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In this article we will discuss about the needs and wants of an individual.
Needs of the Individual:
A need exists as a state of tension in a person which serves to direct his behaviour towards a certain goal.
The needs have to following characteristics:
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(i) The degree of tension corresponds to the strength of the need. The stronger the need, the greater the tension.
(ii) After the tension reaches a certain degree of intensity, it is experienced as unpleasant.
(iii) When a need enters the active stage, the person engaged in the activity is directed towards the goal.
(iv) The tension is discharged when the goal is reached.
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For example, when a person needs food, he feels hungry. If he has not taken anything for the last twelve hours, he feels intensely hungry. He can resist the hunger to a particular stage, beyond which he will feel restless for want of food.
Hunger will be unpleasant then. He will therefore strive to satisfy his hunger. He must order for food, and pounce upon the dish. After he has taken the food to his appetite, there is no tension as the goal is reached.
Hunger is one of the tensions arising out of need for food. There are a number of other needs.
Broadly speaking, these are categorised into:
(a) Organic Needs,
(b) Emotional Needs, and
(c) Economic Needs.
(a) Organic Needs:
These are physical needs which include the following:
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1. Basic organic needs:
i. e. needs for air, water, food, proper temperature, clothes, rest, sleep and accommodation without which a man’s life is impossible.
2. The health needs which are either positive or negative. The positive health needs include nutrition, posture, normal hearing, normal vision, normal motor ability and normal functioning of the body. The negative health needs include freedom from diseases, freedom from disabilities like blindness, deafness, stammering, bed-wetting etc.
3. Need for certain kinds of sensory gratifications like a sweet taste, proper light, avoidance of noise etc.
4. Sex-need:
If this need is not met, maladjustment results. Hence marriage is a necessity. Curiosity for sex, and desire to love the opposite sex begins in the adolescent stage. Sex is dormant before that stage.
(b) Emotional Needs:
These include the following:
5. Affection that is satisfaction ‘Emotional Needs’ of being loved by others – by family, teacher and friends. In the absence of the fulfillment of this need maladjustment is caused.
6. Dominance or Mastery:
Every child wants to assert himself. This need is satisfied by achieving excellence in any field of school life.
7. Belongingness:
Every child wants to feel that he belongs to somebody, may be a family, a team, a class or a school.
8. Independence:
Every person wants to work independently, and feel independent for himself.
9. Security:
Every person wants to feel secure in respect of his occupation, income and social prestige. He also wants to be secured from punishment at home, school or society.
10. Achievement and success.
11. Adventure and quest for the new.
12. Recreational need.
13. Aesthetic need.
14. Social Approval:
This need is satisfied by appreciation from others, by getting a good status in the society, by means of popularity and also through fame and name.
(c) Economic Needs:
These include the following needs:
15. Need for a suitable profession, by which one can earn a living, spend according to his need and desire, and make such goal as building a house etc.
16. Need for success and achievement in the career.
17. Power, prestige, honour and recognition.
Human Wants:
Sorenson gives a list of wants as follows:
I. The Want to Live:
Avoidance and postponement of death includes food, health, clothing, shelter, protection against disease.
II. The Want for Economic Security:
It includes a satisfactory job, a regular income, some property and something to have in future.
III. The Want for Social Security:
It includes love, affection, belongingness, friendship, companionship and social acceptance.
IV. The Want for Personal Worth and Superiority:
It includes success, mastery, power, importance, self-respect, prestige, honour, self-satisfaction.
V. The Want for Health, Comfort and Feeling of Well-being:
It includes rest and sleep, ventilation, pleasant climate, sanitation, healthful surrounding and comforts.
VI. The Want for Stimulation, Activity, Enjoyment and Satisfaction:
It includes work, sports, plays, travel, oral expression, reading, music, art, conversion, motion pictures and other entertainments.
VII. The Want for Freedom and Liberty:
It includes thinking and expressing oneself independently, moving freely, making decisions, enjoying equality rights, and determining one’s own course of action.
VIII. The Want for Sexual Stimulation:
It includes the basic sex urge, libido, life-force, eroticism, amorousness and conjugation.
Methods of Motivation:
Motivation occupies a central place in the teaching-learning process. It is in fact, indispensable to learning. Every teacher, at one time or the other, is faced with the problem of motivating his students to learn. Therefore, it is essential to think of the ways and means for achieving motivation in the classroom situation.
The following are the main approaches (techniques) or methods of motivation:
1. Child-centred approach.
2. Linking the new learning with the past.
3. Use of effective methods, aids and devices in teaching.
4. Definiteness of the purposes and goals.
5. Knowledge of the results and progress.
6. Praise and Reproof.
7. Rewards and Punishment.
8. Competition and co-operation.
9. Ego-involvement.
10. Development of proper attitude.
11. Appropriate learning situation and Environment.
12. Stimulus variation by the teacher.
13. Novelty.
14. Teaching skills.
15. Individual differences of the children.
16. Teacher’s own motivation and interest in teaching.