mechanisms for the development and formation of new needs (the very ways to satisfy needs can turn into themselves, that is, new needs appear);
  • in concretizing the ways and means of meeting the needs(there is a consolidation of one method or several, with the help of which the satisfaction of human needs occurs);
  • in the process of mentalization of needs(awareness of the content or some aspects of the need);
  • in the socialization of ways and means of satisfying needs(they are subordinated to the values ​​of culture and the norms of society).

So, at the heart of any activity and activity of a person there is always some kind of need, which finds its manifestation in motives, and it is the needs that are the motivating force that pushes a person to movement and development.

The needs of society is a sociological category based on collective habits, that is, what came from our ancestors and took root in society so strongly that it exists in the subconscious. This is what is interesting about the needs that depend on the subconscious, not amenable to analysis, considering a specific individual. They must be considered globally, relative to society.

Goods are needed to satisfy needs. Accordingly, economic needs are those for the satisfaction of which economic benefits are necessary. In other words, economic needs are that part of human need, the satisfaction of which requires the production, distribution, exchange and consumption of goods. From this we can conclude that any person needs the economic sphere to satisfy at least his primary needs. Any person, be it a celebrity, a scientist, a singer, a musician, a politician, a president, first of all, depends on his natural beginning, which means it concerns the economic life of society, and cannot create, create, manage without touching the economic sphere.

Human needs can be defined as a state of dissatisfaction, or need, which he seeks to overcome. It is this state of dissatisfaction that makes a person make certain efforts, i.e., carry out production activities.

Scientific studies in the 20th century of complex dynamic systems (elementary particles, biological formations, social phenomena) allow us to assert that society is not just any and not a simple set of individuals that make it up. Of course, society is made up of individuals and cannot exist without them. However, not all associations of individuals form a society.

The primary associations of individuals are small social groups. They have common needs, interests, goals. For example, a football team. The circle of concerns of football players includes only scoring goals to opponents and nothing more. That is, they are not concerned with food production, or the construction of stadiums, or the provision of medical care for injuries, or many other things that society is concerned about. And therefore, any small social group is not yet a society.

Unlike a small social group society- this is an association of people that has self-sufficiency, i.e. is capable of creating and recreating all the necessary conditions for coexistence by its own activity. Society is not just a collection of individuals that form it, but a self-sufficient system. And as a system, it has qualities that its individual constituents do not possess. Systemic qualities are not just the sum of homogeneous qualities, but their generalization and transformation. The qualities of individuals who are united in a social system are generalized in the sense that when they are involved in society, the general is extracted from them and the individual, the individual is discarded. And this common set of individual qualities, when combined, is subject to the goals and objectives of the self-sufficient existence of the systemic whole. As a result, generalized individual qualities are transformed into new ones - social qualities.

This mechanism also operates in the process of transforming individual needs and interests into public ones. However, this transformation does not occur immediately, but through the needs and interests of small social groups. The latter act as a kind of transitional link between the needs of the individual and society.

The generalization of individual needs in a small social group leads, firstly, to a qualitative change in their content. Take, for example, the individual need for self-affirmation. A small social group also shows self-affirmation to a certain extent, carrying out a competitive struggle with small similar social groups. But this self-assertion is essentially different from the self-assertion of an individual in the same small social group. Self-affirmation of individuals in a group can be carried out by improving their work, increasing labor productivity, increasing the quality of products, which contributes to improving the work of the group and, accordingly, its self-affirmation. But it can also be due to the struggle between individuals (setting up, cohesion of warring factions within the group, squabbles, etc.), which worsens the work of the group as a whole and therefore does not contribute to its self-affirmation in competition with other groups. Thus, even the same need inherent in an individual and a small social group has different content, different satisfaction and different consequences.

Secondly, the generalization of individual needs in a small social group gives rise to fundamentally new needs that are absent from individuals. And this is natural, because the very purpose for which a small social group is created and functions is determined by society either independently to satisfy only social needs, or together with individuals to satisfy social and individual needs. An example of the first group is the team of a mining and processing plant for the production of pellets for a metallurgical enterprise, an example of the second group is an ambulance team. In any case, a small social group is a social form of involving an individual in public life in order to satisfy certain social needs.

