Texts
- The Problem of Learning
- Problemistics Courseware
- Corso su Problemistica
- Resources Management
- Manuale/Intellettuale
- Campagna/Città
Problemistics - Problémistique - Problemistica
The Art & Craft of Problem Dealing
Needs
Definition (Reference books)
Definition (Henry A. Murray)
Definition (Bronislaw Malinowski)
Definition (Sidney M. Jourard)
Definition (Manfred Max- Neef)Classification (Bronislaw Malinowski)
Classification (Ralph Linton)
Classification (Abraham Maslow)
Classification (Erich Fromm)
Classification (Gardner Murphy)
Classification (Sidney M. Jourard)
Classification (Gardner Murphy)
Classification (Amitai Etzioni)
Classification (Frederich Herzberg)
Classification (Manfred Max-Neef)
Classification (Mario Kamenetzky)Necessary of life (Henry David Thoreau)
Habits and customs (William Graham Sumner)
Natural and necessary needs (Karl Marx)
Healthy and unhealty needs (Sidney M. Jourard)
True and false needs (Herbert Marcuse)
Preconditions for satisfaction (Abraham Maslow)
Integral satisfaction (S. Chermayeff and A. Tzonis)
Future society (Karl Marx)Related concepts
Drive (Reference books)
Desire (Reference books)
Desire (William McDougall)
Motive (Reference books)
Motive (Kast Fremont & E. Rosenzweig)
Requirement (Keith Hanson)
Tendency (Barry Poyner)
Want – Wish (Reference books)
Want – Wish (William I. Thomas)
Want – Wish (Victor Papanek)Classical quotations (Denis Diderot)
[1964] Gould J. and Kolb W. L. eds., A Dictionary of the Social Sciences
"In psychology the term denotes whatever is required for the health and well-being of a person."
"A wider use of this term is sometimes found in personality theory, where it refers to anything a person wants with sufficient consistency over time for this to be treated as a feature of his personality." (p. 462)
[1974] The American Heritage Dictionary
1. "A state in which something necessary or desirable is required or wanted."
2. "A wish for something lacking or desired."
[1981] Webster's Third New International Dictionary
"A physiological or psychological requirement for the maintenance or the homeostasis of an organism."
[1938] Henry A. Murray et alii, Explorations in Personality
"A need is a construct ... which stands for a force ... in the brain region, a force which organizes perception, apperception, intellection, conation and action in such a way as to transform in a certain direction an existing, unsatisfying situation. A need is sometimes provoked directely by internal processes of a certain kind (viscerogenic, endocrinogenic, thalamicogenic) arising in the course of vital sequences, but more frequently (when in a state of readiness) by the occurrence of one of a few commonly effective press [directional tendencies] (or by anticipatory images of such press). Thus it manifests itself by leading the organism to search for or to avoid encountering or, when encountered, to attend and respond to certain kinds of press."
(Chapter II, pp. 123-124)
[1941] Bronislaw Malinowski, A Scientific Theory of Culture and Other Essays, 1969
Basic Needs. "We can define the concept of basic needs as the environmental and biological conditions which must be fulfilled for the survival of the individual and the group." (Chapter VIII)
Human Nature & Human Needs. "We can define the term 'human nature' by the fact that all men have to eat, they have to breathe, to sleep, to procreate and to eliminate waste matter from their organism wherever they live and whatever type of civilization they practice."
"By human nature therefore we mean the biological determinism which imposes on every civilization and on all individuals in it the carrying out of such bodily functions as breathing, sleep, rest, nutrition, excretion, and reproduction." (Chapter VIII)
[1958] Sidney M. Jourard, Personal Adjustment
“A need is ... a judgment which a person makes concerning what he requires in order to attain some valued end.” (Chapter 2 : Needs and Healthy Behavior - p. 59)
[1992] Manfred Max- Neef, in Paul Ekins, Manfred Max-Neef, Real-Life Economics
" First, fundamental human needs are finite, few and classifiable. Second, fundamental human needs are the same in all cultures and in all historical periods. What changes, both over time and through cultures, is the way or the means by which the needs are satisfied." (pp. 199-200)
"Whether a person belongs to a consumerist or to an ascetic society, his/her fundamental human needs are the same. What changes is his/her choice of the quantity and quality of satisfiers. In short, what is culturally determined are not the fundamental human needs [i.e. subsistence, protection, etc.], but the satisfiers [i.e. types of food, shelter, etc.] for those needs." (p. 200)
[1941] Bronislaw Malinowski, A Scientific Theory of Culture and Other Essays
Basic needs Cultural responses
1. Metabolism Commissariat (Regulation)
2. Reproduction Kinship
3. Bodily Comforts Shelter
4. Safety Protection
5. Movement Activities
6. Growth Training
7. Health Hygiene
(from Chapter X)
[1945] Ralph Linton, The Cultural Background of Personality, 1947
Physiological needs
- food
- sleep
- escape from pain
- sexual satisfaction
Psychic needs
- emotional response from others
- long-term security
- novelty of experience
(from Chapter I)
[1954] Abraham Maslow, Motivation and Personality, 1970
- The physiological needs : hunger, thirst, sex, etc.
