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Human needs in different social groups. Formation and development of social needs. Types of human needs

Human needs in different social groups. Formation and development of social needs. Types of human needs

Human social needs are the desires and aspirations inherent in the individual as a representative of the human race.

Humanity is a social system, without which personal development is impossible. A person is always part of a community of people. By fulfilling social aspirations and desires, he develops and manifests himself as a personality.

Belonging to a human society determines the emergence of human social needs. They are experienced as desires, drives, aspirations, brightly colored emotionally. They form the motives of activity and determine the direction of behavior, replacing each other as some desires are realized and others are actualized.

Biological desires and nature of people are expressed in the need to maintain vital activity and the optimal level of functioning of the body. This is achieved by satisfying a need for something. People, like animals, have a special form of satisfying all types of biological needs - unconscious instincts.

The question of the nature of needs remains controversial in the scientific community. Some scientists reject the social nature of desires and drives, while others ignore the biological basis.

Types of social needs

Social aspirations, desires, and drives are determined by people’s belonging to society and are satisfied only in it.

“For myself”: self-identification, self-affirmation, power, recognition.
“For others”: altruism, free help, protection, friendship, love.
“Together with others”: peace on Earth, justice, rights and freedoms, independence.

Self-identification lies in the desire to be similar to a specific person, image or ideal. The child identifies himself with the parent of the same gender and recognizes himself as a boy/girl. The need for self-identification is periodically updated in the process of life, when a person becomes a schoolchild, student, specialist, parent, and so on.
Self-affirmation is necessary, and it is expressed in the realization of potential, well-deserved respect among people and a person’s assertion of himself as a professional in his favorite business. Also, many people strive for power and calling among people for their own personal purposes, for themselves.
Altruism is free help, even to the detriment of one’s own interests, prosocial behavior. A person cares about another individual as about himself.
Unfortunately, selfless friendship is rare in our time. A true friend is an asset. Friendship should be selfless, not for the sake of profit, but because of mutual disposition towards each other.
Love is the strongest desire of each of us. As a special feeling and type of interpersonal relationship, it is identified with the meaning of life and happiness. It's hard to overestimate her. This is the reason for the creation of families and the appearance of new people on Earth. The overwhelming number of psychological and physical problems come from unsatisfied, unrequited, unhappy love. Each of us wants to love and be loved, and also have a family. Love is the most powerful stimulus, motivation for personal growth, it inspires and encourages. The love of children for their parents and parents for their children, the love between a man and a woman, for their business, work, city, country, for all people and the whole world, for life, for themselves is the foundation for the development of a harmonious, holistic personality. When a person loves and is loved, he becomes the creator of his life. Love fills it with meaning.

Each of us on Earth has universal social desires. All people, regardless of nationality and religion, want peace, not war; respect for your rights and freedoms, not enslavement.

Justice, morality, independence, humanity are universal human values. Everyone desires them for themselves, their loved ones, and humanity as a whole.

When realizing your personal aspirations and desires, you need to remember about the people around you. By harming nature and society, people harm themselves.

Classification of social needs

Psychology has developed several dozen different classifications of needs. The most general classification defines two types of desires:

1. Primary or congenital:

biological or material needs (food, water, sleep and others);
existential (security and confidence in the future).

2. Secondary or acquired:

social needs (for belonging, communication, interaction, love and others);
prestigious (respect, self-esteem);
spiritual (self-realization, self-expression, creative activity).

The most famous classification of social needs was developed by A. Maslow and is known as the “Pyramid of Needs”.

This is the hierarchy of human aspirations from lowest to highest:

physiological (food, sleep, carnal and others);
need for security (housing, property, stability);
social (love, friendship, family, belonging);
respect and recognition of the individual (both by other people and by oneself);
self-actualization (self-realization, harmony, happiness).

As can be seen, these two classifications similarly define social needs as desires for love and belonging.

The importance of social needs

Natural physiological and material desires are always paramount, since the possibility of survival depends on them.

Social needs of a person are given a secondary role; they follow the physiological ones, but are more significant for the human personality.

Examples of such significance can be observed when a person suffers a need, giving preference to satisfying a secondary need: a student, instead of sleeping, is preparing for an exam; a mother forgets to eat while caring for her baby; a man endures physical pain, wanting to impress a woman.

A person strives for activity in society, socially useful work, the establishment of positive interpersonal relationships, and wants to be recognized and successful in a social environment. It is necessary to satisfy these desires for successful coexistence with other people in society.

Social needs such as friendship, love, and family are of unconditional importance.

Using the example of the relationship between people's social need for love with the physiological need for carnal relationships and with the instinct of procreation, one can understand how interdependent and connected these drives are.

The instinct of procreation in the interaction between a man and a woman is complemented by care, tenderness, respect, mutual understanding, common interests, and love arises.

Personality is not formed outside of society, without communication and interaction with people, without satisfying social needs.

Examples of children raised by animals (there have been several such incidents in the history of mankind) are a clear confirmation of the importance of love, communication, and society. Such children, once in the human community, were never able to become full members of it. When a person experiences only primary drives, he becomes like an animal and actually becomes one.

Social needs are a special type of human needs. Needs, the need for something necessary to maintain the vital functions of the body of a human person, a social group, or society as a whole. There are two types of needs: natural and created by society.

Natural needs are the daily needs of a person for food, clothing, shelter, etc.

Social needs are the needs of a person in labor activity, socio-economic activity, spiritual culture, i.e. in everything that is a product of social life.

Needs act as the main motive that encourages the subject of activity to real activities aimed at creating conditions and means of satisfying his needs, i.e., to production activities. They encourage a person to act and express the dependence of the subject of activity on the outside world.

