Social, biological and spiritual needs of man. Social human needs - definition, features and types Social human needs

Social needs human - desires and aspirations inherent in the individual as a representative of the human race.

Humanity is a social system, without which personal development is impossible. A person is always part of a community of people. By fulfilling social aspirations and desires, he develops and manifests himself as a personality.

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, replacing each other as some desires are realized and others are actualized.

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

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

Types of social needs

Social aspirations, desires, and drives are determined by people’s belonging to society and are satisfied only in it.

“For myself”: self-identification, self-affirmation, power, recognition.
“For others”: altruism, free help, protection, friendship, love.
“Together with others”: peace on Earth, justice, rights and freedoms, independence.

Self-identification lies in the desire to be similar to a specific person, image or ideal. The child identifies with the parent of the same gender and recognizes himself as a boy/girl. The need for self-identification is periodically updated in the process of life, when a person becomes a schoolchild, 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 a person’s assertion of himself as a professional in his favorite business. Also, many people strive for power and calling among people for their own personal purposes, for themselves.
Altruism is free help, even to the detriment of one’s own interests, prosocial behavior. A person cares about another individual as about himself.
Unfortunately, selfless friendship is rare in our time. A true friend is an asset. Friendship should be selfless, not for profit, but because relative position to each other.
Love is the strongest desire of each of us. Like a special feeling and sight interpersonal relationships, it is identified with the meaning of life and happiness. It's hard to overestimate her. This is the reason for the creation of families and the appearance of new people on Earth. The overwhelming number of psychological and physical problems come from unsatisfied, unrequited, unhappy love. Each of us wants to love and be loved, and also have a family. Love is the most powerful stimulus, motivation for personal growth, it inspires and inspires. The love of children for their parents and parents for their children, the love between a man and a woman, for their business, work, city, country, for all people and the whole world, for life, for themselves is the foundation for the development of a harmonious, integral 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 social desires. All people, regardless of nationality and religion, want peace, not war; respect for your rights and freedoms, not enslavement.

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

When realizing your personal aspirations and desires, you need to remember about the people around you. By harming nature and society, people harm themselves.

Classification of social needs

Psychology has developed several dozen different classifications of needs. 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-esteem);
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 the hierarchy of human aspirations from lowest to highest:

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

As can be seen, these two classifications similarly 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.

Social needs of a person are given 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 suffers a need, giving preference to satisfying a secondary need: a student, instead of sleeping, is preparing for an exam; a mother forgets to eat while caring for her baby; a man endures physical pain, wanting to impress a woman.

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

Social needs such as friendship, love, and family are of unconditional importance.

Using the example of the relationship between people’s social need for love with the physiological need for carnal relationships and with the instinct of procreation, one can understand how interdependent and connected these drives are.

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

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

Examples of children raised by animals (there have been several such incidents in the history of mankind) are a clear confirmation of the importance of love, communication, and society. Such children, once in the human community, were never able to become full members of it. When a person experiences only primary drives, he becomes like an animal and actually becomes one.

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

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 public life.

Needs act as the main motive that encourages the subject of activity to real activities aimed at creating conditions and means of satisfying his needs, i.e., to production activities. They encourage a person to act and 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 an individual in the family, in numerous social groups and collectives, in various areas of production and non-production activities, and 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. Fixation of social needs in the form of value orientations, awareness of the real possibilities for their implementation and determination of ways and means to achieve them mean a transition from the stage of motivation for activity to the stage of a more or less adequate reflection of needs in the human mind.

The needs of people, a social group (community) is the objective need for the reproduction of a given community of people in its specifically specific social position. The needs of social groups are characterized by mass manifestations, stability in time and space, and invariance in the specific conditions of life of representatives of a social group. An important property of needs is their interconnectedness. It is advisable to take into account the following most important 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 expanded) demographic reproduction;

6) raising and teaching children;

7) control over the behavior of members of society;

8) ensuring their safety in all aspects. The theory of work motivation by an American psychologist and sociologist A. Maslow reveals human needs. Classifying human needs, he divides them into basic and derivative, or meta-needs. The advantage of Maslow's theory was the explanation of the interaction of factors, the discovery of their motive spring.

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

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 person’s practical application of sociocultural experience, in its development it acquires the character of a universal social production and consumption activity. Human activity can only be carried out in society and through society; it is performed by an individual in interaction with other people and represents a complex system of actions determined by various needs.

Social needs arise in connection with the functioning of a person in society. These include the need for social activity, self-expression, provision social rights etc. They are not given by nature, are not genetically laid down, but are acquired during the formation of a person as an individual, his development as a member of society, and 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 demands on 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 not only consists 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 somewhat and somehow different from it. A person belonging to a certain group relies on common needs with it, but the group forces him to obey its demands, and by obeying, he becomes one of the dictators. This creates a complex dialectic between the interests and needs of an individual, on the one hand, and those communities with which he is connected, on the other.

Social needs are needs defined by society (society) as additional and mandatory to basic needs. For example, to ensure the process of eating (a 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 norms, rules, mentality, living conditions and other factors characterizing social culture. At the same time, an individual’s possession of items that society considers necessary may determine his social status in society.

With a wide variety of human social needs, it is possible to distinguish more or less clearly distinguished individual levels of needs, at each of which its specificity and its hierarchical connections with lower and higher ones are visible. For example, these levels include:

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

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

universal social needs arise because a person, thinking and acting individually, at the same time includes his activities in the activities of other people and society. As a result, an objective need appears for such actions and states that simultaneously 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, human needs develop, guiding and regulating his behavior in relation to himself and other people, to his social group, to society as a whole;

the needs for justice on the scale of humanity, society as a whole are the needs for improvement, “correction” of society, for 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 individual needs. Every person, to one degree or another, has a desire to be healthier, smarter, kinder, more beautiful, stronger, etc.

Social needs exist in an endless variety of forms. Without trying to imagine 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 for communication, the need to protect the weak. The most concentrated need “for others” is expressed in altruism - 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 opposing tendencies “for oneself” and “for others” is possible as long as we are not talking about individual or deep needs, but about the means of satisfying one or the other - about service needs and their derivatives. The claim to even the most significant place “for oneself” is easier to realize if at the same time, if possible, the claims of other people are not affected;

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. Needs “for oneself” are called social because they are inextricably linked with 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”; the needs “together with others” unite people to solve urgent problems of social progress. Case in point: invasion Nazi troops into the territory of the USSR in 1941 became a powerful incentive for organizing resistance, and this need was universal.

Ideological needs are among the purely social needs of man. These are human needs for an idea, for an explanation of life circumstances, problems, for an understanding of the causes of ongoing events, phenomena, factors, for a conceptual, systematic vision of the picture of the world. The implementation of these needs is carried out through the use of data from natural, social, humanities, technical and other sciences. As a result, a person develops a scientific picture of the world. Through a person’s assimilation of religious knowledge, a religious picture of the world is formed.

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 for people with a secular upbringing and a religious picture for people with a religious upbringing.

Need for justice is one of the needs that are actualized and functioning in society. It is expressed in the relationship between rights and responsibilities in a person’s consciousness, in his relationships with the social 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 and actions of other people.

In this regard, a person can be oriented:

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

to preferentially fulfill one’s duties in relation to other people, social sphere generally;

to a harmonious combination of their rights and responsibilities when a person solves social and professional problems.

Aesthetic needs play an important role in human life. The realization of an individual’s aesthetic aspirations 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 appropriate relation to the ugly, base, ugly, violating natural and social harmony.

Active long life- This is an important component of the human factor. Health is the most important prerequisite for knowledge of 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 interrelation and interaction of the mental and physical forces of the body. The harmony of the psychophysical forces of the body increases health reserves. You need to replenish your health reserves through rest.

Answers to the sociology exam
Theoretical background in sociology. Social knowledge in antiquity. Plato, Aristotle and private property
Theoretical background of sociology. Social knowledge in modern times
The emergence of sociology in the first half of the 19th century. and predecessors of general sociology
positivist sociology of O. Comte
A classic stage in the development of sociology. Positivist sociologist Herbert Spencer
A classic stage in the development of sociology. Social and philosophical theory of Marxism
A classic stage in the development of sociology. Georg Simmel
A classic stage in the development of sociology. Emile Durkheim
A classic stage in the development of sociology. Max Weber
A classic stage in the development of sociology. "Understanding" sociology of Max Weber
Subject and object of modern sociology
Structure and functions of sociology
Modern Western sociology (classification of modern sociological trends according to P. Monson)
Symbolic interactionism (G. Blumer)
Phenomenological sociology (A. Schutz)
Integrative sociological theory of J. Habermas
Theories of social conflict (R. Dahrendorf)
Development of sociology in Russia
Integral sociology of P. A. Sorokin
Concept of social
Social and societal systems
Society as a societal system
Types of societies. Classification
Social laws and social relations
Social activity and social action
Social connections and social interaction
Social Institute
Social organization. Types of organizations and bureaucracy
Social community and social group
Sociology of small groups. Small group
Social control. Social norms and social sanctions
Deviant behavior. Causes of deviation according to E. Durkheim. Delinquent behavior
Public opinion and its functions
Mass actions
Socio-political organization of society and its functions
The relationship between society and the state
Social change
Social movements and their typologies
Sociology of religion. Functions of religion
Social management and social planning
Post-industrial society. Global system
Information society and e-government
General characteristics of the world community and the world market
Current trends in international economic relations. Criteria for socio-economic progress
International division of labor
Virtual network communities, telework. Information stratification
Russia's place in the world community
The concept of culture. Types and functions of culture
What are cultural universals? Basic elements of culture
Sociocultural supersystems
The concept of "personality". Sociology of personality
Socialization of personality
Periodization of personality development (according to E. Erikson)
The concepts of social status and social role
Social role conflict and social adaptation
Social needs. Concepts of human needs (A. Maslow, F. Herzberg)
Concept of social structure
Social inequality and social stratification. Types of social stratification
Aggregate socioeconomic status
Social stratum and social class. Social stratification
The concept of social mobility, its types and types
Channels of vertical mobility (according to P. A. Sorokin)
Major changes in social stratification Russian society
The social structure of modern Russian society as a system of groupies and layers (according to T. I. Zaslavskaya)
The middle class and discussions about it
What is marginality? Who are the marginalized?
The concept of family and its functions
Basic types of modern family
Functions of social conflicts and their classification
Subjects of conflict relations
Mechanisms of social conflict and its stages
Managing Social Conflict
Sociology of labor. Its main categories
Main schools of Western sociology of labor (F. Taylor, E. Mayo, B. Skinner)
Incentives and motives for work
Work collectives, their types
Conflicts in production: their types and types
Causes of conflicts in production teams. Social tension. Functions of industrial conflict
Economics as a special sphere of social life and economic sociology
General characteristics of the labor market
Unemployment and its forms
Sociology of regions
Sociology of settlement and the concept of demography. Population
Population reproduction and social reproduction
Social-territorial communities. Sociology of city and countryside
The process of urbanization, its stages. Migration
Main categories of ethnosociology. Ethnic community, ethnos
Sociological research and its types
Program sociological research
Methods of sociological research: survey, interview, questionnaire, observation
Document analysis
Literature
Content

Unlike biological and material needs, social needs do not make themselves felt so persistently; they exist as a matter of course and do not prompt a person to immediately satisfy them. It would, however, be an unforgivable mistake to conclude that social needs play a secondary role in the life of man and society.

On the contrary, social needs play a decisive role in the hierarchy of needs. At the dawn of the emergence of man, in order to curb zoological individualism, people united, created a taboo on owning harems, jointly participated in hunting wild animals, clearly understood the differences between “us” and “strangers,” and jointly fought the elements of nature. Thanks to the prevalence of needs “for another” over needs “for oneself”, a person became a person, created own story. The existence of a person in society, being for society and through society is the central sphere of manifestation of the essential forces of man, the first necessary condition for the realization of all other needs: biological, material, spiritual.

Social needs exist in an endless variety of forms. Without trying to present all manifestations of social needs, we will classify these groups of needs according to three criteria: 1) needs for others; 2) needs for oneself; 3) needs together with others.

Needs for others are needs that express the generic essence of a person. This is the need for communication, the need to protect the weak. The most concentrated need “for others” is expressed in altruism - the need to sacrifice oneself for the sake of another. The need “for others” is realized by overcoming the eternal egoistic principle “for oneself.” An example of the need “for others” is the hero of Yu. Nagibin’s story “Ivan.” “It gave him much more pleasure to try for someone than for himself. Perhaps this is love for people... But gratitude did not flow out of us like a fountain. Ivan was shamelessly exploited, deceived, and robbed.”

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. Needs “for oneself” are called social because they are inextricably linked with the needs “for oneself” 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.” P. M. Ershov writes about this unity and interpenetration of opposites - needs “for oneself” and needs “for others”: “The existence and even “cooperation” in one person of opposite tendencies “for oneself” and “for others” is possible, as long as we are not talking about individual or deep-seated needs, but about the means of satisfying one or another - about auxiliary and derivative needs. The claim to even the most significant place “for oneself” is easier to realize if at the same time, if possible, the claims of other people are not affected; the most productive means of achieving egoistic goals are those that contain some compensation “for others” - those who claim the same place, but can be content with less ... "

Needs "together with others." A group of needs that expresses the motivating forces of many people or society as a whole: the need for security, the need for freedom, the need to curb the aggressor, the need for peace, the need for a change in the political regime.

The peculiarities of the needs “together with others” are that they unite people to solve urgent problems of social progress. Thus, the invasion of Nazi troops into the territory of the USSR in 1941 became a powerful incentive for organizing resistance, and this need was universal. Today, the brazen aggression of the United States and NATO countries against Yugoslavia has shaped the common need of the peoples of the world to condemn the unprovoked bombing of cities in Yugoslavia and contributed to the unity of the Yugoslav people in their determination to wage an uncompromising fight against the aggressor.

The most respected person is a person who has a wealth of social needs and directs all the efforts of his soul to satisfy these needs. This is a man - an ascetic, a revolutionary, a people's tribune, who sacrifices his entire life on the altar of the fatherland, on the altar of social progress

Social behavior is a person’s behavior in society, designed to have a certain impact on society and on the people around him. This behavior is regulated by special motives, which are called motives of social behavior.

Types of social behavior governed by corresponding motives and needs include: behavior aimed at achieving success or avoiding failure, attachment-type behavior, aggressiveness, desire for power, affiliation (desire for people and fear of being rejected), helping behavior ( English), type A behavior, type B behavior, altruism, helpless and deviant behavior. All types of social behavior, depending on what they are and what benefits they bring to people, are divided into three main groups: prosocial, asocial and antisocial behavior.

Motives, like social behavior itself, can be positive and negative. Positive are those motives of social behavior that stimulate a person’s prosocial behavior aimed at helping and psychological development of other people.

The motivation of social behavior is a dynamic, situationally changing system of factors that, in a single space and time, act on a person’s social behavior, motivating him to perform certain deeds and actions. In addition to the very motive of such behavior, motivational factors can also include the value of the goal, the likelihood of achieving it in the current situation, a person’s assessment of his abilities and capabilities, the division in his consciousness and precise definition something that depends on luck (coincidence of circumstances) and on the efforts made. Motives and motivating factors of social behavior represent a single system in which they are functionally related to each other both in terms of influence on social behavior and in the dynamics of development

Antisocial behavior is behavior that contradicts socially accepted norms and principles, appearing in the form of immoral or illegal norms. It manifests itself in minor offenses and behavior that do not pose a social danger and do not require administrative action. Its assessment is carried out at the microenvironmental and personal levels in the forms of communicative, psychological and behavioral manifestations.

With such behavior, a person is not aware of the damage caused to society and is not aware of the negative direction of his actions. Examples of antisocial behavior can be infantilism, the actions of mentally insane persons, i.e. those cases when people are unable to understand the social meaning of their actions. Asocial or antisocial behavior generates negative motives by stimulating activities that hinder a person's psychological growth and cause harm to people.

The cause of various forms of antisocial behavior and personality disorders can be those that naturally arise at different stages life path human crises. The difficulties and stress conditions they cause that a person faces require certain strategies to overcome obstacles. A person either forms effective adaptive behavior, which corresponds to the forward movement of the personality, or undergoes maladjustment and finds a way out in various forms of suboptimal behavior.

Drug addiction and alcoholism, vandalism, hooliganism, withdrawal from reality, parasitism, lack of interest in study, membership in sects are not neuroses in the strict sense of the word, but represent a problem for society and for those of its institutions that are included in the process of socialization of new generations of citizens

The source of antisocial behavior may be unreacted negative experiences from different periods of life, the inability to withstand failures and difficulties, the lack of clear guidelines, the inability to accept responsibility for one’s life, and other reasons. Each of them can lead to the imprinting of an inadequate form of personal protection

The result of acute dissatisfaction with deep and actual motives and needs of the individual,” is, according to V. Merlin, an intrapersonal conflict, which is characterized by long-term and sustainable disintegration of adaptive activity. Depending on which value-motivational components of a personality come into mutual conflict, six main types of intrapersonal conflict are distinguished.

Motivational conflict is between “I want” and “I want”, a collision of two different desires, motives, needs, equally attractive to the individual. “I don’t want - I don’t want” - a choice between two equally undesirable possibilities against the background of the desire to avoid each of the alternatives. “I choose the lesser of two evils.”

Moral conflict is between “I want” and “I must”, between desire and duty, moral principles and desires, between duty and doubt about the need to follow it.

The conflict of unrealized desire, between “I want” and “I can”, between desire and the impossibility of satisfying it due to various subjective and objective reasons (physical and mental characteristics of a person, time and space restrictions). “I want to, but I can’t” - fear is what keeps us from achieving a goal, fear associated with its achievement, either with the goal itself, or with the process of achieving it.

Role conflict is between “Should” and “Should”, between two values, principles, strategies of behavior that are significant for the individual when it is impossible to simultaneously combine several socio-psychological roles, or associated with different requirements imposed by the individual on a given role.

Adaptation conflict is between “I must” and “I can”, a discrepancy between the mental, physical, professional and other capabilities of a person and the requirements placed on him.

The conflict as a result of inadequate self-esteem is between “I can” and “I can”. Self-esteem depends on the degree of a person’s criticality towards himself, his successes and failures, real and potential opportunities, and the ability for introspection. It can be subjectively overestimated or underestimated when compared with the assessment of others.

As a reaction to difficulties in resolving internal contradictions, to the inability to achieve a significant goal, to deception of expectations, a person may experience frustration. It combines the entire range of negative emotions and behaviors from depression to aggression. If the obstacle that caused the frustration could not be overcome, then it is necessary to find another way to solve the problem, for example: replace the means of achieving the goal; replace goals; lose interest in a goal based on new information.

The group of social needs includes all needs and forms of behavior associated with communication with other creatures, most often with representatives of their own species. Communication may not be direct, but only imaginary. However, almost everything we do is done with the existence of other people in mind. Each person belongs to more than one social group and plays different roles in them. The degree of involvement in each of these groups is different, so the basic social need of a person becomes the need for self-identification.

By social self-identification, a person is saved from the fear of loneliness - one of the existential, i.e., problems inherent in all people.

Every person has a need to feel like a member of some community. All human behavior and inner world his emotional experiences are built on the basis of identifying oneself with a certain group: a family, a specific state, a people, a work collective, a fan of a football team, a group on social networks, etc. Sometimes communities are formed according to random, insignificant characteristics. It may be the same surname if it is rare or if it is borne by a prominent person. Or general illness or even hair color. It is important that coming together as a community improves people's mental well-being.

At different moments in life, different groups become the most important for a person, that is, his priorities change. As a rule, he identifies himself with the most successful community at the moment.

Often social identification is emphasized by certain attributes. The concept of “uniform honor” was equivalent to the concept of “regimental honor.” Features of clothing were strictly regulated in class society. A person does many things only because “it’s customary” in the society of which he considers himself a member. Behaving in a certain way just because “it’s accepted” is the satisfaction of this need. For example, the Greeks and Romans did not wear pants. This is not always convenient; for example, patients had to wrap cloth around their legs and thighs. But they considered it impossible to use such a practical thing as pants, since for them it was a sign of barbarism. In modern European society, behavioral characteristics, including the choice of costume, also play a huge role in satisfying the need for social self-identification.

A person considers himself a member of some community not because most of the members of this group are somehow attractive to him. In the absence of another group, people consider themselves members of the one that exists. For example, one of the existing definitions of the concept “relatives” sounds like this: this is a group of completely strangers who periodically gather to drink and have a snack due to changes in their quantity. In fact, when answering the question: “List 20 people with whom communication gives you the greatest pleasure,” subjects mention no more than two relatives, and these are, as a rule, family members. An analysis of the subjects’ descriptions of their attitudes towards relatives shows that in most cases these people are perceived by them as alien individuals with different interests, a different value system, a different lifestyle and a different sense of humor. Nevertheless, when communicating with relatives at weddings, funerals and anniversaries, a person experiences elation due to the fact that his need for social self-identification is satisfied.