A small social group is at the same time a transitional form from the individual to society and vice versa. Hence, the needs of a small social group represent a certain unity of individual and social needs, they can be said to be a transformed form. For in the main small social group, the individual, as a rule, does not satisfy his needs, but earns money, which acts as a universal means of satisfying, if not all, then many of the needs of the individual. At the same time, the social need, realized in the activity of a small social group, does not entirely belong to society, for it bears the stamp of the specific features of this group. The exclusion of these features of small social groups is achieved through their generalization and expression in the activities of large social groups. For example, the specific features of the collectives of industrial enterprises disappear only in the activities of the total industrial workers: workers, engineers, managers (managers). It is only in the activities of large social groups that the needs of society find their final form and realization. This activity is carried out, naturally, through the activity of individuals in small social groups. But it is essentially different from the activity of the same individuals who satisfy their own needs. Although quite often there is a coincidence of individual and social needs, when an individual likes his activity in a small social group and, accordingly, it satisfies his particular need.

The needs of society are extremely diverse. To satisfy them, the corresponding spheres are formed, which are either a part of social life, or its side, aspect. The first have a certain spatio-temporal localization. For example, the economic sphere, political, household, medical, sports and physical culture, education, etc. The latter are inherent in the whole society, representing one or another section of public life. For example, the moral sphere, aesthetic, legal, social, etc.

Each of the spheres of society is formed and exists to meet a certain type of social needs. In accordance with this, the following social needs are distinguished:

  • 1. economic- the needs of the production of material goods, their distribution and consumption;
  • 2. social- the need to normalize relations between different social groups;
  • 3. political - needs for the exercise of power and control in society;
  • 4. legal - the need to regulate relations between people by the rules of law, which are provided by the power of the state;
  • 5. household - the needs of individuals necessary for the production of man and the activities of people during non-working hours;
  • 6. sports and physical education - the needs of physical development and improvement of a person;
  • 7. medical - the need to preserve and improve people's health, prevent and treat diseases;
  • 8. educational - the need for organization, provision and implementation of the process of assimilation of systematized knowledge, skills and abilities;
  • 9. scientific - the need for knowledge of nature, society and man, their interaction;
  • 10. spiritual - the need to create, disseminate and

consumption of spiritual goods: literary, musical,

theatrical, moral, philosophical, religious and others;

11. socio-cultural - the need for the creation, distribution and consumption of material and spiritual goods, values, services (restaurant, hotel, excursion, tourist, entertainment, folk craft, etc.).

Social needs are realized in the activities of various large and small social groups, individuals who have their own specific needs, interests and ideas in relation to the same goods, values, services. This gives rise to the inconsistency of their activities in the implementation of social needs. Therefore, social needs are always internally contradictory. To the greatest extent, the state of inconsistency, the degree of its aggravation and the nature of resolution depend on large social groups, their level of maturity (correctly or incorrectly they understand their interests, they have a scientific or religious worldview, they treat other social groups egoistically or altruistically, etc. .) and the nature of the relationship between them (whether they are antagonistic or not, contradictory or compromise). Among large social groups, the main political groups of society play a leading role in determining the direction and nature of satisfying social needs (in the history of mankind, these are the dominant and oppressed, now they are the nomenklatura or the ruling elite and the people).

Formation and development of public needs

The concept of "formation of needs" of the population in theory and practice is considered in two aspects: firstly, as an objective process of their development, and secondly, as a certain type of activity of society and the state.

In the first sense, it characterizes the objective process of the movement of needs, determined by the law of their elevation; in the second, it acts as a kind of purposeful influence of society and the state on the upbringing of a harmoniously developed personality.

When analyzing the formation of needs as an objective process, it is important to correctly identify the factors that determine it.

Needs formation factors are the conditions and circumstances under the influence of which the needs of the population are formed and developed.

These factors are divided into objective and subjective.

Objective factors include those that act independently of the will and consciousness of people and are external in relation to the person himself as a carrier or subject of needs. These include the socio-economic and cultural conditions of life of the population in a given country, on which the degree of development of needs and the possibility of satisfying them directly depend; the level of development of productive forces and production relations, which determines the living conditions of the population; the level of social production and scientific and technical progress; the intensity of its penetration in the sphere of personal consumption; natural and climatic conditions; sex and age composition of the population, number of families, their composition, etc.

Subjective factors depend on the individual himself, the psychophysiological characteristics of the personality. These are the opinions, preferences and tastes of a person, his inclinations, habits, etc. However, as is known from sociology, they are also formed in a certain social environment, which significantly affects them.

The process of formation and development of personal needs is characterized by certain patterns. There are general patterns of formation and development of needs and specific ones.

The general patterns of the formation of needs are inherent in any social system and are manifested at all stages of the development of human society, for example, an increase in the overall size of needs, their qualitative elevation and improvement.

