Human Needs
Cross-References
▶ Fertility Rate
References
Rutstein, S. O., & Shah, I. H. (2004). Comparative reports
infecundity, infertility, and childlessness in developing
countries. Calverton, MD/Geneva, Switzerland: ORC
Macro/World Health Organization.
Human Needs
Monica Guillen-Royo
Centre for Development and the Environment,
University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
Synonyms
Basic needs; Self-needs satisfaction
Definition
Human needs are commonly used to refer to the
drivers of peoples’ actions, the motives behind
human behavior. Other uses of the concept
include needs as instruments to achieve
a certain goal and needs as societal requirements
to flourish or experience a good life (Gasper,
2004). Needs as motives imply that all human
actions can be understood as originating in the
quest for satisfying or actualizing needs. Needs as
societal requirements concern what is necessary
for people to avoid serious harm and participate
in their society, whether or not they are mobilized
by them. Needs as requirements to achieve
a certain outcome like fulfillment, happiness, or
satisfaction fall in between the two last explana-
tions. They take the elements that contribute to
achieving the goal of a good life (such as jobs,
income, health care, status) as the requirements
or needs for the realization of the goal.
3027 H
The distinction between these three sets of
meanings is not always clear-cut, and many
approaches to human needs fall in between two
of the three classifications.
Description
Needs as Motives
Human needs as drivers for action have been
widely studied in psychology. Historically, moti-
vation theories based on needs have evolved from
lower theories focusing on the biological origins
of human action to higher theories that account
for the complex world of social-cognitive moti-
vations (Pincus, 2004). The latter is represented H
by the work of Maslow (1954) who developed
a theory of needs based on a natural hierarchy
where physiological needs (hunger, thirst, safety)
were at the base of the pyramid and self-
actualization needs (the need to live up to one’s
unique potential) at the top. Drawing on clinical
experience, he claimed that the emergence of
higher needs was subordinated to a certain level
of gratification of physiological needs and safety
needs (security, stability dependency, protection,
freedom from fear, etc.). His theory implied that
all human action is driven by one or more needs
even if people are not always aware of it.
Maslow’s approach was criticized for
understating the importance of the social and
natural environment, being ethnocentric and hier-
archical. However, it has been used as a basis for
the development of other theories that incorpo-
rate the socio-environmental dimension of needs
and their cultural and historical dynamics
(Hamilton, 2003).
Motivational theories of needs assume that
need satisfaction enhances quality of life; it has
a positive impact at the objective and subjective
level. This view accords with neoclassical eco-
nomics approach to market behavior, which is
seen as being driven by the satisfaction of needs
or wants (both used interchangeably) and results in
enhanced well-being or utility. However, many
human actions do not have a positive contribution
H 3028
Human Needs,
Fig. 1 Matrix of needs and BEING
satisfiers (Max-Neef, 1991)
SUBSISTENCE
PROTECTION
AFFECTION
UNDERSTANDING
PARTICIPATION
IDLENESS
CREATION
IDENTITY
FREEDOM
to a person’s quality of life. This is not only the
case of addictive behavior or actions driven by
altruism and commitment, but of behaviors like
commuting to work or watching TV. Manfred
Max-Neef (1991) in his book Human Scale Devel-
opment developed a conceptual framework to
explain this disconnect. He argued that even if
people are motivated by the satisfaction of needs,
their actions are embedded in social practices,
political models, and cultural environments that
might impede their fulfillment or actualization.
Inspired by Maslow, Max-Neef defined
a taxonomy of needs organized around axiological
(subsistence, protection, affection, understanding,
participation, idleness, creation, identity, and free-
dom) and existential categories (being, having,
doing, and interacting). The two sets of categories
cross to form a matrix with empty cells that repre-
sent the culturally relative satisfiers that have to be
identified in a participatory manner at the local
level (see Fig. 1).
Max-Neef maintains that there are certain
types of satisfiers (inhibiting satisfiers, pseudo-
Human Needs
HAVING DOING INTERACTING
satisfiers, violators, or destroyers) that instead of
actualizing needs work against them and deplete
people’s quality of life. He uses the example of
commercial television to illustrate the negative
effect of an inhibiting satisfier as it might actual-
ize the need for leisure but it impairs the satisfac-
tion of the need for understanding, creation, and
identity. Empirical research on the effect of
satisfiers on people’s quality of life is still in its
infancy, but there is a growing field of work that
points at the detrimental effects for well-being of
drawing on specific satisfiers (Guillen-Royo,
2010). For example, in order to actualize the
need for idleness, one can engage in outdoor
activities or spend some time watching TV with
radically different effects on well-being (Sustain-
able Development Commission, 2008; Frey,
2008). One can satisfy subsistence needs with
a life of frugality or overconsuming, the former
contributing to well-being and the latter depleting
it (Brown & Kasser, 2005). Societies can give
different sorts of participation rights to its citi-
zens, with citizens enjoying more extensive
Human Needs
rights being happier than their less empowered
counterparts (Frey, 2008). These are only some
examples of current satisfiers and their implica-
tions for well-being or quality of life. However, in
the context of climate change, more research is
required to extend this work and ascertain the
satisfiers that allow an optimal actualization of
needs while protecting the natural environment
and thus enhancing short- and long-term quality
of life.
