{"id":184,"date":"2023-03-23T23:04:56","date_gmt":"2023-03-23T23:04:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/illuminated-text.com\/cb\/?p=184"},"modified":"2024-04-16T15:42:50","modified_gmt":"2024-04-16T15:42:50","slug":"basic-needs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/illuminated-text.com\/cb\/basic-needs\/","title":{"rendered":"Basic Needs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

(is laughter a basic need? – picture credit<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Introduction<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

When marketers use the term ‘needs’ they often mean a slightly different thing than we will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marketing people sometimes say people “want” a specific product, to meet some broader “need”. For example, you might ‘want’ a Ford car in order to meet your ‘need’ for transport. That’s a very intuitive way of talking about our daily lives, although in psychology terms those are really both goals (i.e., a concrete goal to buy a Ford, to help with a more abstract goal of being able to move about).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you take a step back from our immediate lives, though, humans do have some basic needs that are different from other goals we might pursue. Any society (or market) that wants its people to flourish needs to make sure that it gives people a way of meeting these needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Basic needs<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Required inputs for humans to survive and\/or thrive<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Quick examples: Is it a need?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

A need for Food?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miss food for a day or two and you will struggle to thrive. Miss it for a week or so and you will die. Definitely a need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A need for social relationships?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let’s think about that for a moment: If you do something really bad, you can go to jail as a punishment. If you are already in jail and you do something else really bad (maybe hurt or kill someone) then what is the punishment for that? In much of the ‘developed’ world they don’t hit you, they don’t electrocute you, or stick sharp objects into your body. The punishment is that you have to go to a place like this, all on your own:<\/p>\n\n\n

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No other people<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

That is the punishment. They take away other people. And it hurts us. A lot. Evidence suggests<\/a> that solitary confinement can fairly quickly create severe mental distress (people can hallucinate and become suicidal), and even physical problems such as with eating or to our eyesight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So yes, social relationships are a need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A need for speed?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With all due apologies to fans of fast cars, sprinting, and luge<\/a>, it is possible to live a perfectly contented life while mostly just walking around. Sure, you might enjoy going fast sometimes, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Maybe you enjoy chocolate too (Mmm!). But if we can<\/strong> survive and thrive without a thing (and people do) then it doesn’t make the cut as a need. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(I’m sorry about chocolate too. Far moreso).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Situational needs vs basic human needs?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Is transportation a need? Many of us live in places where we would struggle to acquire food without a car. So if we require it to survive, that meets the definition of a need, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe. But people survived and thrived long before wheels were ever invented, and before horses were domesticated. To this day, many people live in places that are ‘walkable’, where they can get everything they need locally. So is transportation still really <\/strong>a need?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Basic human needs are baked into our humanity. There are no circumstances in which we can survive without food. There are plenty in which we can thrive without transportation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the places we live often do impose very real demands on us. You won’t survive winter in the Canadian Yukon without warm clothes. You will struggle to thrive in the suburbs of many developed countries without a car – or, increasingly, without internet access. So there are often needs we have that exist within the confines of a given situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If this distinction feels confusing here is a silly example that might help it to stick with you (sometimes silly examples are memorable, which can be useful): Imagine a crazy king takes over your country, and announces that everyone must carry a live hamster with them at all times. He orders his guards to immediately execute anyone they meet who does not have the required hamster. The residents of this country now have a situational<\/strong> (but very real!) need for hamsters, to maintain their underlying universal <\/strong>need for their heads to remain attached to their bodies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this chapter, we are going to focus on basic human needs. Still, it’s worth remembering that sometimes we have situational needs too, and often those are dictated by choices that we humans have collectively made (i.e., in terms of laws, the geography of how you can travel around, etc).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are our basic needs?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, scientists have never managed to agree on a complete and final ‘official’ list of needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most textbooks tackle problems like this by trying to list all the major contending theories, but that can often be somewhat cluttered and confusing, especially for beginners. This book value making things coherent over being fully exhaustive, so we are going to synthesize two of the biggest theories and leave the others aside. You should be aware, though, that there are other potential lists of needs that we will not be covering (McClelland’s theory<\/a> being the most famous of these – although the ones we do discuss capture much of the flavour of it).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Theory 1: Maslow<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The most famous theory of all, is one you’ve likely heard of: Maslow’s. He claimed that needs form a pyramid#up:<\/p>\n\n\n