Needs exist as objective and subjective connections, as an attraction to the object of need.

Social needs include the needs associated with the inclusion of an individual in the family, in numerous social groups and collectives, in various areas of production and non-production activities, and in the life of society as a whole.

The conditions surrounding a person not only give rise to needs, but also create opportunities for their satisfaction. Fixation of social needs in the form of value orientations, awareness of the real possibilities for their implementation and determination of ways and means to achieve them mean a transition from the stage of motivation for activity to the stage of a more or less adequate reflection of needs in the human mind.

The needs of people, a social group (community) is the objective need for the reproduction of a given community of people in its specifically specific social position. The needs of social groups are characterized by mass manifestations, stability in time and space, and invariance in the specific conditions of life of representatives of a social group. An important property of needs is their interconnectedness. It is advisable to take into account the following most important types of needs, the satisfaction of which ensures normal conditions for the reproduction of social groups (communities):

1) production and distribution of goods, services and information required for the survival of members of society;

2) normal (corresponding to existing social norms) psychophysiological life support;

3) knowledge and self-development;

4) communication between members of society;

5) simple (or expanded) demographic reproduction;

6) raising and teaching children;

7) control over the behavior of members of society;

8) ensuring their safety in all aspects. The theory of work motivation by an American psychologist and sociologist A. Maslow reveals human needs. Classifying human needs, he divides them into basic and derivative, or meta-needs. The advantage of Maslow's theory was the explanation of the interaction of factors, the discovery of their motive spring.

This concept is further developed in theory F. Herzberg, called motivational-hygienic. Here, higher and lower needs are distinguished.

Types of social needs

Social needs are born in the process of human activity as a social subject. Human activity is an adaptive, transformative activity aimed at producing means to satisfy certain needs. Since such activity acts as a person’s practical application of sociocultural experience, in its development it acquires the character of a universal social production and consumption activity. Human activity can only be carried out in society and through society; it is performed by an individual in interaction with other people and represents a complex system of actions determined by various needs.

Social needs arise in connection with the functioning of a person in society. These include the need for social activity, self-expression, ensuring social rights, etc. They are not given by nature, are not genetically laid down, but are acquired during the formation of a person as an individual, his development as a member of society, and are born in the process of human activity as a social subject.

A distinctive feature of social needs, with all their diversity, is that they all act as demands on other people and belong not to an individual, but to a group of people, united in one way or another. The general need of a certain social group not only consists of the needs of individual people, but also itself causes a corresponding need in an individual. The need of any group is not identical to the need of an individual, but is always somewhat and somehow different from it. A person belonging to a certain group relies on common needs with it, but the group forces him to obey its demands, and by obeying, he becomes one of the dictators. This creates a complex dialectic between the interests and needs of an individual, on the one hand, and those communities with which he is connected, on the other.

Social needs are needs defined by society (society) as additional and mandatory to basic needs. For example, to ensure the process of eating (a basic need), social needs will be: a chair, a table, forks, knives, plates, napkins, etc. In different social groups, these needs are different and depend on norms, rules, mentality, living conditions and other factors characterizing social culture. At the same time, an individual’s possession of items that society considers necessary may determine his social status in society.

With a wide variety of human social needs, it is possible to distinguish more or less clearly distinguished individual levels of needs, at each of which its specificity and its hierarchical connections with lower and higher ones are visible. For example, these levels include:

social needs of an individual (as a person, individuality) - they act as a ready-made, but also changing product of social relations;

social needs are family-related - in different cases they are more or less broad, specific and strong and are most closely related to biological needs;

universal social needs arise because a person, thinking and acting individually, at the same time includes his activities in the activities of other people and society. As a result, an objective need appears for such actions and states that simultaneously provide the individual with both community with other people and his independence, i.e. existence as a special person. Under the influence of this objective necessity, human needs develop, guiding and regulating his behavior in relation to himself and other people, to his social group, to society as a whole;

the needs for justice on the scale of humanity, society as a whole are the needs for improvement, “correction” of society, for overcoming antagonistic social relations;

social needs for development and self-development, improvement and self-improvement of a person belong to the highest level of the hierarchy of individual needs. Every person, to one degree or another, has a desire to be healthier, smarter, kinder, more beautiful, stronger, etc.

Social needs exist in an endless variety of forms. Without trying to imagine all the manifestations of social needs, we classify these groups of needs according to three criteria:

needs “for others” - needs that express the generic essence of a person, i.e. the need for communication, the need to protect the weak. The most concentrated need “for others” is expressed in altruism - the need to sacrifice oneself for the sake of another. The need “for others” is realized by overcoming the eternal egoistic principle “for oneself.” The existence and even “cooperation” in one person of opposing tendencies “for oneself” and “for others” is possible as long as we are not talking about individual or deep needs, but about the means of satisfying one or the other - about service needs and their derivatives. The claim to even the most significant place “for oneself” is easier to realize if at the same time, if possible, the claims of other people are not affected;

the need “for oneself” - the need for self-affirmation in society, the need for self-realization, the need for self-identification, the need to have one’s place in society, in a team, the need for power, etc. Needs “for oneself” are called social because they are inextricably linked with needs “for others”, and only through them can they be realized. In most cases, needs “for oneself” act as an allegorical expression of needs “for others”; the needs “together with others” unite people to solve urgent problems of social progress. A clear example: the invasion of Nazi troops on the territory of the USSR in 1941 became a powerful incentive for organizing resistance, and this need was universal.

