When we talk about the hierarchy of prepotence, one might get the impression that we are talking about some kind of rigidly fixed structure of needs. But in reality, the hierarchy of needs is not at all as stable as it might seem at first glance. The basic needs of most of the people we studied, in general terms, obeyed the described order, but there were exceptions to this rule.
- For some people, for example, the need for self-affirmation manifests itself as more urgent than the need for love. This is the most common case of reversion, and is based on the idea that strong, powerful people, people who command respect and even fear, people who are confident, behave offensively and aggressively, deserve more love, or at least enjoy its fruits with great right. It is because of this idea that a person who lacks love and who is looking for it can demonstrate self-confident, aggressive behavior. But in this case, self-respect is not the ultimate goal, it acts as a means of satisfying another need. Such people take an active, offensive position, not for the sake of self-affirmation as such, but in order to achieve love.
- The creative needs of people with a pronounced creative potential seem to be more important, more significant than any others. We must pay tribute to such people — the need they feel to embody their creative abilities is not always caused by the satiety of basic needs, very often they create in spite of dissatisfaction.
- A person can forever remain at one, rather low level of motivational life, he can put up with his «earthly» needs, forget about the very existence of higher goals of human existence or refuse them. For example, a person who once suffered hardships, for example, a former unemployed person, until the end of his days can only rejoice that he is full.
- The psychopath is another example of the loss of the need for love. As clinical studies show, a psychopath who experienced a lack of love in early childhood loses forever the desire and ability to receive and give love (just as sucking and pecking reflexes fade in animals if they do not receive sufficient reinforcement in the first days of life).
- Another example of the substitution of needs can be found in cases where a person, not encountering any obstacles in the way of satisfying his desires, does not comprehend the full value of what is given to him. People who do not know what hunger is, how severely ordeals a hungry person undergoes, with all conviction consider food to be something unimportant, insignificant. If they are driven by some higher need, then it is this that seems to them the most important, the most significant. For her sake, they are ready to endure hardships, ready to give up the satisfaction of their physiological needs. However, it can be assumed that [there is clearly some kind of gap in the Russian translation — V.D.] of one or another basic need, they will be forced to agree that a “low” need, a more urgent, vital need requires a more respectful attitude . For example, a person decides to quit his job because he believes that he is underestimated, but six months later, having experienced financial difficulties, he is already ready to give up his ambitions and is not averse to being in the same workplace.
- It may very well be that the appearance of reversion also arises because we are trying to speak of the hierarchy of prepotence in terms of conscious desires and aspirations rather than in terms of behavior. It is known that behavior does not always reflect the motives behind it. In speaking of the hierarchy of needs, we are only arguing that a person who has two needs unsatisfied will prefer to first satisfy a more basic, and therefore more urgent need. But this in no way means that the behavior of this person will be determined precisely by this need. I consider it necessary to emphasize once again that the needs and desires of a person are not the only determinants of his behavior.
- Of all the cases of reversion, perhaps the most valuable are those associated with the highest social norms, with the highest ideals and values. People who are devoted to such ideals and values are ready to endure hardships, torment and even death for their sake. We can better understand the feelings of these people if we agree with the underlying concept (or hypothesis), which is summarized as follows: the satisfaction of basic needs in early childhood lays the foundation for increased frustration tolerance. It can be assumed that people who have been satisfied in their basic needs for most of their lives, and especially in early childhood, develop a special immunity to the possible frustration of these needs, that frustration does not frighten them, if only because they have a strong, healthy character. , the origins of which lie in the basic feeling of satisfaction. These are strong personalities, they are not afraid of condemnation and will not retreat in the face of difficulties, they know how to swim against the current, against public opinion, they always stand for the truth, no matter what it costs them. They know how to truly love, and they are loved by others, they are capable of true friendship, one that is not afraid of any trials.
I could not resist pathos and pathos, despite the fact that the tolerance for frustration with equal persuasiveness could be attributed to elementary addiction. It is possible that a person who has lived most of his life from hand to mouth, as a result, will get used to the deprivation of food needs. The question of which of the two prerequisites — habituation or a basic sense of satisfaction — can become a stronger foundation for the development of frustration tolerance remains open and requires further research. So far, we can only assume that they both act side by side, since there is no obvious contradiction between them, and that the satisfaction of the basic needs of the individual in infancy and early childhood plays a decisive role in the formation of frustration tolerance. People who have absorbed the basic feelings of security and confidence with mother’s milk, as a rule, are able to remain calm and confident even in the most dangerous situations.
Need satisfaction measure
I am afraid that our reasoning may push the reader’s thoughts in the wrong direction. It may seem that the hierarchy of the five groups of needs described by us indicates a specific dependence — it is worth, they say, to satisfy one need, as another immediately takes its place. From this, the following erroneous conclusion may follow — the emergence of a need is possible only after one hundred percent satisfaction of the underlying need. In fact, almost any healthy member of our society can be said to be both satisfied and unsatisfied in all of their basic needs. Our understanding of the hierarchy of needs will be more realistic if we introduce the concept of a measure of satisfaction of needs and say that lower needs are always satisfied to a greater extent than higher ones. If, for the sake of clarity, we use specific figures, albeit conditional, it turns out that the average citizen has physiological needs satisfied, for example, by 85%, the need for security is satisfied by 70%, the need for love — by 50%, the need for self-respect — by 40%, and the need for self-actualization — by 10%.
The term «need satisfaction measure» allows us to better understand the thesis about the awakening of a higher need after the satisfaction of a lower one. It should be especially emphasized that the process of awakening needs is not sudden, not explosive; rather, one should speak of a gradual, slow awakening and activation of higher needs. For example, if need A is satisfied only by 10%, then need B may not be detected at all. However, if need A is satisfied by 25%, then need B is “awakened” by 5%, and when need A receives 75% satisfaction, then need B can reveal itself by all 50%, and so on.