Socio-psychological concept of needs. Maslow's pyramid of needs: theory, examples, levels, physiological needs Maslow's Hierarchy of Human Needs

Federal Agency for Higher Education of the Russian Federation

DEPARTMENT OF SOCIO-CULTURAL TECHNOLOGIES

Essayon the subject "Man and his needs."

Subject:

« Socio-psychological concept of needs»

Ekaterinburg 2009

P LA N

1. Physiological needs.

2. Need for security.

3. The need for love and belonging to a social group.

3.1. Need for love.

3.2. The need to belong to a social group.

4. List of used literature.

1. Physiological needs

The first, most fundamental layer of basic human needs is physiological needs, the satisfaction of which is necessary to maintain life. In their origin, they are biological in nature, although they are always satisfied by some socially conditioned methods that have developed in a particular culture. Physiological needs are also called primary, urgent and vital (from the Latin vita - life; thus, it is emphasized that without their satisfaction life is impossible).

“Without a doubt, physiological needs dominate over all others,” A. Maslow writes about them. -- More specifically, this means that the main motivation of a person who is extremely lacking in the most important things in life will be primarily physiological needs more than any other. A person who needs food, security, love and respect is likely to desire food more than anything else.” And further: “For a person who needs food to the extreme, which poses a threat, there are no other interests other than food. He dreams about food, thinks about food, all his experiences are connected only with food, he remembers only food and desires only food.” In addition to the needs for food, the group of basic needs usually includes the needs for clothing and housing. Some physiological needs are not urgent, since a person can exist without satisfying them - as already noted, these include the need for sexual relations.

However, the definition of urgent physiological needs as the needs for food, clothing and housing, often cited by psychologists, is only preliminary and requires clarification. A more complete listing of these needs is given by K. Obukhovsky: they include the needs for certain chemicals, temperature, oxygen for breathing, sleep, food, sensory stimuli and information processing. Using the example of urgent needs, a general pattern is clearly visible: people’s attention is attracted only by those needs that are not satisfied or require constant effort to satisfy. Needs that are easily satisfied by themselves are usually not noticed or are not considered needs at all. Thus, a person has a need for gravity, but it is automatically satisfied by the action of the Earth’s gravitational field and does not seem to us a need. Only space exploration made specialists involved in this realize the importance of gravity for the body.

Cosmonauts experience severe discomfort due to its absence; they are forced to engage in special physical exercises; after returning to Earth, they experience difficulty moving. The mechanism of awareness of other needs operates in a similar way. Thus, the need for clean air became clearly visible only in industrial society due to the huge increase in the emission of harmful substances into the atmosphere. (In large cities in Japan, police were sometimes even forced to stand guard on the streets wearing oxygen masks). Now this need has a significant impact on medical, tourism and recreational services, as well as air conditioning equipment services.

The need for food is also recognized and satisfied in different ways. For many Africans, it can only be met at a minimal level and becomes a matter of life and death, and the middle classes in prosperous Western countries currently hardly notice it. In fact, there have not been food supply crises there for many decades, and the level of material security allows people to easily purchase all the necessary products. A natural decrease in attention to a need due to its long-term and complete satisfaction is an important feature of the human psyche that must be kept in mind when organizing a service.

However, in the modern world, deprivation occurs quite often - i.e. insufficient satisfaction of physiological needs. Deprivation of needs leads to frustration - a complex mental state of oppressive tension, anxiety, feelings of hopelessness and despair. Long-term frustration of basic needs causes profound changes in the worldview, and then in the mental health of individuals and entire sections of society. Therefore, for example, people who have experienced hunger for a long time believe that the main feature of a humane, just society of the future is an abundance of food. This idea was widespread, for example, in Russia during the revolution of 1917. Many people were confident that with the guaranteed availability of food they would be happy for the rest of their lives and would not want anything new.

Changes in human personality under the influence of prolonged hunger affect the subjective, emotional component and therefore are studied not only by objective scientific methods, but also by means of art (artistic cognition). The most detailed description of the impact of hunger on a person was given, for example, by the classic of Norwegian literature Knut Hamsun in the novel “Hunger”, A.P. Platonov in the novel “Chevengur”, Jack London in the story “Love of Life”. Writers Daniil Granin and Oles Adamovich deeply comprehended the phenomenon of hunger during the siege of Leningrad (1941-1944) in The Siege Book.