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#down. Actually he never drew a pyramid. It was other people who represented his idea this way, but somehow it stuck <\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n
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\"Maslow's
Maslow’s famous hierarchy (image source<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Maslow <\/span> claimed that people tend to focus on meeting these needs from the bottom up: First people tend to focus on their physiological needs, then their safety ones, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Did you know that this wasn’t his complete list of needs?<\/h5>
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Later in his life, he added three more to his list. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
One was cognitive needs, for knowledge, understanding, curiosity, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another was self-transcendence, which he split out from self-actualization – a move that at least some scholars have argued was a good one <\/span>. Self-transcendence is an attachment to something bigger and more meaningful than our own selves. Commonly this is done through religion, but it doesn’t have to be. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The final one was a need for aesthetics. He decided that often people who were seeking higher levels of enlightenment would often try to surround themselves with beauty in its different forms.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
The big question with Maslow is how seriously to take his theory. He wasn’t looking at any data when he came up with it. He had done some work observing monkeys, and he studied some biographies of people who he believed to have attained self-actualization, but he was mostly just a smart guy, dreaming up a plausible-seeming list. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unfortunately, there can be gaps between “plausible” and “true”. Parts of Maslow’s theory are self-evidently true, other parts seem wrong, and yet others are in between, with elements of truth, depending on how you look at them <\/span>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One part that is clearly wrong is the idea that you must meet your lower-level needs before advancing to higher ones. Maslow himself was careful to claim only that the order was more of a tendency than a strict requirement, and gave the example of monks and nuns choosing to give up food and shelter in order to try to reach self-actualization. Tay and Diener <\/span> go further, pointing out that developing countries are full of people who have rich and fulfilling social lives despite struggling to meet their physiological and security needs. They argue that the needs are more like vitamins – they are all needed, no matter in which order you get them. Still, there is some evidence of a loose statistical trend for people to attain their need-satisfaction in roughly Maslow’s predicted order <\/span>, though parts of even this may depend on the culture you grow up in <\/span>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The parts of Maslow’s theory that are most clearly true are found in the contents of his bottom 3 levels. Nobody would argue that we don’t suffer and die when our biological integrity is compromised through a lack of food, water, sleep, or thermoregulation (i.e., getting too hot or too cold), etc. We obviously suffer when we are insecure – we become anxious and can develop trauma. We also clearly have social needs (as discussed above).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The rest of the needs Maslow list is more open to interpretation. It contains some elements of truth, others that are questionable, and it is not clear that Maslow’s parsing is the best way to organize them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I’m curious, what are those grey areas?<\/h5>
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Views on this vary, but we will look at self-actualization, ego, sex, and trauma:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Self-actualization, according to Maslow, is about fulfilling your potential. He thought that this could be sustained by only a small handful of truly exceptional people like Ghandi and Mother Theresa. Most of us, according to Maslow experience it for only a few moments of “peak experience” in our entire lives. It’s a little hard to study something that comes about so rarely. Also, it’s not clear how much self-actualization is a defined thing, vs. an aspiration to be broadly virtuous. Would you call it a moment of self-actualization if you feel good about lending your notes to a classmate? If you felt deep happiness at the arrival of a child? If you felt gratified at completing a 5,000-piece jigsaw puzzle? Do these things have much in common?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His esteem \/ ego needs are also a bit vague. He sometimes split them into lower ego needs (like fame), and higher ones (like genuine admiration from others around you). But those lower ones are things that don’t seem to contribute to our well-being <\/span>, which suggests that a) these things don’t belong in the same category, and b) the lower ones aren’t needs at all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sex: there are several ways to look at this (no pun intended). In strict terms it might not be a need at all: People do seem able to survive and thrive without it. About 1% of the population report being asexual, with no interest in it at all. Other people lead perfectly contented lives having given it up voluntarily, often for religious reasons (i.e., various monks and nuns for life, and many others until marriage, or for some other period). That said, 99% of the population do have at least some drive towards sex (some stronger than others), and people’s success at remaining celibate is variable#up.<\/p>\n\n\n