- The safety needs : security, stability, dependency, protection, freedom from fear, from anxiety and chaos; need for structure, order, law, limits.
- The belonginess and love needs : freedom from loneliness, ostracism, rejection, friendlessness, rootlessness.
- The esteem needs :
a) self esteem : desire for strenght, for achievement, for adequacy, for mastery and competence, for confidence in the face of the world and for independence and freedom;
b) esteem of others : desire for reputation or prestige, status, fame and glory, dominance, recognition, attention, importance, dignity, or appreciation.
- The self-actualization need : desire for self-fulfillment, namely the thendency for the human being to actualize his/her potentialities.
(from Chapter 4, pp. 35-46)
[1956] Erich Fromm, The Sane Society
- Relatedness vs narcissism
(sociability : care, responsibility, respect, knowledge)
- Creativeness vs. destructiveness
(creativity : purposeful creation, active imagination)
- Brotherliness vs. incest
(fraternity : universal love, conscience, reason, discipline)
- Individuality vs. herd conformity
(identity : sense of individuality)
- Reason vs. irrationality
(rationality : frame of world orientation and devotion)
(from Chapter 3 - pp. 30-66)
[1958] Sidney M. Jourard, Personal Adjustment
- Healthy Needs
“Healthy needs contribute to a person’s continued growth toward self-actualization. Whatever a person wants or needs in order more fully to develop his potential individuality must be regarded as a healthy need.” (p. 51)
- Unhealthy Needs
“A need is unhealthy when its gratification does not contribute to the further growth of the person, when it actually prevents further growth.” (p. 53)
[1964] Gardner Murphy in Ledford J. Bischof, Interpreting Personality Theories, 1970
“Four inborn organic needs are assumed to be part of the biological nature of man’s personality. They are as follows:
1. visceral needs : food, water, air, etc.
2. activity needs : exploration and manipulation
3. sensory needs : perceptual clarity in colour, tone, rhythm and orientation
4. preservation needs : avoidance of pain, death, threat, shocks, etc.
(Chapter 10, p. 371)
[1968] Amitai Etzioni, The Active Society, 1971
We suggest six basic needs:
1. the need for affection, also referred to as the need for solidarity, cohesion, or love;
2.
the need for recognition, variously referred as the need for self-esteem, achievement, or approval;
3.
the need for context, variously referred to as the need for orientation, consistency, synthesis, meaning, or wholeness;
4. the need for repeated gratification (more frequent rewards are preferred to less frequent ones)
5.
the need for a degree of stability in the pattern of the distribution of rewards;
6. the need for variance in a social structure, that is for a variety of social roles and norms to provide outlets for the varied personalities. (from Chapter 21)
"As
a first crude approximation, it seems to hold that the more a societal structure allows for the satisfaction of the basic needs of its members, the less the structure will be alienating." (p. 625)
"Ultimately, there is no way for a societal structure to discover the members' needs and adapt to them without the participation of the members in shaping and reshaping the structure." (p. 626)
[1968] Frederich Herzberg, Work and the Nature of Man, Crosby Lockwood Staples, London 1974
"... the human animal has two categories of needs. One set ... is centered on the avoidance of loss of life, hunger, pain, sexual deprivation and on other primary drives, in addition to the infinite varieties of learned fears that become attached to these basic drives. The other segment of man’s nature ... is man’s compelling urge to realize his own potentiality by continuous psychological growth." (Chapter 4 : The Basic Needs of Man - p. 56)
[1992] Manfred Max- Neef, in Paul Ekins, Manfred Max-Neef, Real-Life Economics
- Subsistence
- Protection
- Affection
- Understanding
- Participation
- Leisure
- Creation
- Identity
- Freedom (e.g. autonomy, tolerance, assertiveness).