Ideological needs are among the purely social needs of man. These are human needs for an idea, for an explanation of life circumstances, problems, for an understanding of the causes of ongoing events, phenomena, factors, for a conceptual, systematic vision of the picture of the world. The implementation of these needs is carried out through the use of data from natural, social, humanities, technical and other sciences. As a result, a person develops a scientific picture of the world. Through a person’s assimilation of religious knowledge, a religious picture of the world is formed.

Many people, under the influence of ideological needs and in the process of their implementation, develop a multipolar, mosaic picture of the world with a predominance, as a rule, of a scientific picture of the world for people with a secular upbringing and a religious picture for people with a religious upbringing.

Need for justice is one of the needs that are actualized and functioning in society. It is expressed in the relationship between rights and responsibilities in a person’s consciousness, in his relationships with the social environment, in interaction with the social environment. In accordance with his understanding of what is fair and what is unfair, a person evaluates the behavior and actions of other people.

In this regard, a person can be oriented:

to defend and expand, first of all, their rights;

to preferentially fulfill one’s duties in relation to other people and the social sphere as a whole;

to a harmonious combination of their rights and responsibilities when a person solves social and professional problems.

Aesthetic needs play an important role in human life. The realization of an individual’s aesthetic aspirations is influenced not only by external circumstances, conditions of life and human activity, but also by internal, personal prerequisites - motives, abilities, volitional preparedness of the individual, understanding of the canons of beauty, harmony in the perception and implementation of behavior, creative activity, life in general according to the laws of beauty, in appropriate relation to the ugly, base, ugly, violating natural and social harmony.

An active long life is an important component of the human factor. Health is the most important prerequisite for knowledge of the world around us, for self-affirmation and self-improvement of a person, therefore the first and most important human need is health. The integrity of the human personality is manifested, first of all, in the interrelation and interaction of the mental and physical forces of the body. The harmony of the psychophysical forces of the body increases health reserves. You need to replenish your health reserves through rest.

Answers to the sociology exam
Theoretical background in sociology. Social knowledge in antiquity. Plato, Aristotle and private property
Theoretical background of sociology. Social knowledge in modern times
The emergence of sociology in the first half of the 19th century. and predecessors of general sociology
positivist sociology of O. Comte
A classic stage in the development of sociology. Positivist sociologist Herbert Spencer
A classic stage in the development of sociology. Social and philosophical theory of Marxism
A classic stage in the development of sociology. Georg Simmel
A classic stage in the development of sociology. Emile Durkheim
A classic stage in the development of sociology. Max Weber
A classic stage in the development of sociology. "Understanding" sociology of Max Weber
Subject and object of modern sociology
Structure and functions of sociology
Modern Western sociology (classification of modern sociological trends according to P. Monson)
Symbolic interactionism (G. Blumer)
Phenomenological sociology (A. Schutz)
Integrative sociological theory of J. Habermas
Theories of social conflict (R. Dahrendorf)
Development of sociology in Russia
Integral sociology of P. A. Sorokin
Concept of social
Social and societal systems
Society as a societal system
Types of societies. Classification
Social laws and social relations
Social activity and social action
Social connections and social interaction
Social Institute
Social organization. Types of organizations and bureaucracy
Social community and social group
Sociology of small groups. Small group
Social control. Social norms and social sanctions
Deviant behavior. Causes of deviation according to E. Durkheim. Delinquent behavior
Public opinion and its functions
Mass actions
Socio-political organization of society and its functions
The relationship between society and the state
Social change
Social movements and their typologies
Sociology of religion. Functions of religion
Social management and social planning
Post-industrial society. Global system
Information society and e-government
General characteristics of the world community and the world market
Modern trends in international economic relations. Criteria for socio-economic progress
International division of labor
Virtual network communities, telework. Information stratification
Russia's place in the world community
The concept of culture. Types and functions of culture
What are cultural universals? Basic elements of culture
Sociocultural supersystems
The concept of "personality". Sociology of personality
Socialization of personality
Periodization of personality development (according to E. Erikson)
The concepts of social status and social role
Social role conflict and social adaptation
Social needs. Concepts of human needs (A. Maslow, F. Herzberg)
Concept of social structure
Social inequality and social stratification. Types of social stratification
Aggregate socioeconomic status
Social stratum and social class. Social stratification
The concept of social mobility, its types and types
Channels of vertical mobility (according to P. A. Sorokin)
Major changes in the social stratification of Russian society
The social structure of modern Russian society as a system of groupies and layers (according to T. I. Zaslavskaya)
The middle class and discussions about it
What is marginality? Who are the marginalized?
The concept of family and its functions
Basic types of modern family
Functions of social conflicts and their classification
Subjects of conflict relations
Mechanisms of social conflict and its stages
Managing Social Conflict
Sociology of labor. Its main categories
Main schools of Western sociology of labor (F. Taylor, E. Mayo, B. Skinner)
Incentives and motives for work
Work collectives, their types
Conflicts in production: their types and types
Causes of conflicts in production teams. Social tension. Functions of industrial conflict
Economics as a special sphere of social life and economic sociology
General characteristics of the labor market
Unemployment and its forms
Sociology of regions
Sociology of settlement and the concept of demography. Population
Population reproduction and social reproduction
Social-territorial communities. Sociology of city and countryside
The process of urbanization, its stages. Migration
Main categories of ethnosociology. Ethnic community, ethnos
Sociological research and its types
Sociological Research Program
Methods of sociological research: survey, interview, questionnaire, observation
Document analysis
Literature
Content

The states and needs of people that arise when they need something underlie their motives. That is, it is the needs that are the source of activity of each individual. Man is a desiring creature, so in reality it is unlikely that his needs will be fully satisfied. The nature of human needs is such that as soon as one need is satisfied, the next one comes first.