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#down. As Saint Augustine famously said: \"Lord grant me chastity, but not yet\"<\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
The picture gets more complicated when you consider reproduction. This is clearly a need at the species level: no more babies will translate, sooner or later, into no more humans. But on an individual level, some people don’t want kids, while others experience great distress if they can’t have them. So… perhaps a need?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trauma is another thing that is perhaps missing from this model. It assumes that once people have met a need they move on to the next thing. It is increasingly clear<\/a>, though, that children who experience trauma, deprivation, and neglect, can suffer physical and mental damage that lasts into adulthood, even after they are long removed from that situation<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
If you are interested in more detail on Maslow’s needs, see here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Theory 2: Self-Determination Theory (“SDT”)<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
SDT says#up that humans have three basic psychological needs. for relatedness, autonomy (or ‘authenticity’), and competence <\/span>. When these needs are met, people experience higher subjective psychological well-being, and when they are not met, psychological well-being drops.<\/p>\n\n\n
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#down. Well, part of it says this. SDT is actually made up of several sub-theories that are all grounded in a common view of humans as self-organizing organisms (and based on a lot of data). Here we will briefly cover SDT's subtheory about needs. Much more detail to come on it in our chapter on happiness<\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
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Competence<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
The feeling that you are good at some important things. It allows a sense of control and mastery.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Autonomy \/ Authenticity<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
The feeling that your actions are self-endorsed – they reflect what you would choose to do because it matters or is meaningful to you. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Relatedness<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
The feeling that you are connected to close others. You understand and care about each other.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
Some people are confused by SDT’s use of the term ‘autonomy’ because they read it as meaning ‘independent from other people’. This is a legitimate dictionary definition of that word, but it is not what SDT means to say <\/span>. For example, imagine you fell ill and were highly dependent on someone to help with your every activity (“hold the fork so I can eat”). It is possible you could experience this as controlling and unpleasant, but also that you might experience it as autonomy-supporting if <\/strong>you trusted this helper, and endorsed them to be making key decisions for you. Similarly, imagine your job required you to instantly obey your boss’s commands, without question or hesitation. This might feel unpleasantly controlling, or it could feel autonomous – but only if <\/strong>you endorsed this way of working as necessary for some important goal that mattered to you (perhaps you admire this person as a great leader, and believe in the mission you are working towards).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We, therefore, suggest the alternate label as ‘authenticity’. It captures the original meaning fairly well, without this confusing extra connotation: it is possible to feel authentic working alone, or closely with others, or even in ways that are highly dependent on others (so long as you endorse that you would be working with them in that way)!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Overall, the three SDT needs have one big advantage that some of Maslow’s higher needs don’t: There is copious evidence that they are required psychological inputs that are necessary for thriving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Synthesis model<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Here is a model that tries to join those two theories together. It takes the three SDT needs, for which there is a lot of evidence, and adds a (slightly updated reading of) Maslow’s more uncontroversial elements, then suggests one further additional layer. This last layer is evolved out of a need that Maslow suggested later in his life (and one that has big implications for consumers):<\/p>\n\n\n
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\"An<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Physiological needs<\/strong>: Everything you need for your body to physically stay alive and healthy. That includes Maslow’s standard list of things like food (ideally a balanced diet#up), water, oxygen, excretion, body temperature regulation, and adds a few further things too: such as sleep, physical activity (e.g., exercise), and bodily integrity (e.g., your body not being chopped, torn, broken, exposed to toxins, and so on). <\/p>\n\n\n