Patriotism is most often based on the self-identification of people as members of metaphysical communities, that is, those who do not have material objects that can serve as a symbol of unity. A classic example of the influence of subjective categories on a completely material development of events is the renaming of streets in besieged Leningrad. Really, fighting were conducted more successfully by people who live in a city where there is Nevsky Prospekt, Sadovaya Street and Palace Square than by residents of a city with 25th October Avenue, 3rd July Street and Uritsky Square.

To satisfy the need for social self-identification, a person must determine which social group is most important to him at the moment. A person’s behavior and the inner world of his emotional experiences are built on the basis of self-identification as a member of a certain group: a family member, a citizen of a particular state, a representative of a nation, a member of a work team, a fan of a football team, etc. A change in self-identification is common. A person unconsciously associates himself with the most successful community at the moment (it’s more pleasant to root for a champion, rather than for an eternal average).

The need for friendly relations is one of the social needs. Direct physical contact (hugs, patting, stroking, etc.) is present in relationships between close people. We can observe similar behavior in many animals - this is the so-called crowding and mutual cleaning.

Some social needs are transformed into artificial ones, which is most clearly manifested in the prices of art objects. A painting can hang for decades until some expert discovers that it was painted not by an unknown artist, but by a famous one. The price of the canvas will immediately increase hundreds of times. Neither the artistic nor the historical value of the piece of art has changed, but now people are willing to pay huge amounts of money for it. At the heart of this phenomenon is their need for vanity.

Regular satisfaction of social needs is as necessary for human health as vital ones. But the fundamental difference between social needs and vital needs itself is that to satisfy the former, the presence of other people is necessary - human society, society.

Mental disorders of children, deprived for one reason or another of the opportunity to satisfy social needs, prove the vital importance of the latter. An example would be the so-called unfrustrated children, who are raised without denying them any request or prohibiting anything. When they grow up, they experience more than just communication problems. They typically experience a range of cognitive and emotional disorders. This is explained by the fact that in childhood they were deprived of the opportunity to satisfy the child’s natural need to “follow the leader.”

There are many classifications of needs. The first classification divides all needs by origin into two large groups - natural and cultural (Fig. 1). The first of them are programmed to genetic level, and the latter are formed in the process of social life.

Fig.1.

The second classification (by level of complexity) divides needs into biological, social and spiritual.

Biological ones include a person’s desire to maintain his existence (the need for food, clothing, sleep, safety, saving energy, etc.).

Social needs include a person’s need for communication, for popularity, for dominance over other people, for belonging to a certain group, for leadership and recognition.

Human spiritual needs are the need to know the world and oneself, the desire for self-improvement and self-realization, in knowing the meaning of one’s existence.

Usually a person simultaneously has more than ten unfulfilled needs at the same time, and his subconscious ranks them in order of importance, forming a rather complex hierarchical structure known as “Abraham Maslow’s pyramid” (Fig. 2). According to the theory of this American psychologist, its lower level consists of physiological needs, then comes the need for security (by realizing which a person seeks to avoid the emotion of fear), higher is the need for love, then the need for respect and recognition, and at the very top of the pyramid is the individual’s desire for self-actualization. However, these needs far from exhaust the set of actual human needs. No less important are the needs for knowledge, freedom and beauty.

Rice. 2.

	Level of needs
	Physiological (biological) needs	Human needs for food, drink, oxygen, optimal temperature and air humidity, rest, sexual activity, etc.
	Need for security and stability	The need for stability in the existence of the current order of things. Confidence in the future, the feeling that nothing threatens you, and your old age will be secure.
	The need to acquire, accumulate and capture	The need for not always motivated acquisition of material assets. Excessive manifestation of this need leads to greed, greed, stinginess
	Need for love and belonging to a group	The need to love and be loved. The need to communicate with other people, to be involved in some group.
	Need for respect and recognition	a) the desire for freedom and independence; the desire to be strong, competent and confident. b) the desire to have a high reputation, the desire for prestige, high social status and power.
	Need for independence	The need for personal freedom, for independence from other people and external circumstances
	Need for novelty	The desire to obtain new information. This also includes the need to know and be able to do something.
	The need to overcome difficulties	Needs for risk, adventure and overcoming difficulties.
	The need for beauty and harmony.	Need for order, harmony, beauty
	Need for self-realization	The desire to realize your uniqueness, the need to do what you like, what you have abilities and talents for.

A person is aware of the freedom of his actions, and it seems to him that he is free to act in one way or another. But human knowledge the real reason of your feelings, thoughts and desires often turns out to be false. A person does not always realize the true motives of his actions and the underlying reasons for his actions. As Friedrich Engels said, “people are accustomed to explaining their actions from their thinking, instead of explaining them from their needs.”

social need behavior motivation

A person is part of society. Existing in society, he constantly experiences certain social needs.

Human social needs are an integral part of his personality.

Kinds

What are social needs? There are a large number of human social needs, which can be divided into three main groups:

Basic sociogenic needs

List of basic social needs experienced by a person living in society:

Examples of satisfaction

Let's look at examples of how a person satisfies emerging social needs:

Significance

Satisfying social needs from the “for oneself” group is a necessary condition for the formation of a full-fledged personality.

Compliance of a person’s life with his social expectations guarantees the positive socialization of such a person in society and excludes the manifestation of any forms of deviant behavior.

A person who is satisfied with the level of his development, education, career, friends is useful member of society.

Each of his satisfied needs leads to the emergence of some kind of social significant result: a strong family with children - a full-fledged unit of society, career achievements - successful completion labor functions etc.

Satisfying needs “for others” and “together with others” is the key to the positive functioning of society.

Only positive interaction between people, their ability to act together in the public interest, and not just individually for personal purposes, will help create mature society.

Problem modern society lies precisely in the reluctance of people to satisfy common needs. Each person approaches the issue from a selfish point of view - he does only what is beneficial for him.

At the same time, the lack of initiative in committing important social actions leads to disorder, violations of the law, anarchy.

As a result, the integrity and well-being of the society in which a person lives is violated, and this immediately affects the quality of his own life.

That is, his selfish interests are affected in any case.

Result

Are human activities caused by social needs? Needs - source of personality activity, motivation of its activity.

A person performs any action solely out of the desire to achieve a certain result. This result is the satisfaction of a need.

Human actions can contribute fulfillment of desire directly. For example: when in need of communication, a teenager goes out of the house to the street to friends sitting in the yard and enters into dialogue with them.

Otherwise, activity manifests itself in the performance of certain actions, which will subsequently lead to the satisfaction of a social need. For example, the desire for power can be achieved through purposeful activity in the professional sphere.

However, people do not always take actions to meet their needs.

Unlike biological needs, which cannot be ignored (thirst, hunger, etc.), a person can leave social needs unfulfilled.

Causes: laziness, lack of initiative, lack of motivation, lack of dedication, etc.

For example, a person may feel a strong need for communication and at the same time constantly sit at home alone and have no friends. The reason for this behavior may be a strong...

As a result, the person will not take actions that he could have taken to achieve the desired result.

The lack of necessary activity will lead to unfulfillment of existing desires and a low quality of life, but there will be no threat to life.

Do animals have them?

On the one hand, social needs can only be characteristic of people due to the fact that only members of society can experience them. On the other hand, animals in their groups have a certain hierarchy of behavior, rules and rituals.

From this point of view, it is customary to highlight zoosocial needs of animals: parental behavior, play behavior, migrations, the desire for self-preservation, adaptation to living conditions, hierarchy in the pack, etc.

These needs cannot be called fully social, but they are the primary source of the development of further social needs in people.

Thus, social needs Every person has them in large quantities. In satisfying them, a person must act not only in his own interests, but also in the interests of those around him.

The need to be needed and communication are human social needs:

In a broad sense, needs are defined as a source of activity and a form of communication between a living organism and the outside world.

Human social needs are desires and aspirations inherent as a representative of the human race.

Humanity is a social system, without which personal development is impossible. A person is always part of a community of people. Carrying out social aspirations and desires, it develops and manifests itself as.

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

Types of social needs

Social aspirations, desires, and drives are determined by people’s belonging to society and are satisfied only in it.

“For myself”: self-identification, self-affirmation, power, recognition.
“For others”: altruism, free help, protection, friendship, love.
“Together with others”: peace on Earth, justice, rights and freedoms, independence.