A scientific description of personality changes as a result of a long famine was given in 1948 by the Russian doctor L. A. Bogdanovich, based on observations from the Second World War. At various stages of fasting, he discovered specific painful changes in the psyche. As a result of very long fasting, mental changes caused by food deficiency seem to be consolidated, and permanent personality changes occur. They manifest themselves, for example, in the creation of unnecessary food supplies. Many Leningraders who survived the siege claimed that they could not throw away leftover food. The experience of prolonged fasting, of course, restructures not only the attitude towards food, but also the entire behavior of the individual, manner of communication, value system, etc.

Observations by psychologists show that not only hunger is of decisive importance, but also a person’s attitude towards it and the ability to maintain self-control. “Among people doomed to long-term hunger by the will of fate or by the will of other people, those who do not panic, remain calm and have a positive attitude towards society live longer.”

Profound changes in human behavior occur when not only the need for food is deprived, but also other physiological needs. Thus, our brain needs to maintain the necessary minimum of information coming from the outside world, which is discovered when a person enters an unusual environment. The lack of information perceived through the senses, or its monotony, causes not only discomfort, but also deep physiological disturbances in the body. Thus, there is a known case when a Japanese company built an office building with perfect sound insulation - no external noise penetrated into it at all. However, the complete silence was so difficult for the employees that they were unable to work in this building. Experiments were also conducted to limit as much as possible external stimuli affecting the senses. In a soundproofed room, the subjects were immersed in a bath with water temperature equal to body temperature, they were put on light-proof glasses, and thus almost completely blocked the channels through which visual, auditory, tactile, gustatory and olfactory information passes to the brain. It turned out that under such conditions a person loses control over his thoughts, orientation in the structure of his own body, and begins to have nightmares and hallucinations. In the end, the experiment was interrupted due to the feeling of panic in the subjects. Even partial exclusion of the influx of fresh impressions leads to significant changes in perception. Thus, the famous speleologist Siffre spent two months alone in a cave in conditions of a lack of visual information and after that he could not distinguish between blue and green colors for a whole month. Participants in Antarctic expeditions, also working in a visually homogeneous environment, began to incorrectly estimate the size of objects, the speed of their movement and the distance to them. There is an assumption that the occurrence of hallucinations in people in the desert is a protective reaction of the psyche to the extreme monotony of the environment. With the help of ideas extracted from memory, the body tries to compensate for the dangerous insufficiency of the flow of external information.

In addition to the need for an optimal flow of information, physiological needs also include the need for movement and physical activity. The main areas of its satisfaction are physical education, sports and tourism.

To summarize, it should be noted that all types of service activities must inevitably take into account the physiological, including the urgent needs of the human body. Of course, serious problems with meeting food needs or problems caused by sensory deprivation do not occur as often (for example, in extreme tourism or natural disasters). However, subtle and competent satisfaction of physiological needs, creation of comfortable conditions for the client (including in the contact area) is always a powerful factor in increasing the efficiency and competitiveness of service activities.

2 . Need for security.

After satisfying basic physiological needs, the most pressing need for an individual becomes the need for safety. In more detail, it can be defined as the need for security, stability, absence of fear, anxiety and chaos; the need to maintain physical and mental health; the need for structure and orderliness in the surrounding world; in law and regulation of social behavior; in help and patronage, etc. The desire for security can turn into a person’s primary need and completely determine his behavior.

Security can be divided into two types: simple physical security and more complex - spiritual and social security. Already at the level of physical safety, it is discovered that this need is perceived differently by people and affects their behavior. Service activities always face the need for security: this is the personal safety of the client (for example, in tourism), the safety of the functioning of technical devices, the safety of the environment, property, money, information security. A company that provides reliable security guarantees takes upon itself the solution of problems important to the client and can gain great advantages in the development of its activities.

The need for security can be satisfied not only in such simple and obvious ways as the physical protection of people, property or the protection of information. The social aspect of security includes the desire to have a reliable job, a bank account, various insurances, and social guarantees (health care, education, pensions). In society there is a need not only for personal, but also for public security - this is the state, financial, and food security of the country. Insufficient provision by the state of these areas of personal and public security (which is currently the case in Russia) naturally increases the demand for the corresponding services of non-governmental organizations.