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#down. Does sugar meet our need for food? On the one hand, it gives energy that will keep you alive. On the other hand, too much starts leading to holes in your teeth, diabetes, and other health problems<\/a> - some doctors are calling sugar the 'new tobacco'<\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
Security needs<\/strong>: The perception (accurate or not) that there is no imminent threat to your being able to meet your other needs to some minimal viable level. These can be threats to your physical well-being (e.g., that you might be attacked, or poisoned, or that you won’t have the money to eat or keep warm, etc), but can include other needs too. A threat to your social needs might be a fear that close others will abandon you. An extreme threat to your competence would be a situation in which you cannot control anything and are helpless. A threat to your authenticity needs would be feeling that you are pushed around and controlled by life in a way that has no meaning and\/or doesn’t matter#up. <\/p>\n\n\n
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#down. Over 100 yeras ago the French sociologist Emile Durkheim described two of the causes of suicide as \"anomie\" and \"fatalistic\". The first was a condition in which the social rules that give meaning were breaking down (at least for that person) and they felt hopeless and adrift, and the second is when the rules feel overly restricitve and controlling <\/span> - link<\/a> to that interesting paper. You can see these as ways for authenticity\/autonomy to be defeated<\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
These feelings of insecurity can arrive from threats that are physically present (“oh no, a lion!”) or from strong awareness of the possibility of imminent danger (e.g., many women don’t feel safe outside at nighttime, as they are aware of the possibility of being attacked), or even from PTSD (i.e., hypervigilance to a threat based on past traumatic experiences). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mental stimulation:<\/strong> Later in his life Maslow added “cognitive needs” to his list. By this, he meant a need for knowledge and curiosity, etc, but in our terms that might be partly accounted for by competence. You can argue, though, that people clearly do need some level of mental engagement and activity. There is far less evidence for this as a need than anything else on this list, but we are all familiar with boredom, the unpleasant feeling that has been defined as an “aversive experience of having an unfulfilled desire to be engaged in satisfying activity” <\/span>. We feel bored when we don’t have anything to do, or when we are doing something that is insufficiently interesting or meaningful to us. The opposite of boredom is a state called flow, when we are fully mentally engaged with doing something <\/span>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
People will sometimes accept less pay for jobs they find interesting (academia says hello), and we spend huge amounts of time (and often money) seeking out films and books (fiction and non-fiction) and games (video games, board games, puzzles, watching sports). Funfairs and theme parks do not exist to maximize our safety and save us money. You can debate whether this is truly a need, but it seems like there is a prima facie case for it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Relatedness, authenticity, competence<\/strong>: As explained above. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The claim<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
We are going to make a claim here, and it is a bold one (by academic standards anyway): That diagram above is the complete list of needs. There is no need for delicious because it isn’t on the list. There is no basic need for business degrees either. Those things might all be desirable or useful, even important to our lives. But people can survive and thrive without them, so they are not needs, and not on the list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Is this claim correct?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maybe! Can you think of something that should be there? Let us know in the comment box at the bottom of this page. We would love to hear it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One thing that maybe should go on the list is a need for aesthetics. Maslow added that to his list, later in his life. He thought that people often started looking for beauty when they were on their way to self-actualization. So can we thrive in a world that doesn’t have beauty? We don’t have any hard data or answers for that. Or maybe beauty is just part of mental engagement. We are at the limits of our knowledge here. One of the great (terrible?) things about social sciences is that we really don’t know everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Whether or not we all agree on exactly what the full list of needs is, it’s clear that the length of the list is not very long. People have managed to thrive all over the planet, in a very wide range of circumstances: we live where it is hot and where it is cold, where it is crowded and sparse, where resources and scarce and plentiful. There can’t be many needs that are universally met across all of those places.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The list of goals humans pursue, in contrast, is not only big, but it is infinite. Sometimes we have goals to eat pizza, sometimes hummus or mushrooms, whale blubber or insects. Sometimes we have goals to clean a toilet, and make a teddy bear, or slide down a snowy hill on a small tray. There are infinite goals we pursue, but only a few needs that we have to meet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Structure of this page<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