(from Chapter 7, pp. 206-207)
[1992] Mario Kamenetzky, in Paul Ekins, Manfred Max-Neef, Real-Life Economics
- Biological needs
energy-renewing requirements : nutrition, sleep, excretion
energy-balancing requirements : motion, sexual activity
- Bio-psychological needs
clothing, shelter, care and protection of body and mind
- Psychological needs
knowledge, dialogue with the spirit, recreation
- Socio-cultural needs
intellectual, emotional and physical communications, participation, autonomy
(from Chapter 7, pp. 183-184)
[1854] Henry David Thoreau, Walden, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1960
“By the words, necessary of life, I mean whatever, of all that man obtains by his own exertions, has been from the first, or from long use has become, so important to human life that few, if any, whether from savageness, or poverty, or philosophy, ever attempt to do without it.”
“The necessaries of life for man in this climate may, accurately enough, be distributed under the several heads of Food, Shelter, Clothing, and Fuel; for not till we have secured these are we prepared to entertain the true problems of life with freedom and a prospect of success.”
(I. Economy, p. 7)
[1906] William Graham Sumner, Folkways, The New American Library, 1960
“... the first task of life is to live. Men begin with acts, not with thoughts. Every moment brings necessities which must be satisfied at once. Need was the first experience, and it was followed at once by a blundering effort to satisfy it.” (p. 18)
“... from the first acts by which men try to satisfy needs, each act stands by itself and looks no further than the immediate satisfaction. From recurrent needs arise habits for the individual and customs for the group.” (p. 19)
“Another long-time must pass, and a higher stage of mental development must be reached, before they can be used as a basis from which to deduce rules for meeting, in the future, problems whose pressure can be foreseen.” (p. 19)
[1976] Karl Marx in Agnes Heller, The Theory of Need in Marx
"His [the human being] natural needs, such as food, clothing, fuel, and housing, vary according to the climatic and other physical conditions of his country. On the other hand, the number and extent of his so-called necessary needs, as also the modes of satisfying them, are themselves the product of historical development and depend therefore to a great extent on the degree of civilization of a country." (p. 30)
(from "The Capital", 1867, Vol. I)
[1958] Sidney M. Jourard, Personal Adjustment. An Approach through the Study of Healthy Personality
Healthy needs. "Healthy needs contribute to a person’s continued growth toward self-actualization. Whatever a person wants or needs in order more fully to develop his potential individuality must be regarded as a healthy need." (p. 51)
Unhealthy needs. "A need is unhealthy when its gratification does not contribute to the further growth of the person, when it actually prevents further growth." (p. 53)
[1964] Herbert Marcuse, One Dimensional Man
"We may distinguish both true and false needs. 'False' are those which are superimposed upon the individual by particular social interests in his repression : the needs which perpetuate toil, aggressiveness, misery, and injustice." "Most of the prevailing needs to relax, to have fun, to behave and consume in accordance with the advertisements, to love and hate what others love and hate, belong to this category of false needs."
"The only needs that have an unqualified claim for satisfaction are the vital ones - nourishment, clothing, lodging at the attainable level of culture. The satisfaction of these needs is the prerequisite for the realization of all needs."
"'Truth' and 'falsehood' of needs designate objective conditions to the extent to which the universal satisfaction of vital needs and, beyond it, the progressive alleviation of toil and poverty, are universally valid standards." (p. 19)
[1954] Abraham Maslow, Motivation and Personality, Harper & Row, New York, Second Edition 1970
Preconditions for the satisfaction of Basic Needs :
- freedom to speak
- freedom to do what one wishes so long as no harm is done to others
- freedom to express oneself
- freedom to investigate and seek for information
- freedom to defend oneself
- justice, fairness, honesty, orderliness in the group.
(from Chapter 4, p. 47)
[1971] Serge Chermayeff, Alexander Tzonis, Shape of Community
“... to the satisfaction of physical needs for clean air and water, food, health and shelter, long understood to be essential for survival, must now be added the equally generalized specifications for necessities of a psychological and social kind within the same environments: a sense of security and identity, opportunities for tranquillity, exploration and participation, the feeling of freedom and happiness. All these apply with equal force to any form of human settlements whether these be industrial-urban or agrarian-rural, anywhere, at any time. All these represent human norms which may be thought of as constants universally valid over long periods, whereas the planning-designing changes are subject to cultural and technical variables in space and time.” (p. 72)
[1875] Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme
“In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of individuals under division of labour, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labour, has vanished; after labour, from a mere means of life, has itself become the prime necessity of life; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-round development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly - only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be fully left behind and society inscribe on its banners : from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”
• Drive
[1968] International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 1972
Physiological drives: "
Physiological drives are regarded as persisting, organic motivations: conditions that arouse, sustain, and regulate human and animal behavior (e.g. hunger, thirst, sleep, etc.)."