Finally, in its most general form, a person’s desire for security is expressed in the preference for old things to be new and the familiar to the unknown. Therefore, even the desire to form a religious or philosophical worldview is associated with the need for security. Religion or philosophy organizes knowledge about nature and society into a logically connected meaningful whole, an interconnected system. Thus, the world becomes more understandable and predictable, and therefore less dangerous. In this sense, satisfying the need for cognition also leads to satisfying the need for security.

The desire to keep the world constant and unchanging is characteristic of different periods of the history of society. In its extreme, painful form, it is observed in the behavior of patients with certain types of neurosis. People suffering from them strive with all their might to streamline and stabilize the conditions of their lives so that in no case can any uncontrollable and unexpected phenomena arise. If some unexpected event occurs, such patients consider it a terrible threat to their safety and panic.

The idea of the danger of everything new and unusual is widespread among peoples and tribes at the level of the primitive communal system. Thus, the famous ethnographer Lev Nikolaevich Gumilyov noted that native tribes had a very bad attitude towards the attempts of European missionaries to “improve” their primitive way of life. Such figures are treated with hostility, sometimes they are simply killed. The main value for the tribe is to preserve the established way of life; only this provides the aborigines with security and confidence in the future.

Hostility towards change as something dangerous is widespread in modern society. Thus, sociologists argue that the main guarantor of social stability is the middle class, which makes up the majority of the population of developed countries. The main political feature of the middle class is the desire to maintain a stable, unchanged state of the entire social system. Representatives of this population group consider any changes a potential threat to their safety. Political strategists in Western countries believe that such ideas are typical for women voters. Politicians who want their vote in elections often rely on the old direction of government to remain unchanged, which wins sympathy among people concerned about their security.

Thus, one of the directions for the development of the service sector is to meet security needs. Firstly, it is an integral part of any service activity. Secondly, some of its sectors directly consider maintaining security as their main task (protection of person and property, protection of information). Thirdly, the need for security is indirectly satisfied by science and education, upbringing, the activities of religious organizations, the media, medical, banking, insurance and legal services.

3. Need for loveand belonging to a social group

3.1. Need for love

Psychologists separate the need for love and the need for sexual relationships, although these two needs are deeply interrelated. Thus, K. Obukhovsky considers the need for sex as a biological (or physiological) phenomenon - it is a component of the instinct for preserving the species, a feature of a person that leads to the fact that after reaching the necessary hormonal maturity he is able to receive specific experiences and pleasures. Love is considered as a complex social phenomenon, which, naturally, has its own biological foundations and mechanisms. One of the greatest psychologists and philosophers of the 20th century. Erich Fromm emphasizes that love is a powerful way to overcome an individual’s loneliness and establish his connection with the world of other people. “In a word, a person has the deepest need to get out of the prison of his loneliness.” “Sexual contacts are a natural and normal phenomenon,” continues E. Fromm. - But when they are used only to overcome one's alienation, they are not much different from alcoholism and drug addiction. Sexual satisfaction becomes a desperate attempt to avoid anxiety and fear of loneliness. But the result is disastrous, since a sexual act without love cannot become a bridge over the abyss separating two human beings. Only for a brief moment." E. Fromm draws attention to historical changes in ideas about love: in all centuries they expressed the level of development of the human personality, the state of society and the ideological concepts that dominated it. Thus, everyone knows that in the Middle Ages, erotic love, which prioritized sexual relations, was viewed as something sinful, and love for God was declared the most valuable and sublime. In a mass consumer society, based on the production and consumption of a large mass of goods and services, the ideal of some non-individualized, standard love relationships associated with the consumption of the same set of goods was promoted. Fromm complained about this: “The ideal of non-individualized love is implanted because modern society needs human beings who are as similar as possible, obeying the same orders, while believing that they act in accordance with their desires. Just as modern mass technology requires the standardization of products, social progress requires the utmost leveling of people.” In his famous work “The Art of Loving” (another translation: “The Art of Love”) Fromm analyzes the various forms of manifestation of love and divides it into several types:

love between parents and children;

brotherly love;

mother's love;

erotic love;

self-love;

love for God.

It takes a very long time to consider love in all the complexity of this feeling and in all its manifestations, and it is not necessary. Thousands of books have already been written about this. We are interested in one narrower question - the connection between the need for love and the service sector that exists in modern society.