Maslow's pyramid of needs

Abraham Maslow's concept of needs is perhaps the most famous of all. The psychologist not only classified people's needs, but also made an interesting assumption. Maslow noted that each person has an individual hierarchy of needs. That is, there are basic human needs - they are also called basic, and additional.

According to the concept of a psychologist, absolutely all people on earth experience needs at all levels. Moreover, there is the following law: basic human needs are dominant. However, high-level needs can also remind you of themselves and become motivators of behavior, but this happens only when the basic ones are satisfied.

The basic needs of people are those aimed at survival. At the base of Maslow's pyramid are the basic needs. Human biological needs are the most important. Next comes the need for security. Satisfying a person's needs for security ensures survival, as well as a sense of permanence in living conditions.

A person feels needs of a higher level only when he has done everything to ensure his physical well-being. The social needs of a person are that he feels the need to unite with other people, to love and recognition. After satisfying this need, the following come to the fore. Human spiritual needs include self-esteem, protection from loneliness, and feeling worthy of respect.

Further, at the very top of the pyramid of needs is the need to reveal one’s potential, to self-actualize. Maslow explained this human need for activity as the desire to become who he originally was.

Maslow assumed that this need is innate and, most importantly, common to every individual. However, at the same time, it is obvious that people differ dramatically from each other in their motivation. For various reasons, not everyone manages to reach the pinnacle of necessity. Throughout life, people's needs can vary between physical and social, so they are not always aware of needs, for example, for self-actualization, because they are extremely busy satisfying lower desires.

The needs of man and society are divided into natural and unnatural. In addition, they are constantly expanding. The development of human needs occurs through the development of society.

Thus, we can conclude that the higher the needs a person satisfies, the more clearly his individuality manifests itself.

Are hierarchy violations possible?

Examples of violation of hierarchy in satisfying needs are known to everyone. Probably, if only those who are well-fed and healthy experienced human spiritual needs, then the very concept of such needs would have long since sunk into oblivion. Therefore, the organization of needs is replete with exceptions.

Satisfying needs

The extremely important fact is that satisfying a need can never be an all-or-nothing process. After all, if this were so, then physiological needs would be satisfied once and for life, and then a transition to the social needs of a person would follow without the possibility of return. There is no need to prove otherwise.

Biological needs of man

The bottom level of Maslow's pyramid is those needs that ensure human survival. Of course, they are the most urgent and have the most powerful motivating force. In order for an individual to feel the needs of higher levels, biological needs must be satisfied at least minimally.

Safety and protection needs

This level of vital or vital needs is the need for safety and protection. We can safely say that if physiological needs are closely related to the survival of the organism, then the need for safety ensures its long life.

Needs for love and belonging

This is the next level of Maslow's pyramid. The need for love is closely related to the individual’s desire to avoid loneliness and be accepted into human society. When the needs at the previous two levels are satisfied, motives of this kind occupy a dominant position.

Almost everything in our behavior is determined by the need for love. It is important for any person to be included in relationships, be it family, work team or something else. The baby needs love, and no less than the satisfaction of physical needs and the need for security.

The need for love is especially pronounced during the teenage period of human development. At this time, it is the motives that grow out of this need that become leading.

Psychologists often say that typical behavior patterns appear during adolescence. For example, the main activity of a teenager is communication with peers. Also typical is the search for an authoritative adult - a teacher and mentor. All teenagers subconsciously strive to be different - to stand out from the crowd. This gives rise to the desire to follow fashion trends or belong to a subculture.

The need for love and acceptance in adulthood

As a person matures, love needs begin to focus on more selective and deeper relationships. Now needs are pushing people to start families. In addition, it is not the quantity of friendships that becomes more important, but their quality and depth. It is easy to notice that adults have far fewer friends than teenagers, but these friendships are necessary for the mental well-being of the individual.

Despite the large number of different means of communication, people in modern society are very fragmented. Today, a person does not feel part of a community, except perhaps as part of a family that has three generations, but many lack even that. In addition, children who experienced a lack of intimacy experience fear of it in later life. On the one hand, they neurotically avoid close relationships, because they are afraid of losing themselves as individuals, and on the other hand, they really need them.

Maslow identified two main types of relationships. They are not necessarily marital, but may well be friendly, between children and parents, and so on. What are the two types of love identified by Maslow?

Scarce love

This type of love is aimed at the desire to make up for the lack of something vital. Scarce love has a specific source - unmet needs. The person may lack self-esteem, protection, or acceptance. This type of love is a feeling born of selfishness. It is motivated by the individual’s desire to fill his inner world. A person is not able to give anything, he only takes.

Alas, in most cases, the basis of long-term relationships, including marital ones, is precisely scarce love. The parties to such a union can live together all their lives, but much in their relationship is determined by the internal hunger of one of the participants in the couple.

Deficient love is the source of dependence, fear of losing, jealousy and constant attempts to pull the blanket over oneself, suppressing and subjugating the partner in order to tie him closer to oneself.

Being love

This feeling is based on recognition of the unconditional value of a loved one, but not for any qualities or special merits, but simply for the fact that he exists. Of course, existential love is also designed to satisfy human needs for acceptance, but its striking difference is that there is no element of possessiveness in it. There is also no desire to take away from your neighbor what you yourself need.

The person who is able to experience existential love does not seek to remake a partner or somehow change him, but encourages all the best qualities in him and supports the desire to grow and develop spiritually.

Maslow himself described this type of love as a healthy relationship between people that is based on mutual trust, respect and admiration.