Recall that we said we would use the same structure for both needs and goals. Let’s continue to fill out our table:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Topics we will cover:<\/strong><\/td>Goals<\/strong><\/td>Basic needs<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
Dynamics<\/td>Activated \u2192 Sticky \u2192 Release<\/td>?<\/td><\/tr>
Possible statuses<\/td>Activated \/ Not-existing (dormant?)<\/td>?<\/td><\/tr>
What they do to us<\/td>Shape behaviour, attention, perception, and reasoning<\/td>?<\/td><\/tr>
Interact with each other?<\/td>Compete & cooperate (in hierarchies)<\/td>?<\/td><\/tr>
Awareness?<\/td>Yes for lower-level goals, sometimes limited for higher ones<\/td>?<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Dynamics of needs<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
When one of our needs is unmet, it tends to demand our attention at some point. We start to realize that we are hungry, tired, lonely, or bored. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
If we make progress towards meeting them then it feels good. The hamburger tastes yummy, the chair feels delightful to sink into, chatting to our friend is a delight, we dive into reading our CB book with unusual energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When we have met our need, it is “sated”, and we generally lose interest in it. The food left on our plate no longer looks inviting, our bed feels confining, our lovely friend is probably still nice to hang out with, but there are maybe other things to do as well, and we’re happy to put our book down and move on to anything else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Topics we will cover:<\/strong><\/td>Goals<\/strong><\/td>Basic needs<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
Dynamics<\/td>Activated \u2192 Sticky \u2192 Release<\/td>Unmet \u2192 Rewarding \u2192 Ignore<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
Possible statuses<\/td>Activated \/ Not-existing (dormant?)<\/td>?<\/td><\/tr>
What they do to us<\/td>Shape behaviour, attention, perception, and reasoning<\/td>?<\/td><\/tr>
Interact with each other?<\/td>Compete & cooperate (in hierarchies)<\/td>?<\/td><\/tr>
Awareness?<\/td>Yes for lower-level goals, sometimes limited for higher ones<\/td>?<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Possible statuses of needs<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
There are really only two possibilities here: Unmet (e.g., hungry, lonely, bored, etc) and sated (e.g., full, and… we don’t even really have words for the opposite of lonely and bored. We just move on to thinking about other things when we get to that state).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unlike goals, these needs always exist. There is never a time in your life that you don’t need food, the only question is whether you have enough food in your stomach right now (and if not, you might start generating goals to help you get some). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Topics we will cover:<\/strong><\/td>Goals<\/strong><\/td>Basic needs<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
Dynamics<\/td>Activated \u2192 Sticky \u2192 Release<\/td>Unmet \u2192 Rewarding \u2192 Ignore<\/td><\/tr>
Possible statuses<\/td>Activated \/ Not-existing (dormant?)<\/td>Unmet \/ sated<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
What they do to us<\/td>Shape behaviour, attention, perception, and reasoning<\/td>?<\/td><\/tr>
Interact with each other?<\/td>Compete & cooperate (in hierarchies)<\/td>?<\/td><\/tr>
Awareness?<\/td>Yes for lower-level goals, sometimes limited for higher ones<\/td>?<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
What needs do to us<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Mostly the same things that goals do. In fact, you can look at needs as essentially special high-level goals that are unusually chronic, and abstract (with often many ways to meet them).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They can activate behaviour (e.g., triggering us to want to put food into our mouths), and often do this by spawning sub-goals (e.g., go to the kitchen to find food that I can then put into my mouth).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They can direct our attention. We notice food when we are hungry, and we spot how friendly someone might be when we are lonely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They can shape our perception. If you are hungry and find something nice for dinner, the first bite often tastes the best. If you are lonely the strangers you meet are more interesting#up.<\/p>\n\n\n
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#down. Here's a little experiment that you can try if you are around university campuses: Try striking up a conversation with the person next in line to you at a cafe. My prediction is that it works more often at the start of the school year in September, than at the end of a semester in December, when people have found their social circles and spent a lot of time with them. <\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
Topics we will cover:<\/strong><\/td>Goals<\/strong><\/td>Basic needs<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
Dynamics<\/td>Activated \u2192 Sticky \u2192 Release<\/td>Unmet \u2192 Rewarding \u2192 Ignore<\/td><\/tr>
Possible statuses<\/td>Activated \/ Not-existing (dormant?)<\/td>Unmet \/ sated<\/td><\/tr>
What they do to us<\/td>Shape behaviour, attention, perception, and reasoning<\/td>Shape behaviour, attention, and perception<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
Interact with each other?<\/td>Compete & cooperate (in hierarchies)<\/td>?<\/td><\/tr>
Awareness?<\/td>Yes for lower-level goals, sometimes limited for higher ones<\/td>?<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