As E. Fromm noted, even the most intimate feelings of a person are formed under the influence of society with its economy, politics, culture, behavioral stereotypes, etc. In the modern world, a whole sector of the service industry has emerged, one way or another connected with the need for love and - somewhat broader - with the need for people to communicate with each other. These are service areas that organize communication and transfer of information (including through electronic technologies), all kinds of marriage agencies and clubs. Love and care for other people makes us resort to the services of trade, education and health care (caring for children), use the services of travel agencies, theaters, museums and other institutions that organize leisure time. The need for love influences all human behavior, therefore all areas of the service are indirectly involved in its satisfaction. Even something as far removed from intimate experiences as a mobile phone contributes to the development and satisfaction of this need, as it creates a very convenient communication channel.

Various products and services can be used as symbols of love and care. Their manufacturers carefully cultivate the symbolic meaning of their products. Thus, advertisements for jewelry in the United States often indicate that they are directly related to the feeling of love and can make people happier: “Prove how strong love is without saying a word.” “All the existing ways to say “I love you”.” An advertisement for a chain of jewelry stores appeared in Russia, featuring a poster depicting a girl clearly extending her hand, palm up. The inscription on the poster is extremely laconic: “If you love, prove it.” More subtle hints about the need for love and friendship are often used in advertising of tourism, educational and other types of services (for example, advertising for an educational institution usually depicts smiling boys and girls who are clearly very happy with each other’s company). The need for love is important for a person who has already satisfied basic needs and the need for security. Therefore, hints of her satisfaction always increase interest in a product or service.

3.2. Need forbelonging to a social group

A person’s connection with other people is established on the basis of not only the need for love, but also a whole group of needs close to it - communication, friendship, cooperation, mutual understanding, belonging to a social group, etc. In sociology, there are the terms ingroup and outgroup. An outgroup is all “strangers”, “not ours”, to whose community a person does not consider himself a member. An ingroup is “ours”, “ours”, “we” (my family, my friends, my colleagues, fellow soldiers, co-workers, fellow countrymen, etc.). Any person strives to find his ingroup (to which he belongs) and establish a system of social connections, friendships and business relations in it. To do this, he may need a wide variety of services: obtaining education and communication skills characteristic of this group, mastering its way of life, purchasing items used by members of this community.

Emphasizing the importance of the need for contacts, communication, friendship and cooperation, A. Maslow wrote about the situation in his contemporary society: “We still underestimate the enormous importance of good neighborly relations in a common territory, in a clan, with people of the same “sort”, class, company, among colleagues. We have mostly forgotten our animal desires to flock together, to stick together, to unite, to be part of a group. I believe that the significant and dramatic increase in the number of social-psychological training groups, personal development groups, communities united by various goals, is probably partly motivated by this unquenchable thirst for contact, intimacy and belonging. Such social phenomena may be the result of the desire to cope with growing feelings of alienation, coldness and loneliness, which are exacerbated by increasing mobility, the destruction of traditional forms of community of people, the destruction of families, the problem of fathers and sons and the persistent nature of urbanization... The same is observed in groups of soldiers, whom a common external threat forced them into an environment of unexpected brotherhood and intimacy, and who can subsequently carry this closeness throughout their lives. Any society with favorable conditions must satisfy this need in one way or another if it is to survive and remain healthy.”

The needs for love, friendship, communication, and uniting people into social groups exist in any society. They are served directly or indirectly by various types of service activities, which change and evolve along with these needs.

WITHlist of used literature

1. Fromm E. “Psychoanalysis and religion; The art of loving; To have or to be?” Kyiv: Nika-Center, 1998.

2. Granovskaya R.I. “Elements of practical psychology.” St. Petersburg: Rech, 2003.

3. Obukhovsky K. “Galaxy of needs. Psychology of human drives." St. Petersburg: Rech, 2003.

Good day to all! We have already talked about human self-development, the importance of timely recognition and satisfaction of needs, and today I want to talk in more detail about what it is, Maslow’s pyramid of human needs. After all, it has not lost its relevance in the modern world and allows you to look, from the side of psychology, at your life values.

What are needs?

Needs activate the human body so that it gathers all its resources and begins to search for ways to satisfy those needs that are acute for it. Thanks to the ability to recognize and implement them, we develop, achieve success and, in the end, live. Abraham Maslow, a psychologist and scientist, once decided to identify the basic human needs and structured them by placing them in order in the form of a pyramid.

It has 7 levels, which are arranged in a hierarchy, that is, until we satisfy the lowest level, the rest will not be relevant to us, and, in principle, cannot be achieved.