Acquired drives: "The term "acquired drive" (synonyms: secondary motive, psychogenic drive or need, acquirable or learning drive, and sociogenic need) refers to a motive, need, or source of motivation that is a product of learning."
[1985] Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. IV
"In psychology an urgent basic need pressing for satisfaction, usually rooted in some physiological tension, deficiency, or imbalance (e.g. hunger and thirst) and impelling the organism to action. Some researchers have used the term need synonymously, although others distinguish between need as the deprived state and drive as its psychological manifestation (e.g. tension and restless or goal directed activity). Psychologists also distinguish between drives that are innate and directly related to basic physiological needs (e.g. food, air, and water) and drives that are learned (e.g. drug addiction)."
• Desire
[1974] Peter Davies, ed., The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language
"Desire: 1. A wish, longing, or craving; 2. A request; 3. Something longed for; 4. Sexual appetite."
[1984] S. I. Hayakawa and P. J. Fletcher, Cassell’s Modern Guide to Synonyms & Related Words
"Desire is now the preferred word for suggesting sexual feeling, but it can also refer to any feeling of wanting or needing something."
[1923] William McDougall, An Outline of Psychology
"Desire in the widest sense may be defined as an impulse directed toward a remote object."
"In the narrowest and strictest sense, desire denotes our state when imagination of an object evokes in us an impulse to action, yet action is suspended or prevented by some physical or moral or intellectual difficulty."
(p. 207)
• Motive
[1963] A. S. Hornby et alii, The Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English
"Motive: 1. That which causes somebody to act."
[1974] Peter Davies, ed., The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language
"Motive: 1. An impulse acting as an incitement to action."
[1981] Tom McArthur, Longman Lexicon of Contemporary English
"Motive: cause of, or reason for, an action; that which urges a person to act in a certain way."
[1984] S. I. Hayakawa and P. J. Fletcher, Cassell’s Modern Guide to Synonyms & Related Words
"Motive connotes some impulse within a person - such as love, hate, revenge, or ambition - that impels him to act with a strong sense of purpose."
[1979] Kast Fremont & James E. Rosenzweig, Organization and Management
"A motive is what prompts a person to act in a certain way or at least develop a propensity for specific behavior." (p. 244)
• Requirement
[1969] Keith Hanson in Geoffrey Broadbent & Anthony Ward, eds., Design Methods in Architecture
"A requirement is a situation that must be present otherwise an observable human or social need would go unsatisfied. Most requirements are dependent in their solutions on other requirements. Any two requirements that would either help or hinder one another in solution therefore interact and need to be thought of together if a satisfactory solution is to be found for both." (p. 37)
• Tendency
[1969] Barry Poyner in Geoffrey Broadbent & Anthony Ward, eds., Design Methods in Architecture
"If we accept the traditional concept of need, we have no way of telling if a need is true or false." "We don’t have this difficulty with a tendency. A tendency is a statement of what people are actively trying to do. It is a statement which is either true or false. Either people are trying to do it or they are not." (p. 32)
• Want - Wish
[1974] Peter Davies, ed., The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language
"Want: 1. The condition or quality of lacking a usual or necessary amount; 2. Pressing need; 3. Something needed; 4. A fault."
"To want: 1. To fail to have; lack; 2. To desire; wish for; 3. To need or require; 4a. To request the presence of;
4b. To seek with intent to capture."
[1923] William I. Thomas, The Unadjusted Girl, in W. W. Spradlin, & P. B. Porterfield, Human Biosociology. From Cell to Culture, Springer-Verlag, New York, 1979
"The human wishes have a great variety of concrete forms but are capable of the following general classification:
1. The desire for new experience (e.g. pursuit of new ends)
2. The desire for security (e.g. accumulation of property)
3. The desire for response (e.g. love, appreciation)
4. The desire for recognition (e.g. social status)."
(Chapter I)
[1971] Victor Papanek, Design for the Real World, 1977
"Designing for the people’s needs rather than for their wants, or artificially created wants, is the only meaningful direction now." (p. 163)
[1745-1772] Denis Diderot from entry : "Besoin" in Diderot-D’Alembert, Encyclopédie
"Nous avons deux sortes de besoins : les uns du corps, qu'on nomme appétits ; les autres de l'esprit, qu'on appelle désirs."