How can we explain human behaviour?

I know it can be confusing the fact that I have always posted in Spanish and now this is a post in a different language. Basically, I decided to do this because I love English as well, and because I would like to expand my audience and reach as many people as I can. So, hello! My name is Miguel and I’m a medical student who has a passion for science and technology. Although this post isn’t exactly about science or technology.

Today I want to share with you a topic I have mentioned in the past but this time I’m going to do it differently. It’s related to human behaviour.

Most of our actions are motivated to respond to our social, physiological and affectional needs. However, understanding the human mind is very difficult (almost impossible), like I always say: “Every mind is an entire universe”. Recognized scientists and experts in the matter have presented to the world several theories that help us to predict what kind of behaviour a person can have in a certain moment, and they also describe us the important aspects of that same behaviour.

Like I mentioned in the beginning, motivation plays an important role when it comes to the actions we make, therefore in order to explain why we do things we need to comprehend the things that motivate us to move forward and how they are related to our needs.

Abraham Maslow was a psychologist born in New York. He is famous for creating Maslow's hierarchy of needs which is a motivational theory. Often represented as a pyramid, Maslow identified five levels to represent the human needs. He stated that people have a certain amount of needs and in the moment one of those needs is satisfied, it won’t motivate the person anymore. Then, the following level is activated to continue motivating the person.

Now I will describe each one of the levels:

1. Physiological Needs

These include the basic needs we all have. Such as:

• Food
• Water
• Shelter
• Air
• Clothing

As you can already tell, these needs are related to the survival of human life and its maintenance. Of course, they are extremely important since they also play a huge role when it comes to motivation and they influence a lot our behaviour. In the moment physiological needs are satisfied, they no longer motivate us.

2. Safety needs

On the next level we have those needs related to economic stability and protection from physical and externals dangers. They usually makes us feel like we need more money and therefore we work more. They can make us move into a safer neighbourhood and maybe obtain a health insurance. Just like the first level, once these needs are satisfied they no longer motivate us.

3. Social needs

We can all agree that we are social beings. Even the shiest and most introverted person needs social interaction and companionship. This is why on the third level we have “Social needs” which explains the need for human relationships, and they include:

- Friendship - Family - Romantic relationships - Community groups

Personally, I think this one is very important because in order to avoid loneliness and depression it is necessary to feel loved and accepted.

4. Esteem Needs:

This level is also very important because it refers to the need of self-respect and self-esteem. At this point it becomes very important the need of appreciation from others because, basically when we do accomplish something we tend to feel the need of getting recognized. Academic accomplishments, participating in professional activities, personal hobbies, they are all examples of things that can satisfy the esteem needs.

5. Self-Actualization Needs

This level refers to fulfillment. In other words, it refers to need of achieving our full potential as human beings. Maslow described self-actualization as the following:

In conclusion, those who care about their personal growth are less concerned about the opinion of other people and only interested in achieving their full potential.

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed.

References: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hide-and-seek/201205/our-hierarchy-needs https://www.wired.com/2014/06/energy-and-human-behavior/

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