This is a classification of the basic needs of each person, which depend on his lifestyle and value system, because for someone it may seem that only the realization of the most basic needs of the lower level is sufficient, and the person will not have the need to move on. And someone tries to reach the top and does not stop, gradually stepping over each step.

Maslow's pyramid

To begin with, to make it clearer, I will provide you with a drawing for study, in which you will clearly see each step that a person strives to step over in order to achieve his goals:

Classification

1.Physiology

First of all, every person has a need for food, water, health and sex. Without their satisfaction, the life of absolutely any creature on the planet is simply impossible. And even more so the implementation of other goals. After all, when thirsty or hungry, a person does not have thoughts about recognition among other people or about going to the theater, and especially not about searching for his own meaning in life. Have you ever had a time when you were so hungry that nothing was of value or interest? By the way, it happens that simply the philosophy of the future changes.

For example, when a person is constantly undernourished, all his resources and energy are aimed only at satisfying hunger, then he has fantasies that if he got to a place where there is always food, then he would be the happiest person . But then, if suddenly this happens, then he has another need, which he strives to realize, and so constantly, having achieved something, other goals appear that we are trying to conquer.

You can learn more about the physiological needs of a person.

2.Safety

When we are full and not thirsty, the issue of safety becomes relevant. That is, about comfort, is there somewhere to sleep, so that it is warm and cozy. And each person has his own idea of comfort and confidence in the future. After all, for some it is enough to have at least some kind of roof over their heads, but for others it is also necessary to install security, for greater peace of mind.

When there is a space in which we can relax and exhale, then we can realize our other desires without getting stuck in feelings of anxiety and anticipation of danger. For example, the same babies, having just satisfied their hunger, already need an adult and his protection. To be held in their arms, rocked, and only when they feel that they are safe and not alone, they relax and fall asleep.

3.Love and belonging

A very important aspect when there is a desire to communicate, meet new people, feel interest in yourself and experience it in relation to others. It is important to show and receive love, to take care of your partner and feel his attention and support. We are social creatures, and without a sense of belonging, it is very difficult to survive. This could be a family, an interest group, a professional community. It gives us a resource when we know where we came from and who we can rely on.

It is difficult to survive alone in the world, but when there is an understanding that I belong to some part of society, it becomes much easier. It's like the roots of a tree. For example, has it ever happened to you when you met your fellow countryman in another country or city and felt unspeakable joy, as if you had known him all your life?

4.Recognition

It is precisely when we discover our belonging that the question of recognition arises. For example, in a professional circle, when they call me a colleague, it means that I am recognized. And then you want them to respect you, to notice your talents and skills, to appreciate you as a professional. And the more this desire, the more ambition a person has, he feels self-confident and achieves success.

It is important to notice this desire in ourselves, because it happens that we push the need for recognition somewhere deep into ourselves for various reasons, for example, believing that it is shameful or scary to be active and bright. And then this unfulfilled desire to be recognized turns into self-destruction when depression or withdrawal into some type of addiction occurs. After all, there is a lot of energy in it that stops and is not realized, and, not finding a way out, simply destroys the personality and health.

You can learn more about human social needs.

5.Self-realization

It becomes important to reach heights, realize potential and develop your spiritual level. The hierarchy of aspirations reaches the point when simply professional activity does not satisfy, and I want to add creative activity. For example, going to the theater, traveling, dancing... At this stage, a person asks himself a question about the meaning of his existence and, in general, about the meaning of being. A lot of interest arises in the surrounding reality, in the quality of one’s life. It is during this period that a reassessment of values and beliefs occurs.

This is a shortened version of the classification, when the first 5 steps are the basic needs. The remaining 2 are needed by people for whom self-realization and advancement are very important, when previous desires have mostly found their way out of energy.

6.Aesthetics

A person in search of achieving inner harmony, it is aimed at contemplating this world, its beauty and amazing manifestations. Physical health and endurance of the body becomes important. In this way, harmony in appearance is also achieved. The first positions in the value system are given to art, from which a person receives aesthetic pleasure.

7.Self-actualization

Achieving one’s goals and plans, when a person’s desire to reach heights prevails, and he does not stop there. Constantly strives for improvement and development. Such a person, as they say, has comprehended Zen because he understands the structure of the world, he is conscious and knows why, how and for what he does something, he knows how to recognize his feelings, and accepts others as they are. Such a person finds his way, this is an amazing state when a person’s hobby brings him a good income, because he recognized his natural inclinations and managed to unlock his potential.

