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A Framework of Situations for Need States

How might the universals needs we’ve identified earlier fit in with daily life? We need a generic framework of situations to bring specificity to the universal needs in order to craft the emerging need states. For ConsumerShift, I used the framework from John Robinson’s Time Diary studies, as reported in his excellent book, Time for Life, in which he tracked Americans’ time use via diaries and broke down daily activities into several categories (work, household/family care, shopping, personal/biological necessities), learning, leisure (entertainment/recreation), affiliation, and communications). I think this framework applies reasonably well across affluent nations even though it is a US source. [Remember, a key point is that we are looking for new-to-the-world need states and thus we’ll emphasize affluent nations where these are more likely to emerge.]

Table. Situational needs

Committed time                                           Free time

Work                                                                    Learning

Shopping                                                            Leisure (entertainment/recreation)

Household/family care                                   Affiliation

Personal/biological necessities                   Communications

This simple framework was useful to get started. The first step in creasing the needs states was to craft a simple matrix comparing theuniversal needs with Robinson’s categories above, with more specific need states being identified at the intersections where appropriate. This led a list of literally hundreds of potential specific need states. In the next post, we’ll finish the process of how I arrived at the need states ConsumerShift. Andy Hines

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Where the need states come from: Part 1, approach to universal needs

In ConsumerShift, Maslow’s hierarchy is used as the primary source of universal human needs. His system has been the most widely used one for categorizing needs. The overall scheme hangs together well on its own and it also syncs up with traditional, modern, postmodern, and integral values system values of the New Dimensions model. [Please see a previous post on “are values universal” to see my point of view on universals. ]

Two other needs systems are incorporated: Manfred Max-Neef developed an excellent system of Human Scale Development needs in support of his work on behalf of promoting the development needs of emerging markets, particularly in Latin America. He combined two categories of needs, which he called existential and axiological. The existential needs of Being, Having, Doing, and Interacting are combined with the axiological needs of Subsistence, Protection, Affection, Understanding, Participation, Idleness, Creation, Identity and Freedom.” The produces what he refers to as 120 “satisfiers”—“an ultimate sense the way in which a need is expressed.

Professor Steven Reiss at Ohio State University has derived a system of 16 empirically tested basic desires (power, curiosity, independence, status, social contact, vengeance, honor, idealism, physical exercise, romance, family, order, eating, acceptance, tranquility, and saving). His findings suggest that the desires are largely unrelated and may have different evolutionary histories. His system syncs up less directly with Maslow’s needs and overlaps into values, as defined in ConsumerShift. Nonetheless, there was some overlap and some of his desires are incorporated into the New Dimensions list of universal needs.

While both these systems approach needs from conceptual frameworks different from Maslow’s, they reach similar conclusions. A key advantage of Maslow’s system is that it suggests a progressive development over time, which fits with the views here on the evolutionary nature of values and worldviews. For convenience’s sake, the choice was to fold the ideas of Max-Neef and Reiss into Maslow’s structure, but it is acknowledged that both are in their own right commendable and deserving of attention.

Having described where the universal needs come from here, the next entry will look at how the situation-specific needs in ConsumerShift were crafted. Andy Hines

 

For more info.

 

Maslow, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow’s_hierarchy_of_needs

Max-Neef, M. (1989). Human Scale Development: An Option for the Future. development dialogue

Reiss, S. (2004). Multifaceted Nature of Intrinsic Motivation: The Theory of Basic Desires. Review of General Psychology, 8(3).

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Are values universal?

Values, along with their accompanying needs and worldviews are universal in the sense that they apply across geographies and cultures. The foundation of the New Dimensions Values Inventory derives from Inglehart’s World Values Survey, which has been tracking values changes since the 1970s has “carried out representative national surveys in 97 societies containing almost 90 percent of the world’s population.” (1)

The question of universals in general is, of course, a larger one. The seminal work in universals was done by Brown (2). He suggests that because universals are universal, they aren’t noticed and are taken for granted. Although the long list of universals he identifies doesn’t explicitly include values, they are suggested by the inclusion of several other components of the new dimension consumer life model (of which values are central), such as cultures and worldviews.

Berlin, however, does include values: “…universal values…are values that a great many human beings in the vast majority of places and situations, at almost all times, do in fact hold in common, whether consciously and explicitly or as expressed in their behavior.(3)”

Finally, Integral Theorist Ken Wilber adds(4): “Evolutionary psychology gives much more interesting and compelling explanations of human behavior than the standard postmodern claim that all behavior is culturally relative and socially constructed. Evolutionary psychology made it clear that there are indeed universals in the human condition. ” Andy Hines

Notes
1. See http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs/articles/folder_published/article_base_110
2. Brown, D. (1991). Human Universals. McGraw-Hill, vii, 139.
3. Jahanbegloo, R. (1991). Conversations With Isaiah Berlin. McArthur & Co. Reprinted 2007. Halban Publishers.
4. Wilber, K. (2000). A Theory of Everything. Boston: Shambhala, ix.