Needs as Requirements for a Good Life
Understanding needs as human or societal
requirements for well-being relates to the
eudaimonic tradition in psychology and social
policy. It has its roots in the Aristotelian view
that contentment is found in doing what is virtu-
ous and that people must live in unity with their
daimon or true self. In psychology, the
eudaimonic approach has been popularized by
Ryan and Deci’s Self-determination Theory
(SDT) (Ryan & Deci, 2000) and in social policy
by Doyal and Gough’s normative Theory of
Human Need (Doyal & Gough, 1991). Ryan and
Deci claim that there are three basic psychologi-
cal needs that foster well-being: autonomy, com-
petence, and relatedness. Autonomy implies that
people value and feel interested in their own
actions and that these are self-endorsed and not
forced by external agents. Competence concerns
being able to achieve results to function effec-
tively in one’s society. Relatedness is linked to
feeling part of the society, accepted, and
respected beyond the close family ties. The
three basic psychological needs derive from etho-
logical, behavioral, and developmental evidence
and are believed to be universal to human beings
in all societies. In spite of the fact that people are
not always aware of the importance of needs,
when they are fulfilled, people feel self-
motivated and content.
Following also the eudaimonic tradition but
within the disciplines of international develop-
ment and social policy, basic needs discourses
have been part of discussions of societal quality
of life for decades. They were popularized in the
1970s by the International Labor Organization
and the World Bank and have been recently
3029 H
brought back to the development discourse by
the UN Millenium Development Goals and the
influential works of Amartya Sen. Doyal and
Gough’s normative Theory of Human Need
(THN) (Doyal & Gough, 1991) is one of its
most prominent representatives. The THN estab-
lishes a hierarchy of needs ranked from universal
goals through basic needs to intermediate needs.
Universal goals are avoidance of serious harm,
social participation, and critical participation.
These are reached through the basic universal
needs of physical health and autonomy.
Following Doyal and Gough, basic needs can
be met in different ways and through satisfiers.
However, for satisfiers to contribute to physical
health and autonomy, they have to have one of H
the eleven universal satisfier characteristics or
intermediate needs which are adequate nutri-
tional food and water, adequate protective
housing, nonhazardous work environment,
nonhazardous physical environment, appropriate
health care, security in childhood, significant pri-
mary relationships, physical security, economic
security, safe birth control and childbearing, and
appropriate basic and cross-cultural education.
Contrasting with Max-Neef’s approach to
satisfiers, which includes categories of satisfiers
that might harm needs actualization, Doyal and
Gough define satisfiers through their effective
contribution to basic needs fulfillment. When
goods and services do not hold the universal
satisfier characteristics, they are considered lux-
ury goods linked to the satisfaction of wants.
Their absence is not associated with serious
impairment of functionings.
The distinction between needs and wants has
been used in subjective well-being research to
explain the Easterlin paradox; this is that eco-
nomic growth does not result in higher SWB
beyond a certain level of income (Easterlin,
1974). For example, Di Tella and MacCulloch
(2010) in their study using average income or
wealth as a threshold for need satisfaction found
that when basic needs are satisfied, there is
full adaptation to additional economic growth
both at the intra- and cross-country levels.
Veenhoven uses the distinction between needs
and wants to explain this recurrent finding. As he
H 3030
posits “needs are requirement for functioning
that are so vital that evolution has safeguarded
their fulfillment by means of hedonic signals”
(Veenhoven, 2007). Thus, people will automat-
ically feel good after their basic needs are met.
Since affluent societies usually provide needs
gratification to their citizens, increases in
income will be lowly correlated with happiness
and will reflect the fact that people adapt to the
more superfluous wants. Recent studies using
more comprehensive indicators of needs than
average income confirm the universal impor-
tance of basic needs satisfaction for people’s
subjective well-being within countries and
across cultures (Diener, Diener, & Diener,
1995; Guillen-Royo, 2011).
Cross-References
▶ Adaptation
▶ Basic Needs
▶ Easterlin Paradox
▶ Motivation
▶ Need Fulfillment
▶ Need Theory
▶ Self-Determination Theory
▶ Subjective Well-being
References
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Human Resources
Frey, B. S. (2008). Happiness. A revolution in economics.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
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Human Resources
▶ Human Capital
Human Rights
Deborah Poff
Brandon University, Brandon, MB, Canada
Synonyms
Duties and obligations; Equality; Equality rights;
Freedom from discrimination; Fundamental free-
doms; Interdependent and indivisible rights;
Rights and quality of life; Tolerance; Universal
and inalienable rights