Ryan Phillippe

Reality is more often image than not. We know about the real World through film, through the television, through photographs, as much or more than we know it through actual experience. However, assuming that much of what we see in film, television, and photography is at least potentially manipulated, how real is our knowledge? What do we really know? From whose reality ? What level?  And how can we represent what we cannot see? There is a hierarchy of human needs, and some needs are more powerful than others. Think for a moment about the needs that influence your behavior. Which seems strongest? Which do you spend the most time and energy satisfying?

On the pyramid of hierarchy, psychological needs are at the bottom. Since these are necessary for survival, they tend to be prepotent, or dominant over higher needs. It could be said, for example, that to a starving person, food is god. Higher needs are expressed only after the prepotent physiological needs are satisfied. This is also true of needs for safety and security. Until there is a basic amount of order and stability in meeting such needs, a person may have little interest in higher pursuits.

A person who is extremely thirsty, for instance, might have little interest in writing poetry or even just talking with friends. For this reason, the first four levels of the hierarchy are basic needs. Other basic needs include love and belonging (family, friendship, caring), and needs for esteem and self-esteem (recognition and self-respect).

All of the basic needs are deficiency motives, that is, they are activated by a lack of food, water, security, love, esteem, or other basic needs. At the top of the hierarchy we find growth needs, represented  by the need for self-actualization. Such needs are not based on deficiencies. Rather, they are virtuous, life enhancing force for personal growth.

People are basically good. If their basic needs are met, they will actualize their potentials. How are needs for self-actualization expressed? Less powerful but humanly important actualization motives are called meta needs. There is usually a tendency to move up the hierarchy to the meta needs. A person whose survival needs are met, but whose meta needs are unfulfilled, falls into a syndrome of decay. Such people experience despair, apathy, and alienation.

Mere survival or comfort is usually not enough to make a full and satisfying life. It is interesting to note, in this regard, that college students who are primarily concerned with financial success, personal appearance, and social recognition score lower than average in vitality, self-actualization, and general well-being.

How do we explain the use of fasting as a means of social protest? How has the meta need for justice overcome the more basic need for food? (Perhaps the answer is that fasting is temporary and self-imposed.)  Despite such objections, these views have been widely influential as a way of understanding and appreciating the rich interplay of human motives. Rather than being a scientific theory, the hierarchy represents a philosophical viewpoint.

Few people are primarily motivated by self-actualization needs. Most are more concerned with esteem, love, or security. Perhaps this is because incentives and rewards in our society are slanted to encourage conformity, uniformity, and security in schools, jobs, and relationships. When was the last time you met a meta need?

Some people are journalist for a living and consider it hard work. Others are journalist for pleasure and dream of opening a news bureau. For some people, carpentry, gardening, writing, photography, or being a street performer is fun. For others the same activities are drudgery they must be paid to do. How can the same activity be work for one person and play for another?

When I carry out an activity for enjoyment, to show my ability, or to gain a skill, my motivation is usually intrinsic. Intrinsic motivations occurs when there is no obvious external reward or ulterior purpose behind my actions my actions. The  activity is enjoyed as an end in itself. Intrinsic motivation is closely related to the higher levels of hierarchy. In contrast, extrinsic motivations stem from obvious external factors, such as pay, grades, rewards, obligations, and approval. Most of the activities we think of as work are extrinsically rewarded.