Self-esteem needs

Despite the fact that this level of needs is designated as the need for self-esteem, Maslow divided it into two types: self-esteem and respect from other people. Although they are closely related to each other, it is often extremely difficult to separate them.

A person's need for self-esteem is that he must know that he is capable of much. For example, that he can successfully cope with the tasks and requirements assigned to him, and that he feels like a full-fledged person.

If this type of need is not satisfied, then a feeling of weakness, dependence and inferiority appears. Moreover, the stronger such experiences are, the less effective human activity becomes.

It should be noted that self-respect is healthy only when it is based on respect from other people, and not status in society, flattery, etc. Only in this case will satisfaction of such a need contribute to psychological stability.

It is interesting that the need for self-esteem manifests itself differently at different periods of life. Psychologists have noticed that young people who are just starting to start a family and look for their professional niche need respect from others more than others.

Self-actualization needs

The highest level in the pyramid of needs is the need for self-actualization. Abraham Maslow defined this need as a person's desire to become what he can become. For example, musicians write music, poets write poetry, artists paint. Why? Because they want to be themselves in this world. They need to follow their nature.

For whom is self-actualization important?

It should be noted that not only those who have any talent need self-actualization. Every person without exception has their own personal or creative potential. Each person has his own calling. The need for self-actualization is to find your life's work. The forms and possible paths of self-actualization are very diverse, and it is at this spiritual level of needs that people’s motives and behavior are most unique and individual.

Psychologists say that the desire to achieve maximum self-realization is inherent in every person. However, there are very few people whom Maslow called self-actualizers. No more than 1% of the population. Why do those incentives that should encourage a person to act do not always work?

Maslow in his works indicated the following three reasons for such unfavorable behavior.

Firstly, a person’s ignorance of his capabilities, as well as a lack of understanding of the benefits of self-improvement. In addition, there are ordinary doubts in one’s own abilities or fear of failure.

Secondly, the pressure of prejudice - cultural or social. That is, a person’s abilities may run counter to the stereotypes that society imposes. For example, stereotypes of femininity and masculinity can prevent a boy from becoming a talented makeup artist or dancer, or a girl from achieving success, for example, in military affairs.

Third, the need for self-actualization may conflict with the need for security. For example, if self-realization requires a person to take risky or dangerous actions or actions that do not guarantee success.

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1 The concept of social needs

Social needs are a special type of human needs. Needs, the need for something necessary to maintain the vital functions of the body of a human person, a social group, society as a whole; internal stimulator of activity. There are two types of needs: natural and created by society.

Natural needs are the daily needs of a person for food, clothing, shelter, etc.

Social needs are the needs of a person in labor activity, socio-economic activity, spiritual culture, that is, in everything that is a product of social life.

Natural needs are the basis on which social needs arise, develop and are satisfied. Needs act as the main motive that encourages the subject of activity to real activities aimed at creating conditions and means for satisfying his needs, i.e. to production activities. Without needs there is and cannot be production. They are the initial stimulant of a person to activity; they express the dependence of the subject of activity on the outside world. Needs exist as objective and subjective connections, as attractions to the object of need. Social needs include the needs associated with the inclusion of an individual in the family, in numerous social groups and collectives, in various areas of production and non-production activities, and in the life of society as a whole.

Social needs are an expression of objective patterns of development of certain spheres of human life and society. The conditions surrounding a person not only give rise to needs, but also create opportunities for their satisfaction.

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The needs of society are a sociological category based on collective habits, that is, what came from our ancestors and is so deeply rooted in society that it exists in the subconscious. This is what is interesting about needs that depend on the subconscious and cannot be analyzed when considering a specific individual. They need to be considered globally, in relation to society.

Goods are needed to satisfy needs. Accordingly, economic needs are those for which economic benefits are necessary. In other words, economic needs are that part of human needs, the satisfaction of which requires the production, distribution, exchange and consumption of goods. From this we can conclude that any person needs the economic sphere to satisfy at least his primary needs. Any person, be it a celebrity, scientist, singer, musician, politician, president, first of all depends on his natural origin, which means he concerns the economic life of society, and cannot create, create, lead without touching the economic sphere.

A person's needs can be defined as a state of dissatisfaction or need that he strives to overcome. It is this state of dissatisfaction that forces a person to make certain efforts, that is, to carry out production activities.

Scientific research in the 20th century into complex dynamic systems (elementary particles, biological formations, social phenomena) allows us to assert that society is not any and not a simple set of individuals that make it up. Of course, society is made up of individuals and cannot exist without them. However, not every association of individuals forms a society.

The primary associations of individuals are small social groups. They have common needs, interests, goals. For example, a football team. Football players' concerns include only scoring goals for their opponents and nothing more. That is, they are not concerned with producing food, or building stadiums, or providing medical care for injuries, or many other things that society is concerned with. And therefore, any small social group is not yet a society.

Unlike a small social group society- this is an association of people that is self-sufficient, i.e. capable of creating and recreating all the necessary conditions for coexistence through its own activities. Society is not just a collection of individuals that form it, but a self-sufficient system. And as a system, it possesses qualities that the individuals that make it up do not possess individually. Systemic qualities are not just a sum of homogeneous qualities, but their generalization and transformation. The qualities of individuals who are united in a social system are generalized in the sense that when they are involved in society, the general is extracted from them and the individual, individual is discarded. And this common set of individual qualities, when combined, is subject to the goals and objectives of the self-sufficient existence of the systemic whole. As a result, generalized individual qualities are transformed into new - social qualities.

