Social needs: achievement, power and affiliation

What elements regulate behavior? There are many theorists who have spoken about the motivations of human beings in relation to social needs, as well as scholars who have tried to determine why we behave in a certain way when we have many alternatives.

At the base of all behavior are motivational factors. That is, certain elements that encourage a behavior to be in a certain way or not to go in a specific direction. Among these motivational factors are social needs.

Motivational factors are not just goals that people want to achieve. In fact, in the study of motivation there are two different approaches:

Motivation understood as objectives, goals and values.Motivation understood as instincts, needs or drives.

Based on the second approach, several authors have studied which instincts or needs the human being “hides” behind the implementation of a behavior.

Needs: primary motivational factors

The needs are classified within the group of primary motivational factors. This means that meeting needs (also social needs) is a condition for survival.

Murray (1938) understood needs as the propensity to act in a certain way.. For him, needs are internal (both biological and psychological). In his scheme, at this point those pressures from the environment to behave in a certain way at a certain moment are not included.

Needs also include cognitive, emotional and behavioral processes that integrate true lines of action for the subject. So, needs would mark what the person does.

Murray dedicated much of his theoretical work to the study of needs. From his work we inherited the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), where the personal needs of each individual are evaluated. Likewise, he also developed the Personality Research Form (PRF), where Murray tried to evaluate personality based on his needs model.

McClelland’s social needs (1987)

McClelland, an American psychologist who carries out his professional activity at Harvard University and Boston, suggests three primary needs that for him would be found at the basis of our thinking, feeling and acting: social needs.

McClelland defines the three most important needs of human beings, those to which he adds the adjective “social.” These needs arise from man’s own nature, which is a social animal and needs a socialization process to develop his abilities.

The social needs that McClelland identifies are:

The need for achievement. The need for power. The need for motivation.

These needs are not universal, since they are the result of the historical nature of the human being, but also from its social and cultural context. Therefore, the list of needs can be, although consistent, relatively changing.

The need for achievement: knowing ourselves to be good and better

McClelland identifies the need for achievement at the basis of human behavior. Due to their need for achievement, the person usually wants to optimize their performance, not so much for the material benefits that this can bring as for the satisfaction of having done it well.

From a task, one can increase your feelings of self-efficacy by knowing yourself betterby feeling competent.

Therefore, the need for achievement is related to doing something well done simply for the satisfaction of the result obtained, and the improvement and development of personal skills.

The need for power: knowing that we are dominant

The second need that McClelland identifies at the basis of some people’s behavior is the need for power. This need for power or prestige It influences certain people to want control of situations and people, as well as their ability to act..

This need encompasses the search for status and positions of institutional, social and group control. Therefore, the characteristics of these people are related to power, control and dominance.

Likewise, people with a very high need for power are also individuals who They do not know how to accept failure, frustration and defeat. This need for power, taken to the extreme, can be related to arterial problems, stress and illness. Therefore, when the need for power is high, it is important to work on the person’s sense of responsibility.

The need for affiliation: feeling loved

The last of the social needs that McClelland studies is the need for affiliation. It seems the clearest need, and surely the one that most people will have in common.

Based on the need for affiliation, the person would seek maintain emotional and social relationships with a person or group of people.

Although this seems obvious, it is worth stating that Socialization is a motivation for the development of important skills or abilitiesfrom language to empathy.

Thus, Based on this need, people worry about being attractive to others.. They want to be accepted and included in the group. The need for affiliation illustrates how people prefer warm relationships with a large group of people, where they can feel part of a group in which they feel valued.

The need for intimacy can derive from the need for affiliation, more specific to emotional loving relationships. McAdams defines the need for intimacy as the search for a close, affectionate interaction with another. It was observed that this need was higher in women than in men.

Needs, the only motivational factors?

The social needs exposed are not the only ones that are at the basis of human behavior. In fact, There are many other elements, such as control motivation.

From the perspective of RW White (1959), it was studied how man sought at all costs to be able to control his environment and balance the existing transactions between organism and context.

Deci (2008), on the other hand, understands that The most important intrinsic motivation of human beings is to exercise their own abilities and achieve mastery in different environments. (without external rewards resulting from this).

In the theory of self-determination, finally, it is understood that man’s need lies in learning and obtaining sufficient resources to be independent. This means that man seeks challenges and challenges to practice, become skilled and feel competent in the tasks proposed to him.

Be that as it may, and stripping them of all meaning, it seems clear that among our most important needs as motivators of behavior would be the need to feel competent, the need to feel in a group, and the need for control within that group. On the other hand, knowing its motivating aspect allows us to explain, understand and intervene on dysfunctional behaviors.

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