Self-identification lies in the desire to be similar to a specific person, image or ideal. The child identifies with the parent of the same gender and recognizes himself as a boy/girl. The need for self-identification is periodically updated in the process of life, when a person becomes a schoolchild, 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 a person’s assertion of himself as a professional in his favorite business. Also, many people strive for power and calling among people for their own personal purposes, for themselves.
Altruism is free help, even to the detriment of one’s own interests, prosocial behavior. A person cares about another individual as about himself.
Unfortunately, selfless friendship is rare in our time. A true friend is an asset. Friendship should be selfless, not for the sake of profit, but because of 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 happiness. It's hard to overestimate her. This is the reason for the creation of families and the appearance of new people on Earth. The overwhelming number of psychological and physical problems come from unsatisfied, unrequited, unhappy love. Each of us wants to love and be loved, and also have a family. Love is the most powerful stimulus for personal growth; it inspires and inspires. The love of children for their parents and parents for their children, the love between a man and a woman, for their business, work, city, country, for all people and the whole world, for life, for themselves is the foundation for the development of a harmonious, integral 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 social desires. All people, regardless of nationality and religion, want peace, not war; respect for your rights and freedoms, not enslavement.

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

When realizing your personal aspirations and desires, you need to remember about the people around you. By harming nature and society, people harm themselves.

Classification of social needs

Psychology has developed several dozen different classifications of needs. 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-esteem);
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 the hierarchy of human aspirations from lowest to highest:

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

As can be seen, these two classifications similarly 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.

Social needs of a person are given a secondary role; they follow the physiological ones, but are more significant for the human personality.

Social needs such as friendship, love, and family are of unconditional importance.

The instinct of procreation is complemented by care, tenderness, respect, mutual understanding, common interests, and love arises.

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

Social needs

Needs associated with certain aspects of social behavior - for example, the need for friendship, the need for the approval of others, or the desire for power.

Psychology. AND I. Dictionary reference / Transl. from English K. S. Tkachenko. - M.: FAIR PRESS. Mike Cordwell. 2000.

See what “Social needs” are in other dictionaries:

NEEDS- the need for something objectively necessary to maintain the vital functions and development of the body, the human personality, a social group, and society as a whole; internal stimulator of activity. Needs are divided into biological, characteristic... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

NEEDS Modern encyclopedia

Needs- NEEDS, the need for something necessary to maintain the vital functions and development of the body, the human personality, a social group, society as a whole; internal stimulator of activity. There are biological needs inherent... ... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary

Social payments- additional payments for treatment, recreation, travel and other social needs... Source: DECISION of the Council of Deputies of the Zvenigorod City District of the Moscow Region dated 04/03/2007 N 57/8 ON THE REGULATIONS ON THE PAYMENT SYSTEM FOR PERSONS OCCUPING MUNICIPAL POSTS AND REPLACEMENT POSTS... Official terminology

needs- the need for anything necessary to maintain the vital functions and development of the body, the human personality, a social group, and society as a whole; internal stimulator of activity. In psychology, a special state of the individual’s psyche, felt or... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

Economic needs- part of the needs existing in society (See Needs), the satisfaction of which requires social reproduction. Property relations and the entire socio-economic system decisively determine social forms... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia

Needs- Need is the source of activity of living beings. The most ancient needs in evolutionary terms are genetic programs aimed at preserving life, reproduction and development of the environment. The more useful needs... ... Wikipedia

Personal needs under socialism- Needs are an objective state of a subject, expressing a contradiction between what is available and what is necessary (or seems necessary to the subject) and encourages him to take action to eliminate this contradiction. Formation of personality needs... ... Scientific communism: Dictionary

NEEDS- NEEDS, the need for something necessary to maintain the vital functions and development of the body, the human personality, a social group, society as a whole; internal stimulator of activity. P. society, and above all economics. P. as the basis of everything... ... Demographic Encyclopedic Dictionary

NEEDS- one of the fundamental categories of theoretical and applied economics. These are types of products, goods; services, things that people need, desire, strive to have, consume, and use. Needs include not only what... Economic dictionary

Books

Social styles, Marina Kaldina. In this lesson you will become familiar with the so-called K. Horney groups or the social style of each type. Social style shows us how each type tries to satisfy its own... Buy audiobook for 1,499 rubles
The History of the Courtesans, Elizabeth Abbott. The author begins his book with an important remark: the position of mistresses was not always as shameful as it is now. This is due to the fact that romantic marriage is a relatively new phenomenon. Historically…