This mechanism also operates in the process of transforming individual needs and interests into public ones. However, this transformation does not occur immediately, but through the needs and interests of small social groups. The latter act as a kind of transitional link between the needs of the individual and society.

Generalization of individual needs in a small social group leads, firstly, to a qualitative change in their content. Take, for example, the individual need for self-affirmation. A small social group also demonstrates self-affirmation to a certain extent, competing with small similar social groups. But this self-affirmation differs significantly from the self-affirmation of an individual in the same small social group. Self-affirmation of individuals in a group can be achieved by improving their work, increasing labor productivity, increasing the quality of products, which helps to improve the work of the group and, accordingly, its self-affirmation. But it can also be due to the struggle between individuals (sitting around, putting together warring factions within the group, squabbles, etc.), which worsens the work of the group as a whole and therefore does not contribute to its self-affirmation in competition with other groups. Thus, even the same need inherent in an individual and a small social group has different content, different satisfaction and different consequences.

Secondly, the generalization of individual needs in a small social group gives rise to fundamentally new needs that are absent among individuals. And this is natural, because the very purpose for which a small social group is created and functions is determined by society either independently to satisfy only social needs, or together with individuals to satisfy social and individual needs. An example of the first group is the team of a mining and processing plant producing pellets for a metallurgical enterprise, an example of the second is an emergency medical team. In any case, a small social group is a social form of involving an individual in public life in order to satisfy certain social needs.

A small social group is at the same time a transitional form from the individual to society and back. Hence, the needs of a small social group represent a certain unity of individual and social needs, they can be said to be a transformed form. For in the main small social group, the individual, as a rule, does not satisfy his needs, but earns money, which acts as a universal means of satisfying, if not all, then many of the individual’s needs. At the same time, the social need realized in the activities of a small social group does not entirely belong to society, because it bears the imprint of the specific characteristics of this group. The exclusion of these features of small social groups is achieved through their generalization and expression in the activities of large social groups. For example, the specific features of collectives of industrial enterprises disappear only in the activities of collective industrial workers: workers, engineers, managers (managers). Only in the activities of large social groups do the needs of society find their final form and realization. This activity is carried out, naturally, through the activities of individuals in small social groups. But it differs significantly from the activities of the same individuals satisfying their own needs. Although quite often there is a coincidence of individual and social needs, when an individual likes his activities in a small social group and, accordingly, it satisfies his one or another need.

The needs of society are extremely diverse. To satisfy them, corresponding spheres are formed, which represent either a part of social life, or a side or aspect of it. The former have a certain spatiotemporal localization. For example, the economic sphere, political, everyday life, medical, sports and physical education, education, etc. The latter are inherent in the entire society, representing one or another section of social life. For example, the moral sphere, aesthetic, legal, social, etc.

Each of the spheres of society develops and exists to satisfy a certain type of social needs. In accordance with this, the following social needs are identified:

1. economic- needs for the production of material goods, their distribution and consumption;
2. social- the need to normalize relations between different social groups;
3. political - the needs of exercising power and management in society;
4. legal - the need to regulate relations between people by the rules of law, which are ensured by the power of the state;
5. household - the needs of individuals necessary for human production and human activities during non-working hours;
6. sports and physical education - the needs of physical development and improvement of a person;
7. medical - the needs of preserving and strengthening people’s health, preventing and treating diseases;
8. educational - the need for organizing, ensuring and implementing the process of mastering systematized knowledge, skills and abilities;
9. scientific - the need to understand nature, society and man, their interaction;
10. spiritual - the need to create, distribute and

consumption of spiritual goods: literary, musical,

theatrical, moral, philosophical, religious and others;

11. socio-cultural - needs for the creation, distribution and consumption of material and spiritual goods, values, services (restaurant, hotel, excursion, tourism, entertainment, folk crafts, etc.).

Social needs are realized in the activities of various large and small social groups, individuals who have their own specific needs, interests and ideas regarding the same goods, values, and services. This gives rise to inconsistency in their activities to fulfill social needs. Therefore, social needs are always internally contradictory. To the greatest extent, the state of inconsistency, the degree of its aggravation and the nature of its resolution depend on large social groups, their level of maturity (whether they understand their interests correctly or incorrectly, whether they have a scientific or religious worldview, whether they treat other social groups egoistically or altruistically, etc. .) and the nature of the relationship between them (whether they are antagonistic or not, contradictory or compromise). Among large social groups, the leading role in determining the direction and nature of meeting social needs is played by the main political groups of society (in the history of mankind, these are the dominant and the oppressed, now - the nomenklatura or the ruling elite and the people).

Formation and development of social needs

The concept of “formation of needs” of the population in theory and practice is considered in two aspects: firstly, as an objective process of their development, and secondly, as a certain type of activity of society and the state.

In the first meaning, it characterizes the objective process of movement of needs, determined by the law of their elevation; in the second, it acts as a type of purposeful influence of society and the state on the education of a harmoniously developed personality.

When analyzing the formation of needs as an objective process, it is important to correctly identify the factors that determine it.

Factors in the formation of needs are the conditions and circumstances under the influence of which the needs of the population take shape and develop.

These factors are divided into objective and subjective.

Objective factors include those that act independently of the will and consciousness of people and are external to the person himself as the bearer or subject of needs. These include the socio-economic, cultural and living conditions of the population in a given country, on which the degree of development of needs and the possibility of satisfying them directly depend; the level of development of productive forces and production relations, which determines the living conditions of the population; the level of social production and scientific and technological progress; the intensity of its penetration in the sphere of personal consumption; natural and climatic conditions; gender and age composition of the population, number of families, their composition, etc.

