Have Human Needs Changed?

Every human being has needs. On the most basic level, humans are animals, all animals, and all organisms, for that matter, have needs that act as a ‘motivation’ to ascertain their survival. Henry Murray defined needs as “potentiality or readiness to respond in a certain way under certain given circumstances" (1938).One distinguishing feature between us and other organisms however, is that humans may also posses wants or ‘goals’ whereas animals do not. Wants do not occur until needs have been satisfied, animals, especially in the wild, do not know when to expect their next meal, so are in constant pursuit of food, this means their needs are never fully satisfied, so, according to Isidoro Martínez, wants cannot materialise. “Once material needs satisfied, we may discover some intangible needs, like being valued by others, and self-esteem” However, arguably, these ‘intangible needs’ may be better preponderantly described as emotional wants, as being valued is not a necessity for survival in the short term. As our population has grown, society has decided to lay out these needs and wants in the form of human rights, endeavouring to ensure that everyone is able to fulfil their needs and can work towards achieving their desires.
In this essay I aim to identify the needs of humans and how they have been met from the early days of humanity, right through to the present day. I will be placing a lot of emphasis on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as this is the most widely accepted model and it makes sense that humans will have progressed up this hierarchy over time, this is something I will be exploring in the essay.
I will first discuss what needs are and various models of this, and then explore how early man accommodated his needs. I will th...

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...lising Maslow’s hierarchy of needs for the majority of my essay, as I believe this to be the most valid but I will also use Anthony Robbins’ needs when it seems fit to do so.

Works Cited

Martínez I. (2014). Human needs. Available: http://webserver.dmt.upm.es/~isidoro/Env/Human%20needs.pdf.
Maslow A. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological review. p375.
Kremer W and Hammond C. (2013). Abraham Maslow and the pyramid that beguiled business. Available: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23902918.
Maslow A (1971). The farther reaches of Human nature. The Viking press, Penguin books. p23.
Ramones S.M. (2011) Unleashing the Power: Anthony Robbins, Positive Psychology, and the Quest for Human Flourishing. pg.20
Robbins A. (2013). The 6 human needs: Why we do what we do. Available: http://training.tonyrobbins.com/the-6-human-needs-why-we-do-what-we-do/