Conclusion

Abraham Maslow's theory of the hierarchy of human needs is still relevant today. In addition, it is used not only in psychology, but also in management. Because time passes, technology does not stand still, every day there are some discoveries, and, despite all this, the needs of humanity remain the same, there is only a change in the ways of their implementation.

Famous Maslow's pyramid of needs, which is familiar to many from social studies lessons, reflects the hierarchy of human needs.

Recently, it has been criticized by psychologists and sociologists. But is it really useless? Let's try to figure it out.

The essence of Maslow's pyramid

In addition, it is obvious that under the same conditions one person will feel some need satisfied, but another will not.

We can say that different people have different heights of the steps of the pyramid. Let's talk about them in more detail next.

Levels of Maslow's pyramid

Quite briefly and succinctly, the essence of Maslow’s pyramid can be explained as follows: until the needs of the lowest order are satisfied to a certain extent, a person will not have “higher” aspirations.

The work of the scientist himself and common sense suggest that the previous level of the pyramid does not necessarily have to be “closed” 100% before there is a desire to be realized at the next level. In addition, it is obvious that under the same conditions one person will feel some need satisfied, but another will not. We can say that different people have different heights of the steps of the pyramid. Let's talk about them in more detail next.

Physiological needs

First of all, this is the need for food, air, water and enough sleep. Naturally, without this, a person will simply die. Maslow also included the need for sexual intercourse in this category. These aspirations make us related and it is impossible to escape them.

Need for security

This includes both simple “animal” safety, i.e. the presence of a reliable shelter, the absence of the threat of attack, etc., and due to our society (for example, people experience enormous stress when there is a risk of losing their job).

Need for belonging and love

This is the desire to be part of a certain social group, to take a place in it that is accepted by other members of this community. The need for love needs no explanation.

Need for respect and recognition

This is recognition of a person’s achievements and successes by as many members of society as possible, although for some their own family will be enough.

Need for knowledge, research

At this stage, a person begins to be burdened by various ideological issues, such as the meaning of life. There is a desire to immerse yourself in science, religion, esotericism, and try to understand this world.

The need for aesthetics and harmony

It is understood that at this level the person strives to find beauty in everything and accepts the Universe as it is. In everyday life he strives for maximum order and harmony.

Need for self-realization

This is the definition of your abilities and their maximum implementation. A person at this stage is primarily engaged in creative activities and actively develops spiritually. According to Maslow, only about 2% of humanity reaches such heights.

You can see a generalized view of the pyramid of needs in the figure. A large number of examples can be given both confirming and refuting this scheme. Thus, our hobbies often help satisfy the desire to belong to a certain community.

Thus they pass one more step. Around us we see many examples of people who have not reached level 4 of the pyramid and therefore experience some mental discomfort.

However, not everything is so smooth. You can easily find examples that do not fit into this theory. The easiest way to find them is in history. For example, the young Charles Darwin's thirst for knowledge appeared during a very dangerous voyage, and not in a calm and well-fed home.

Such contradictions lead to the fact that today a large number of scientists reject the familiar pyramid of needs.

Application of Maslow's pyramid

And yet Maslow's theory has found its application in our lives. Marketers use it to target certain aspirations of the individual; some personnel management systems, by manipulating employee motivation, are built on the basis of a pyramid.

Abraham Maslow's creation can help each of us when setting personal goals, namely: deciding what you really want and what you really need to achieve.

In conclusion, we note that Maslow's original work did not directly contain the pyramid. She was born only 5 years after his death, but of course on the basis of the scientist’s work. According to rumors, Abraham himself reconsidered his views at the end of his life. How seriously to take his creation these days is up to you.

Each person has his own needs, some of them are similar, for example, the need for food, air and water, and some are different. Abraham Maslow spoke about the needs in the most detailed and accessible way. An American psychologist proposed a theory according to which all human needs can be divided into separate groups located in a certain hierarchy. To move to the next level, a person must satisfy the needs of the lower level. By the way, there is a version that Maslow’s hierarchical theory of needs appeared thanks to the psychologist’s study of the biographies of successful people and the found pattern of existing desires.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Human Needs

The levels of human needs are presented in the form of a pyramid. Needs constantly replace each other, taking into account their significance, so if a person has not satisfied the primitive needs, then he will not be able to move on to other stages.