Subjective factors depend on the individual himself and the psychophysiological characteristics of the individual. These are the opinions, preferences and tastes of a person, his inclinations, habits, etc. However, as is known from sociology, they are also formed in a certain social environment, which significantly influences them.

The process of formation and development of personal needs is characterized by certain patterns. There are general patterns of formation and development of needs and specific ones.

General patterns of the formation of needs are inherent in any social system and appear at all stages of the development of human society, for example, an increase in the overall size of needs, their qualitative rise and improvement.

Specific characterize certain aspects of the development of personal needs, including those that are inherent in certain socio-economic formations.

Means of forming needs are the levers with which the state and society purposefully influence the processes of development of needs. These include: educational and propaganda activities, advertising events aimed at arousing and creating a need for a specific product and service. The use of various methods of influencing the consumer presupposes knowledge of the motives of his behavior and tastes and preferences. The specificity of modern demand is such that it is not economically profitable to produce a product designed for a universal level of requirements. It is advisable to create products that would meet the specific requirements of a certain group of consumers, depending on demographic characteristics, living conditions, climatic and household characteristics. For example, there is no point in building a fashion store in urban slums, or selling air conditioners in Kalyma or Alaska.

You can quite effectively use a differentiated approach to studying, satisfying and generating demand for various categories of consumers based on the so-called market segmentation, which considers the market not as a homogeneous mass, but as a sum of segments (sectors), in each of which a special nature of demand is manifested. Market segmentation involves carrying out work on consumer typology, i.e. identifying the most important types of consumers and their specific requirements depending on demographic, socio-economic, psychological and other differences. For example, research in the field of formation of population demand for clothing indicates the presence of two main age groups with different requirements for modern clothing. So the first group - youth - places increased demands on aesthetic parameters, the appearance of clothing, its compliance with fashion, etc. The second group - older people - gives preference to the comfort of clothing and the materials used. In this case, it is worth taking care of the store design, age, gender and external characteristics of the seller. That is, it is necessary to calculate everything based on the needs of that part of society with which the store, salon or industry deals.

Some types of needs in any society take years to form. They are passed down from generation to generation and take root in the subconscious of members of society. This is influenced by many factors, including the social structure, some natural resources, and ideology. There are traditions and customs. All this refers to non-price factors of demand changes.

More than once I have used the word “demand” instead of the word “needs”. The closeness of these concepts is obvious: suppose a need has passed the stages of inception and is in the flourishing stage, then the demand for the object of this need, i.e., the good, will increase. But the concept of “need” is much broader and more diverse.

Methods of forming needs are specific ways of using individual funds for active, targeted influence on the needs of the population.

There are economic, socio-psychological and organizational means and methods of forming needs.

Economic means of forming needs include those that are associated with the economic activities of society, individual enterprises and industries, as well as individuals as carriers of needs. The main of these means are: the production of goods, especially new ones, which brings to life and creates needs for them; progressive changes in the so-called consumption infrastructure (for example, gasification and electrification of everyday life, the development of highways, computer networks, and other means of communication that connect residents of different areas and simplify the transfer of information. This affects both the consumers themselves and their lifestyle in in general.

The socio-psychological means of forming needs include those with the help of which they influence the consciousness of consumers. With the help of these means, it is possible to stimulate the development of certain needs and limit socially unpromising, irrational needs.

Organizational means are associated with the organization of the process itself. These include sales exhibitions, various types of product viewings, exhibitions of new products, and demonstrations of clothing models.

Organizational means are used in close interaction with socio-psychological ones.

There are many methods and factors for generating needs. Business people starting activities aimed at working with society need to study in detail the objective factors shaping the needs of this society, otherwise they may become victims of their own shortcomings.

Questions and tasks for review

1. What needs are social?
2. What needs are individual?
3. What are the individual mental and physiological characteristics of a person as the basis of a person’s requests and needs.
4. What is the source of development of needs?
5. Expand the problem of the formation and development of social needs.

Basic Concepts: individual, needs, cultural needs, spiritual needs, social needs, properties of social needs, forms of social needs, subjects of social needs, factors influencing the development of social needs.

Traditionally, need is understood as a form of human need that prompts him to certain internal or external actions and stimulates his life activity.

There are two types of needs based on their origin: natural and cultural. Natural needs are the daily needs of a person necessary to preserve and maintain his life and the life of his offspring. This is the need for food, drink, a being of the opposite sex, sleep, protection from cold and excessive heat, clothing, shelter, etc. On their basis, social needs arise, develop and are satisfied. Cultural needs are born in the process of human activity as a social subject. They express the dependence of active human activity on the products of human culture; their roots lie entirely within the boundaries of human history. Objects of cultural needs include both objects that serve as a means of satisfying any natural need in the conditions of a particular culture (fork and spoon, plates and hammers), and objects necessary for labor and cultural communication with other people, for complex and diverse human social life. By the nature of the subject, needs can be material and spiritual. Material needs reveal a person’s dependence on objects of material culture (the need for food, clothing, housing, household items, etc.); in the spiritual – dependence on the products of social consciousness.

The bearers of social needs are human individuals, a social stratum or social group within a particular society (class, estate, nation, professional group, generation), society as a specific social system, a social institution operating within society (education system, state and its organs), humanity as a whole.

Social needs determine the behavior of individuals and social groups. According to A.G. Zdravomyslov, satisfaction of needs depends on communication and joint actions of people. They include the need to belong to a social group, to occupy a certain position in it, to be respected and loved by others.