Specific characterize certain aspects of the development of personal needs, including those that are inherent in certain socio-economic formations.

The means of forming needs are the levers with the help of which the state and society purposefully influence the processes of development of needs. These include: educational and promotional activities, promotional activities aimed at arousing and creating a need for a particular product and service. The use of various methods of influencing the consumer requires knowledge of the motives of his behavior, tastes and preferences. The specifics of modern demand is such that it is not economically profitable to produce goods designed for a universal level of requirements. It is advisable to create such products that would meet the specific requirements of a certain contingent of consumers, depending on demographic characteristics, living conditions, climatic and household characteristics. For example, it makes no sense to build a fashion store in the city's slums, or sell air conditioners in Kalyma or Alaska.

It is possible to effectively use a differentiated approach to studying, satisfying and shaping the demand of various categories of consumers on the basis of the so-called market segmentation, which considers the market not as a homogeneous mass, but as a sum of segments (sectors), each of which manifests a special nature of demand. Market segmentation involves work on the typology of consumers, i.e., identifying the most important types of consumers and their specific requirements, depending on demographic, socio-economic, psychological and other differences. For example, research in the field of the formation of the population's demand for clothing indicates the existence of two main age groups that have different requirements for modern clothing. So the first group - the youth group - makes increased demands on aesthetic parameters, the appearance of clothing items, its conformity to fashion, etc. The second group, older people, gives preference to the convenience of clothing and the materials used. In this case, you should take care of the store design, age, gender and external data of the seller. That is, it is necessary to calculate everything based on the needs of that part of society with which the store, salon or industry deals.

Some types of needs in any society are formed over the years. They are passed down from generation to generation and take root in the subconscious of members of society. This is influenced by many factors, including the social structure, some natural resources, ideology. There are traditions and customs. All this refers to non-price factors of changes in demand.

More than once I have used the word "demand" instead of the word "need". The proximity of these concepts is obvious: suppose the need has passed the stage of origin and is in the process of flourishing, then the demand for the object of this need, that is, the good, will increase. But the concept of "need" is much broader and more diverse.

Needs formation methods - specific ways of using individual funds for an active targeted impact on the needs of the population.

Distinguish between economic, socio-psychological and organizational means and methods of forming needs.

The economic means of forming needs include those that are associated with the economic activities of society, individual enterprises and industries, as well as individuals as carriers of needs. The main of these means are: the production of goods, especially new ones, which brings to life and forms the need for them; progressive changes in the so-called consumption infrastructure (for example, gasification and electrification of everyday life, the development of roads, computer networks, and other means of communication that connect residents of different areas and simplify the transfer of information. This affects both the consumers themselves and their lifestyle in in general.

Socio-psychological means of forming needs include those that influence the minds of consumers. With the help of these means, it is possible to stimulate the development of some needs, to limit socially unpromising, irrational needs.

Organizational means are associated with the organization of the process itself. These include sales exhibitions, various kinds of product reviews, exhibitions of new products, demonstration of clothing models.

Organizational means are used in close interaction with socio-psychological ones.

There are many methods and factors for the formation of needs. Business people starting activities aimed at working with society need to study in detail the objective factors in the formation of the needs of this society, otherwise they may become victims of their own shortcomings.

Questions and tasks for repetition

  • 1. What needs are social?
  • 2. What needs are individual?
  • 3. What are the individual mental and physiological characteristics of a person as the basis of a person's requests and needs.
  • 4. What is the source of development needs?
  • 5. Open the problem of the formation and development of social needs.

The existence of social needs is due to the life of a person with other individuals and with constant interaction with them. Society influences the formation of the personality structure, its needs and desires. Harmonious development of the individual outside of society is impossible. The need for communication, friendship, love can be satisfied only in the process of interaction between a person and society.

What is a "need"?

It's a need for something. It can be both physiological and psychological in nature, serves as a motive for action and "forces" the individual to take steps aimed at satisfying his need. Needs appear in the form of emotionally colored desires and, as a result, its satisfaction is manifested in the form of evaluative emotions. When an individual needs something, he feels negative emotions, and as his needs and desires are satisfied, positive emotions appear.

Dissatisfaction of physiological needs can lead to the death of a living organism, and psychological needs can cause internal discomfort and tension, depression.

The satisfaction of one need leads to the emergence of another. Their infinity is one of the features of the development of the individual as a person.

Needs force us to perceive the surrounding reality selectively, through the prism of our needs. They focus the attention of the individual on objects that contribute to the satisfaction of the current need.

Hierarchy

The diversity of human nature is the reason for the existence of various classifications of needs: by object and subject, areas of activity, temporal stability, significance, functional role, etc. The most widely known hierarchy of needs proposed by the American psychologist Abraham Maslow.

  • The first step is physiological needs (thirst, hunger, sleep, sexual desire, etc.).
  • The second stage is security (lack of fear for one's existence, confidence).
  • The third stage is social needs (communication, friendship, love, caring for others, belonging to a social group, joint activities).
  • The fourth stage is the need for respect from others and oneself (success, recognition).
  • The fifth stage is spiritual needs (self-expression, disclosure of inner potential, achievement of harmony, personal development).

Maslow argues that the satisfaction of needs located at the lower levels of the hierarchy leads to the strengthening of the higher ones. A person who is thirsty concentrates his attention on finding a source of water, and the need for communication fades into the background. It is important to remember that needs can exist simultaneously, the question is only a priority.

social needs

The social needs of a person are not as acute as the physiological ones, but they play a crucial role in the interaction of the individual and society. Realization of social needs is impossible outside of society. Social needs include:

  • the need for friendship;
  • approval;
  • love;
  • communication;
  • joint activities;
  • caring for others;
  • belonging to a social group, etc.

At the dawn of human development, it was social needs that contributed to the development of civilization. People united for protection and hunting, fighting against the elements. Their satisfaction in joint activities contributed to the development of agriculture. The realization of the need for communication spurred the development of culture.

Man is a social being and he tends to communicate with his own kind, therefore the satisfaction of social needs is no less important than physiological ones.

Types of social needs

Distinguish social needs according to the following criteria:

  1. “For oneself” (the desire for self-affirmation, recognition from others, power).
  2. "For others" (the need for communication, protection of others, selfless help, giving up one's desires in favor of others).
  3. “Together with others” (expressed as a desire to be part of a large social group to implement large-scale ideas that will benefit the entire group: uniting for the sake of resisting the aggressor, for the sake of changing the political regime, for the sake of peace, freedom, security).

The first kind can be realized only through the need "for others".

Classification according to E. Fromm

The German sociologist Erich Fromm proposed a different need:

  • connections (the desire of an individual to be part of any social community, group);
  • attachments (friendship, love, desire to share warm feelings and receive them in return);
  • self-affirmation (desire to feel significant for others);
  • self-awareness (the desire to stand out from the background of others, to feel one's own individuality);
  • a reference point (an individual needs a certain standard for comparing and evaluating his actions, which can be religion, culture, national traditions).

Classification according to D. McClelland

American psychologist David McClellad proposed his classification of social needs based on the typology of personality and motivation:

  • Power. People gravitate towards influencing others and being able to control their actions. There are two subtypes of such personalities: those who desire power for the sake of power itself, and those who seek power for the sake of solving other people's problems.
  • Success. This need can only be satisfied if the work begun is successfully completed. It forces the individual to take initiative and take risks. However, in case of failure, the person will avoid repeating the negative experience.
  • Involvement. Such people strive to establish friendly relations with everyone and try to avoid conflicts.

Satisfaction of social needs

The main feature of social needs is that they can be satisfied only through interaction with society. The very emergence of such needs is associated with society at the current stage of cultural and historical development. Activity is the main source of satisfaction of the social needs of the individual. Changing the content of social activities contributes to the development of social needs. The more diverse and complex, the more perfect the system of needs of the individual becomes.

Significance

The influence of social needs should be considered from two sides: from the point of view of the individual and from the point of view of society as a whole.

Satisfying social needs helps a person feel complete, needed, increases self-esteem and self-confidence. The most important social needs are communication, love, friendship. They play a primary role in the development of the individual as a person.

From the point of view of society, they are the engine of development of all spheres of life. The scientist, desiring recognition (satisfaction of the need "for himself"), invents a method of treating a serious illness that saves many lives and contributes to the development of science. An artist who dreams of becoming famous, in the process of satisfying his social need, contributes to culture. There are many such examples, and all of them will confirm that the satisfaction of the needs of an individual is as important for society as for the person himself.

Man is a social being and cannot harmoniously develop outside of him. The main social needs of the individual include: the need for communication, friendship, love, self-realization, recognition, power. Diversity contributes to the development of the system of needs of the individual. Dissatisfaction of social needs causes apathy and aggression. Social needs contribute not only to the improvement of the individual as a person, but also are the engine of the development of society as a whole.


close