Types of needs according to Maslow:

Level No. 1– physiological needs. The base of the pyramid, which includes the needs that all people have. You need to satisfy them in order to live, but it is impossible to do this once and for the rest of your life. This category includes the need for food, water, shelter, etc. To satisfy these needs, a person takes active action and begins to work.
Level No. 2- need for security. People strive for stability and security. Satisfying this need according to Maslow’s hierarchy, a person wants to create comfortable conditions for himself and his loved ones, where he can hide from adversity and problems.
Level No. 3- need for love. People need to feel their importance to others, which manifests itself on both a social and spiritual level. That is why a person strives to start a family, find friends, become part of a team at work and join other groups of people.
Level #4- need for respect. People who have reached this period have the desire to become successful, achieve certain things and gain status and prestige. To do this, a person learns, develops, works on himself, makes important acquaintances, etc. The need for self-esteem implies the formation of personality.
Level #5– cognitive abilities. People strive to absorb information, learn, and then apply the acquired knowledge in practice. For this purpose, a person also reads, watches educational programs, and, in general, receives information in all existing ways. This is one of the basic human needs according to Maslow, since it allows you to quickly cope with different situations and adapt to life circumstances.
Level #6– aesthetic needs. This includes a person’s aspirations for beauty and harmony. People use their imagination, artistic taste and desire to make the world more beautiful. There are people whose aesthetic needs are more important than physiological ones, so for the sake of ideals they can endure a lot and even die.
Level #7– the need for self-actualization. The highest level that not all people reach. This need is based on the desire to achieve set goals, to develop spiritually, and also on the use of one’s abilities and. A person lives with the motto - “only forward.”

Maslow's theory of human needs has its shortcomings. Many modern scientists argue that such a hierarchy cannot be taken as truth, since there are many shortcomings. For example, a person who decides to fast is contrary to the concept. In addition, there is no tool that would allow us to measure the strength of each person's needs.

Theory of human needs - Maslow's Pyramid of Human Needs

There are 5 basic human needs (according to A. Maslow’s theory):

Physiological needs (food, water, warmth, shelter, sex, sleep, health, cleanliness).
The need for safety and protection (including stability).
The need for belonging to a social group, involvement and support. In this case we are talking about partner, family, friends, intimacy and affection.
The need for respect and recognition (self-esteem, self-esteem, confidence, prestige, fame, recognition of merit).
The need for self-expression (realization of one’s abilities and talents).

The pyramid of needs reflects one of the most popular and well-known theories of motivation - the theory of the hierarchy of needs.

Maslow distributed needs as they increase, explaining this construction by the fact that a person cannot experience high-level needs while he needs more primitive things. The basis is physiology (quenching hunger, thirst, sexual need, etc.). A step higher is the need for security, above it is the need for affection and love, as well as to belong to a social group. The next stage is the need for respect and approval, above which Maslow placed cognitive needs (thirst for knowledge, desire to perceive as much information as possible). Next comes the need for aesthetics (the desire to harmonize life, fill it with beauty and art). And finally, the last step of the pyramid, the highest, is the desire to reveal inner potential (this is self-actualization). It is important to note that each of the needs does not have to be satisfied completely - partial saturation is enough to move to the next stage.

As lower-lying needs are satisfied, higher-level needs become more and more relevant, but this does not mean that the place of the previous need is taken by a new one only when the previous one is fully satisfied.

At the base of this pyramid are the so-called basic needs. These are physiological needs and the need for safety.

Physiological: need for food, water, sexual satisfaction, etc. If for some reason it is impossible to satisfy them, a person can no longer think about anything and cannot move on to satisfying other, higher needs in the hierarchy. Probably everyone has experienced the feeling of extreme hunger, which prevents you from doing or even thinking about anything else. V. Frankl described this very eloquently in his book “Saying Yes to Life.” Psychologist in a concentration camp." About how people living in constant fear, anxiety for themselves and their loved ones, could not talk about anything else except food. They talked about food at any time during their vacation, but the work was very hard, they described the dishes that they had once prepared, and talked about the restaurants that they visited. One of the most important needs that guarantees life, the need for food, was not satisfied for them, and therefore declared itself constantly.