Social needs are an integral part of human needs; their satisfaction reveals the essence of man as a social being, emphasizes his social determination and determines social development. These include the need for social activity, self-expression, ensuring social rights, communicating with other people, etc. Social needs determine the interests and desires of a person, among which the following can be identified that determine his interests, motives and behavior: the need for obedience, the need for play, dominance, the need to evaluate, the need for judgment, the need for respect and support, the need to help other people.

Social needs permeate literally all aspects and spheres of human life, his relationship with the world. They are the connecting link between society and the individual, life and its inner world. Their necessity for an individual is determined by the organization of his life activity in the macro- and microsystem “man – society”.

Social needs are a special type of human needs. This is an integral part of human spiritual needs. They express human needs in the social environment, in social work activity, in socio-economic activity, in spiritual culture, i.e. in everything that is a product of social life. Social needs include the needs associated with the inclusion of an individual in the family, in numerous social groups and collectives, in various spheres of activity, in the life of society as a whole, and in general - in interaction with society in all its manifestations.

Social is a need that is based on a social need that is realized through the special life situation of the subject. It is satisfied according to the standards and standards of society and expresses the social essence of a person.

Social needs have two interrelated aspects. On the one hand, they are related to social necessity (social activity, communication, contacts, interests), and on the other hand, to the material, technical, financial and economic conditions of human life in a particular society.

The integration of the individual into the complex system of society and the resulting need for actions subordinated to social needs determine the conscious purposefulness of his activity. This implies the need for individuals to understand their social needs, since by their nature and essence all needs functioning in society are objective.

The development of social needs is associated primarily with changes in the content of an individual’s activity: the more complex and diverse the social activity, the richer and more perfect the system of his needs. The renewal of the forms of interaction of the individual with the social environment and the associated change in the nature of his activity lead to the emergence of new social needs.

The main source of satisfaction of an individual's social needs is activity. Only in it and thanks to it does an individual realize himself and find ways to satisfy his needs. Only in society and with the direct participation of society is it possible to satisfy the needs of the individual, since many needs owe their emergence to society at a specific historical stage of development. Social needs are satisfied by the organizational efforts of members of society through social institutions. Dissatisfaction with social needs manifests itself in two forms - aggression and apathy.

There are differences in such concepts as “social needs” and “needs of society”. If “social needs” are the needs of one individual at his social level, with which each individual is represented in society, expressing the tendency of his development relative to society, society in the most important directions for a given period of time, then “needs of society” reflect the needs of not one, but the totality individuals, mean the presence in society of certain requests, demands on society, a certain need for the development of society and their awareness by members of society (individuals).

Which of the needs will become the leading one for an individual depends on his individual psychological characteristics, the pedagogical potential of the environment, the strength of its influence on the person, upbringing, health status and other factors.

The formation of an individual’s social needs is influenced by various factors, both objective and subjective. Objective ones include those that act independently of his will and consciousness and are external to the bearer or subject of social needs: socio-economic, cultural and living conditions of the population in the country, on which the degree of development of social needs and the possibility of satisfying them depends ; the level of social production and scientific and technological progress; gender and age composition of the population; level of socio-pedagogical education of children and adults.

Subjective factors depend on the individual himself: these are opinions, preferences, inclinations and habits. All of them are formed in a certain social and cultural environment, which significantly influences them.

Social needs exist in an endless variety of forms. One of the classifications is based on the following criteria:

1) social need for others;
2) social need for oneself from interaction with others;
3) social need to be with others.

The social need “for others” is a need that expresses the generic essence of a person: this is the need for communication, the need to protect the weak, the need to understand another and help him, the need to provide care and attention to another. The most concentrated need “for others” is expressed in altruism – the need to sacrifice oneself for the sake of another. It involves seeing another person as a friend, ally, assistant, employee, partner. The socio-historical norm of satisfying social needs “for others” is acquired by the individual in the process of education and is perceived by him as conscience.

The social need “for oneself” is the need for self-affirmation in society, the need for self-realization, the need for self-identification, the need to have one’s place in society, in a team, the need to accept and receive help from others, etc. It is determined by the individual’s idea of his rights and, under their influence, he strives to improve his social position, his status, and his influence on others.

The need “for oneself” is called social, since it is inextricably linked with the need “for others.”

Social needs “together with others” express the motivating forces of many people or society as a whole: the need for joint activity, the need to strive for a common goal, for joint efforts, the need for security, the need for freedom, the need for peace, the need for a socially significant result of activity (see Appendix 2).

In the scientific literature, two types of social needs of the individual are also distinguished - absolute (personal) and relative (joint), which also differ in direction and unequal degree of coincidence with social need. Joint needs express her dependence on others in conditions of common life activity with them and are equally necessary for both the individual and society as a whole.

The subject of these needs is the individual with other people, the team, and society. Thus, the joint needs of the individual directly follow from social necessity and coincide with it. On the contrary, personal social needs are directly related to the need for self-preservation, self-affirmation of the individual in the social environment and may not coincide with social necessity. They express the individuality, consumer and creative abilities of their bearer and reproduce only his life activity in a particular society. Satisfying the latter does not have any social consequences for society.

There are certain priorities of social needs depending on a particular age group.

Thus, for a child of primary and secondary school age, the following are typical: the need for obedience is the acceptance of circumstances and people, the recognition of one’s own inferiority; the need for play - the desire for new sensations; need to satisfy egoism. The following needs are characteristic of adolescence: to be like everyone else; free yourself from restrictions and parental care; seek answers to the eternal questions of existence; tendency to reflect and generalize. Adolescence is characterized by such social needs as the desire to express one’s own views; to be heard and influence the course of social events and situations; the desire for self-realization in the social environment and activities.