In theory, if the core benefit of your product meets a need better than the available alternatives do, then your brand should be seen as rewarding. This is difficult to pull off in practice though. There are many foods that meet our need for sustenance, and we aren’t particularly loyal to most of them. But arguably part of the success of Starbucks as a chain was that it took fancy coffee drinks, and attached them to social spaces where people could help build their relationships. It did this by providing a “third space” that wasn’t work or home – a neutral space where you could meet people socially. Many of its competitors copied this formula, but Starbucks remained one of the best-known for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What we have said so far is mostly true for minor deprivation of needs – being a bit bored, hungry, or thirsty. Needs can get complicated when the deprivation is more severe because this can produce strong distressed survival reactions in us. People (and animals) who have their food intake severely curtailed for a period not only experience such a strong drive towards food that it displaces their other interests, but it can produce permanent changes in them even after the deprivation is over, with a lasting re-orientation of their interest toward food, and even difficulty controlling their eating at times <\/span>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Case study: the counter-intuitive complexities of loneliness<\/h5>
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In a lovely review, Shrum et. al. <\/span> describes how loneliness is both very common and widely misunderstood. Loneliness seems to be far more related to the quality of our interactions than to the quantity of them we have. While people who report having no friends tend to be lonely, those who report having only one or two friends don’t necessarily feel lonely, and those with many friends sometimes do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While loneliness does seem to produce the drive towards interacting with people that you would expect, it also appears to produce a paradoxical motive to protect ourselves; Loneliness makes us feel vulnerable, which makes us withdraw, become more suspicious and less trusting, and perceive threats where others might not see them. These can block us from finding the high-quality interactions that we need. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Perhaps accordingly, interventions that aim to help people by improving their social skills and providing opportunities for social contact don’t seem to help much. What does seem to help are things which enhance people’s social support, and social-cognitive training which helps them recognize that loneliness can trigger feelings like suspicion and distrust, and so be more careful about rushing to these negative judgments. There is also some evidence that mindfulness and meditation may help somewhat – It seems counter-intuitive that meditating on one’s own could help with loneliness, but, presumably, it helps reduce the hypervigilance and defensiveness that can get in the way of high-quality social interactions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Shrum et. al. <\/span>  also describe many things that firms are trying to do (for profit or not) to reduce loneliness, and try to map these on to the interventions that have been shown to work or not – it’s an excellent read for anyone who is interested in such things.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Case study: the paradox of doing the laundry<\/h5>
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Maryann McCabe <\/span> describes a paradox in which some mothers find the laundry to be a very boring and repetitive task, and yet are hesitant to let other people do it for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
McCabe’s explanation for this is that they find competence in getting the clothes in their house to the level of absolute cleanliness that they desire, and also relatedness because it embodies to them the caring that they do for their family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Presumably, there also exist some fathers who feel the same way, but the gendered world we live in seems to assign the task of laundry largely to women. The (un)fairness of this arrangement is left as an exercise for the reader.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Needs interact with each other?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
They don’t really seem to. If you are feeling incompetent that doesn’t really make you feel hungry or lonely. If you are feeling hungry that doesn’t make you feel tired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The only real exception to this is security, because that is defined in terms of threats to other needs. But even there it only works in one direction: You might feel insecure because you don’t have anything to eat, but you don’t feel hungry because you are insecure. So it’s really a special case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That said, as we have already suggested above, needs can absolutely link to goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Recall our diagram that listed your possible goals? Let’s update it a little.<\/p>\n\n\n
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\"A<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
These goals don’t have to be linked to needs, but some of them might be. If you feel that preparing for your test might mean that you do well enough on it that you won’t be kicked out of your school, or that it will mean you might get a job that will keep you from going hungry, then it could be linked to your need for security. You might not actively think of it that way, but it might explain some of your feelings surrounding it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Your goal to learn might help make you feel competent (if you felt that learning gave you a better command of the world that would help you manage it, and even do difficult things), or it could help make you feel authentic, if you value being clever or educated – that could help you feel like your page reading goals were something that you endorse and want to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Topics we will cover:<\/strong><\/td>Goals<\/strong><\/td>Basic needs<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
