The existence of social needs is due to the life of a person with other individuals and with constant interaction with them. Society influences the formation of the personality structure, its needs and desires. Harmonious development of the individual outside of society is impossible. The need for communication, friendship, love can only be satisfied in the process of interaction between a person and society.
What is a "need"?
It's a need for something. It can be both physiological and psychological in nature, serves as a motive for action and "forces" the individual to take steps aimed at satisfying his need. Needs appear in the form of emotionally colored desires and, as a result, its satisfaction is manifested in the form of evaluative emotions. When an individual needs something, he feels negative emotions, and as his needs and desires are satisfied, positive emotions appear.
Dissatisfaction of physiological needs can lead to the death of a living organism, and psychological needs can cause internal discomfort and tension, depression.
Satisfaction of one need entails the emergence of another. Their infinity is one of the features of the development of an individual as a person.
Needs make you perceive the surrounding reality selectively, through the prism of your need. They focus the attention of the individual on objects that contribute to the satisfaction of the current need.
Hierarchy
The diversity of human nature is the reason for the existence of various classifications of needs: by object and subject, areas of activity, temporal stability, significance, functional role, etc. The most widely known hierarchy of needs proposed by the American psychologist Abraham Maslow.
- The first stage is the physiological needs (thirst, hunger, sleep, sex drive, etc.).
- The second step is security (lack of fear for one's existence, confidence).
- The third stage is social needs (communication, friendship, love, caring for others, belonging to a social group, joint activities).
- The fourth step is the need for respect from others and oneself (success, recognition).
- The fifth step is spiritual needs (self-expression, disclosure of inner potential, achievement of harmony, personal development).
Maslow argues that meeting needs that are onthe lower rungs of the hierarchy leads to the strengthening of the overlying ones. A person who is thirsty concentrates his attention on finding a source of water, and the need for communication fades into the background. It is important to remember that needs can exist simultaneously, the issue is only a priority.
Social Needs
The social needs of a person are not as acute as the physiological ones, but they play a crucial role in the interaction of the individual and society. Realization of social needs is impossible outside of society. Social needs include:
- need for friendship;
- approval;
- love;
- communication;
- joint activities;
- care for others;
- belonging to a social group, etc.
At the dawn of human development, it was social needs that contributed to the development of civilization. People united for protection and hunting, fighting against the elements. Their satisfaction in joint activities contributed to the development of agriculture. The realization of the need for communication spurred the development of culture.
Man is a social being and he tends to communicate with his own kind, so the satisfaction of social needs is no less important than physiological.
Types of social needs
Distinguish social needs according to the following criteria:
- "For oneself" (desire for self-affirmation, recognition from others, power).
- “For others” (the need for communication, protection of others, selfless help, refusal totheir desires for the benefit of others).
- “Together with others” (expressed as a desire to be part of a large social group to implement large-scale ideas that will benefit the entire group: uniting to resist the aggressor, for the sake of changing the political regime, for the sake of peace, freedom, security).
The first kind can only be realized through the need "for others".
Classification according to E. Fromm
German sociologist Erich Fromm proposed a different classification of social needs:
- connections (the desire of an individual to be part of any social community, group);
- attachments (friendship, love, the desire to share warm feelings and receive them in return);
- self-affirmation (desire to feel important to others);
- self-awareness (the desire to stand out from the background of others, to feel your own individuality);
- benchmark (an individual needs a certain standard to compare and evaluate their actions, which can be religion, culture, national traditions).
Classification according to D. McClelland
American psychologist David McClellad proposed his classification of social needs based on the typology of personality and motivation:
- Power. People gravitate towards influencing others and being able to control their actions. There are two subtypes of such personalities: those who desire power for the sake of power itself, and those who seek power for the sake of solving other people's problems.
- Success. This need may beSatisfied only when the started business is successfully brought to the end. It forces the individual to take initiative and take risks. However, in case of failure, the person will avoid repeating the negative experience.
- Involvement. Such people strive to establish friendly relations with everyone and try to avoid conflicts.
Meeting social needs
The main feature of social needs is that they can only be satisfied through interaction with society. The very emergence of such needs is associated with society at the current stage of cultural and historical development. Activity is the main source of satisfaction of the social needs of the individual. Changing the content of social activities contributes to the development of social needs. The more diverse and complex social activity, the more perfect the system of individual needs becomes.
Significance
The influence of social needs should be considered from two angles: from the point of view of the individual and from the point of view of society as a whole.
Satisfying social needs helps a person feel complete, needed, increases self-esteem and self-confidence. The most important social needs are communication, love, friendship. They play a primary role in the development of the individual as a person.
From the point of view of society, they are the engine of development of all spheres of life. A scientist, desiring recognition (satisfaction of a need “for oneself”), invents a method for treating a serious illness, whichsaves many lives and contributes to the development of science. An artist who dreams of becoming famous, in the process of satisfying his social need, contributes to culture. There are many such examples, and all of them will confirm that the satisfaction of the needs of an individual is as important for society as for the person himself.
Man is a social being and cannot harmoniously develop outside of him. The main social needs of the individual include: the need for communication, friendship, love, self-realization, recognition, power. The variety of social activities contributes to the development of the system of needs of the individual. Dissatisfaction of social needs causes apathy and aggression. Social needs contribute not only to the improvement of the individual as a person, but are also the engine of the development of society as a whole.
