John E. Jones

❚❘ HUMAN NEEDS AND BEHAVIOR
Anthony J. Reilly
As an individual, each human being is complex and unique. The uniqueness of
individuals falls under the special area of psychology called individual differences,
which has been thoroughly studied in the last fifty years.
Individuals, however, are perhaps more alike than they are different. The
psychology of common needs and motives is a psychology of similarities. Individuals
differ in their behavior, but basically they spend much of their time striving to satisfy
needs common to all human beings.
The question of why people act as they do is inevitably raised in any study of
people in relation to their environment. At work, at home, at the club, the stimuli of
personal interactions elicit responses from people. And from their resulting behavior
their human needs can be inferred.
BEHAVIOR CAUSED BY NEEDS
All human behavior has a cause or causes, some conscious, others unconscious. Our
behavior is not random, even if it sometimes appears that way. Some internal or external
stimulus or combination of stimuli elicits behaviors that vary widely in their complexity.
For example, physical stimuli in a person’s body generate feelings of hunger.
Hunger represents a state of tension, and on experiencing such tension, a person seeks
food to alleviate it. That person needs food.
A more complex need is the need not to eat—to diet. It is easy to see many possible
and varied needs imbedded in the behavior of dieting. Physical well-being, a person’s
image of his or her body, a desire for acceptance by peers—these are only a few of the
possible needs—tension states—that elicit the behavior of restricting food intake.
Subjective Perceptions of Stimuli
If we are to understand how needs and behavior are related, we must also consider an
additional factor: the subjective perceptions of stimuli that trigger behavior. A person’s
background, personality, past learning—all these come into play in determining how the
person responds to a specific situation.
Originally published in The 1975 Annual Handbook for Group Facilitators by John E. Jones & J. William Pfeiffer (Eds.), San Diego,
CA: Pfeiffer & Company.
38 ❘❚
The Pfeiffer Library Volume 3, 2nd Edition. Copyright ©1998 Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer