The Need for Needs

The factors that motivate individuals and dictate their behavior are their various needs.  The main theory that describes and analyzes these needs is Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.  This theory was elaborated upon and developed by others, mostly with the aim of finding methods for improving employee motivation in organizations.

The assumption underlying the theories of needs is that individuals, in their behavior, follow their needs and that the extent of their needs exceeds their ability to satisfy them.  Even if we are able to satisfy our immediate needs, there will always be needs in the longer term, or at a higher level, which will be harder to satisfy.  Another basic assumption in these theories is that as individuals satisfy their needs, they are more satisfied and content.

Although this explanation is logical and fits with reality in most cases, it fails to provide an answer to the question of why people always strive for more than they have achieved, why so many people who have realized their dreams are frustrated, depressed or suffering from emotional crisis, why people who won sudden fame or a large monetary prize experience an emotional crisis, i.e. the opposite of what is expected of them.  This article relates to a very basic need that is not included in the list of needs set forth by the various needs theories, the need for needs.  This need, which is not apparent, actually underlies all of the elements that motivate human behavior.

The Need for Needs

The need for satisfaction is embedded and structured within the human soul.  To achieve satisfaction, needs must be met.  This equation demonstrates that the need for needs is embedded and structured within the human soul.  This is a need in itself and it is a very basic need.  We do not notice it because, in most cases, the extent of our needs exceed our ability to satisfy them and it overshadows this basic need.

This need surfaces whenever we suddenly find ourselves in a state in which we lack needs to satisfy and it leads us to seek and satisfy needs again and again.  The need for needs does not tolerate a vacuum.  It exists within us and controls our actions without our being aware of it.  After satisfying a certain need, we immediately feel the need to satisfy another one, even if it is contradictory (such as the need to work vs. the need for rest, or the need to give vs. the need to take).

A situation in which there are fewer needs to satisfy than we are able to satisfy may lead to frustration, depression or emotional crisis, and such a situation can occur among those people who have actually fully satisfied their needs at the highest level (and have not yet generated new needs to fill the vacuum) or among people whose essential need was suddenly abolished.  The Eskimos in Canada, for example, used to hunt in order to fulfill their need of a livelihood.  When the Canadian government decided to grant them monthly allowances, thus revoking the need for hunting, many became depressed or addicted to alcohol.

The need for satisfying needs also explains the phenomenon of addiction, such as to alcohol, drugs, sex, food, chocolate, shopping, computers, internet, television, etc.  According to the familiar theory of needs, people who have satisfied a certain need achieve satisfaction and should be content.  The fact that they are not actually satisfied and that they wish to satisfy the same need over and over again at a high frequency and increasing dosages is derived of this basic need that, as stated, does not tolerate a vacuum.  Where the addicted people face a problem in satisfying another need, they turn to satisfying the most available need and, with time, the emotional dependency becomes a physical one as well.

In the future, as life expectancy increases, medicine develops, the ability to utilize resources and the economic situation improve, we will find ourselves more and more satisfied in terms of our needs, on the one hand and, on the other, having fewer needs to satisfy, and then there may be situations in which the basic need for needs will surface.  However, as time goes by we will most probably find other needs to be satisfied.