When physiological needs are satisfied, a person stops thinking about them, forgets for a while, until the body gives another sign. Then you can switch your attention to satisfying other needs. Of course, we learned to abstain and endure for a while. But only for a while, until the discomfort becomes very strong.

The next level of needs is the need for security.. It is very difficult to realize any of your plans, dreams, work, develop, without feeling safe. If this need is not satisfied, a person organizes all his activities (sometimes neglecting even physiological needs for some time) to make his life safer. A threat to security can be global cataclysms, war, disease, loss of property, housing, as well as the threat of dismissal from work. You can track how, during a period of social instability in the country, the level of general anxiety increases.

To maintain a sense of security, we are looking for any guarantees: insurance, work with a guaranteed social package, a car with modern technologies that provide passenger protection, we study legislation, hoping to receive protection from the state, etc.

The third and fourth stages belong to the zone of psychological needs. If we are not bothered by unsatisfied basic needs, or simply put, if we are not hungry, thirsty, sick, not in a war zone, and have a roof over our heads, we strive to satisfy psychological needs. These include: a sense of significance, belonging to a particular social system(family, community, team, social connections, communication, affection, etc.), the need for respect, for love. We create systems for this, communities, without which we cannot survive. We strive for love, respect, friendship, we strive to be members of a group, a team.

When these needs are not met, we acutely experience the absence of friends, family, partner, and children. What we most want is to be accepted, heard, understood. We are looking for how to fulfill such a need, sometimes neglecting basic needs, so great is the torment of experiencing loneliness.

Sects and criminal groups often exploit this need. Teenagers have a particularly strong desire to be in a group. And therefore, a teenager, often without thinking, obeys the rules and laws of the group he strives to join only in order not to be rejected by it.

The next step is the need for recognition, selfexpression, respect for others, recognition of one’s own worth, stable high self-esteem. It is important for us to occupy some significant social position. We want our strengths to be recognized, our competence to be appreciated, our skill to be noticed. This may include the desire to have a good reputation, status, fame and glory, superiority, etc.

And sometimes we ourselves should think about how much these needs are satisfied in our lives, for example, in percentage terms. And, if these numbers are less than the statistical averages cited by A. Maslow (85% physiological, 70% in safety, 50% in love, 40% in respect and 10% in self-actualization), then it’s probably worth thinking about what we can change in our lives.

It is more convenient for us, as sales specialists, to use a different classification, with the help of which we find out what needs potential clients have.

There are several basic needs that every person strives to satisfy throughout life. If one of the desires is satisfied, the person strives to satisfy the next need.

Need for survival. The survival instinct is the most powerful instinct of a human being. Every person wants to save his life, protect his family, friends, and compatriots from danger. Only after receiving a guarantee of survival does a person begin to think about satisfying other desires.

Need for security. Once a person receives guarantees of survival, he begins to think about the safety of every aspect of his life.

Financial security– every person is afraid of poverty and material losses and strives to overcome them. It is expressed in the desire to save and increase wealth.

Emotional safety necessary for a person to feel comfortable.

Physical Security– every person, to a certain level, needs food, warmth, shelter and clothing.

The need for security does not mean that a person needs an armored door. He may well want to purchase high-quality wallpaper that will serve him for a long time.

Need for comfort. As soon as a person reaches a minimum level of security and safety, he begins to strive for comfort. He invests a huge amount of time and money to create a cozy home environment and strives to create comfortable conditions at work. A person strives for comfort in any situation and chooses products that are convenient and easy to use.

Need for image. The client focuses on the attractiveness and prestige of the product.

Need for free time. People want to relax as much as possible and look for any opportunity to stop work and relax. The focus of most people is evenings, weekends and vacations. Leisure time activities play a central role in human behavior and decision making.

Need for love. People have an urgent need to build and maintain loving relationships. Everything a person does is aimed either at achieving love or at compensating for a lack of love. An adult personality is formed in the conditions of love received or not received in childhood. The desire to create reliable conditions for love is the main reason for human behavior.

The need for respect. A person strives to earn the respect of other people. The bulk of human activity is aimed at this. Loss of respect can be a significant cause of dissatisfaction, and obtaining a high-ranking position can be a greater incentive than money.

The need for self-realization. The highest desire of a person is the realization of the creative potential of the individual, his talents and abilities. A person's motivation is aimed at achieving whatever they are capable of achieving. Throughout his life, he strives to use the most talents and abilities. The need for self-realization can be stronger than all other motivations.