In order to understand what human needs are and how they differ from the needs of plants and animals, you will first need to understand what the term “needs” means.
Needs in psychology and philosophy are called a condition that is inherent exclusively to living organisms. This condition expresses the body’s dependence on environmental conditions for existence and development. The same condition determines the forms of activity of the body.
Different organisms have different needs. Plants need only a mineral substrate for nutrition, light and water.
The needs of animals are more diverse, despite the fact that they are based on instincts. Fear, nutrition, the desire for reproduction, sleep - these are the main "needs" of animal organisms.
Human needs are very, very diverse. They are determined by two main factors: the presence of the first (common with animals) and the second signaling system (speech and thinking) and a high mental organization. That is why human needs are so ambiguous, focused and are the main source of personality activity.
The peculiarity of a person is that he is able to realize his own subjective ideas about needs with its objective content. Only a person is able to understand that in order to satisfy a need, one must first set a goal, and then achieve it.
Even the physical needs of man are different from the needs of animals. That is why they are directly related to the forms of activity and can vary significantly throughout life.
A person’s needs are represented as his desires, aspirations, drives and addictions, and their satisfaction is always accompanied by the emergence of evaluative emotions. Joy, satisfaction, pride, anger, shame, discontent - these are what distinguish man from animals.
The form of manifestation of need is desire. They can be traced in aspirations and hobbies, they move the whole life of a person and his activities.
The topic “man and his needs” is studied by scientists of many specialties: philosophers, psychologists, economists, etc., and they all came to the unequivocal opinion: if we talk about a man, his needs are unlimited.
The explanation is simple. One need entails another. To the satisfaction of some, a person has other needs.
Classification of needs is an ambiguous concept, there are many of them. For example:
- Needs related to the sphere of human activity: this is the need for work, new knowledge, the need for rest and communication.
- The object of application of needs can be material, spiritual, biological, aesthetic and other spheres of life.
- Subjectively, needs are divided into group and individual, social and collective.
- By the nature of the activity: game, sex, food, defensive, communicative, cognitive.
- According to the functional role of need, many scientists believe that they can be dominant or secondary, central or peripheral, sustainable or situational.
H. Murray, B. I. Dodonov, Guildford, Maslow and other researchers proposed their classifications of needs. Despite a slightly different approach, in almost all of them converge.
All human needs can be divided into natural and culturally acquired. Natural based on instincts, fixed at the level of genetics.
Cultural acquired with age. They can be simple acquired or complex acquired. The former arise on the basis of their own experience (for example, the need to communicate with friends or the need for a favorite job). The latter arise on the basis of non-empirical inferences. For example, believers need confession, not because they have made their own conclusion that it is needed, but because it is commonly believed that after a confession it becomes easier.