Dynamics<\/td>Activated \u2192 Sticky \u2192 Release<\/td>Unmet \u2192 Rewarding \u2192 Ignore<\/td><\/tr>
Possible statuses<\/td>Activated \/ Not-existing (dormant?)<\/td>Unmet \/ sated<\/td><\/tr>
What they do to us<\/td>Shape behaviour, attention, perception, and reasoning<\/td>Shape behaviour, attention, and perception<\/td><\/tr>
Interact with each other?<\/td>Compete & cooperate (in hierarchies)<\/td>With goals, 
not each other<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
Awareness?<\/td>Yes for lower-level goals, sometimes limited for higher ones<\/td>?<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Awareness of needs?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
 Can we be hungry and not know it? Lonely? Bored? Insecure? Incompetent?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our needs do tend to make themselves known to us eventually (“woha, I’m starving \/ cold \/ bored”), but the inside of our heads can be complicated and crowded spaces, and the message doesn’t always get through. Sometimes it’s only when we take our first bite of food that it occurs to us how hungry we were, or when we sit down that we suddenly realize how tired we had got. Sometimes you don’t realize how lonely you are until someone knocks on your door to sell something, and you talk their ear off#up.<\/p>\n\n\n
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#down. hey kids, go call the retirement-age people in your life. Western society often isolates us in later life, and they are often missing company. Its a basic human need<\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
In fact, one useful life skill we can learn is to check for HALT<\/a> when we are feeling grumpy (or our kids are). HALT is an acronym for “Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired”, and people in those states sometimes don’t realize, that one of these is the reason they are being cranky. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Relatedly, there is a conversation that people find themselves having with children that goes like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
GROWN-UP: “You must be hungry, you haven’t eaten anything.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
CHILD: “I am not hungry! [continues shouting about something]”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
GROWN-UP: “Here is food.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
CHILD: “I don’t want it [shout shout shout]”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
GROWN-UP: “Here’s a chocolate bar.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
CHILD: “[Eats it. Then accepts more food. Then calms down radically].”#up<\/p>\n\n\n
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#down. Your gentle author would like to unconvincingly deny that they were ever on the 'child' end of this conversation<\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
Our point here is only this: If people automatically knew which needs they were missing, at all times, you wouldn’t have to train them to check in on such things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Topics we will cover:<\/strong><\/td>Goals<\/strong><\/td>Basic needs<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
Dynamics<\/td>Activated \u2192 Sticky \u2192 Release<\/td>Unmet \u2192 Rewarding \u2192 Ignore<\/td><\/tr>
Possible statuses<\/td>Activated \/ Not-existing (dormant?)<\/td>Unmet \/ sated<\/td><\/tr>
What they do to us<\/td>Shape behaviour, attention, perception, and reasoning<\/td>Shape behaviour, attention, and perception<\/td><\/tr>
Interact with each other?<\/td>Compete & cooperate (in hierarchies)<\/td>With goals, 
not each other<\/td><\/tr>
Awareness?<\/td>Yes for lower-level goals, sometimes limited for higher ones<\/td>Usually (when strongly unmet) but not always<\/strong><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Awareness of how goals support our needs?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Recall that when we were talking about goals, we said that people are often aware of their concrete lower-level goals (e.g., “I’m reading this textbook page”), but they can be much less aware of our higher-level goals (e.g., “I’m learning”). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The pattern with needs is similar, except perhaps for our physiological needs. We tend to have pretty clear ideas about why we eat, sleep, visit the bathroom, and put warm jackets on. But our other needs can tend to function as high-level super goals. Perhaps your goal to learn is related to competence for you? Perhaps to authenticity? You may not have ever really thought about that before – most people haven’t. But that doesn’t mean that they aren’t, or that they don’t affect you like this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of the implications of this for marketers is that it can be tricky to know where your products connect to people’s needs. You can ask them, but they may not be able to tell you. It can take a lot of careful qualitative market research to unpick these connections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Review<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
{pods_post_review}<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\r\n\t\t{4193465:PK9LWFBQ};{4193465:LZQG5BT3};{4193465:MYZVFX2X},{4193465:W568KL54};{4193465:JTR4ETRE};{4193465:MYZVFX2X};{4193465:JTR4ETRE};{4193465:KFMSN8L4};{4193465:KFMSN8L4},{4193465:IWX7WPJU};{4193465:KFMSN8L4};{4193465:QJBKXMQQ};{4193465:JXGG8THS};{4193465:5JX67CBW};{4193465:EVKMD5UJ};{4193465:HQT6XFGU};{4193465:HQT6XFGU};{4193465:NXCY9TRV}<\/span>\r\n\t\tapa<\/span>\r\n\t\tcreator<\/span>\r\n\t\tasc<\/span>\r\n\t\t<\/span>\r\n\t\t<\/span>\r\n\t\t<\/span>\r\n\t\t<\/span>\r\n\t\t<\/span>\r\n\t\t<\/span>\r\n\t\t<\/span>\r\n\t\t<\/span>\r\n\t\t<\/span>\r\n\t\t0<\/span>\r\n\t\t<\/span>\r\n\t\t184<\/span>
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