Every human being has four main human needs that help them go about life when it comes to the cognitive part of the brain.
In this article I explain those four main human needs and why we actually need them. Before I begin to explain these human needs, I would like to mention that every human is different. This comes about due to the fact that our human needs are prioritized by us in different ways, one may prioritize the human need of control to gather, self to tribe and vice versa. In the end we find ourselves with different personalities and this is what makes us unique.
So the four main human needs are Organize, Gather, Self and Tribe. I will explain them in detail and what they actually mean by starting with Organize.
1. Organize (Control, reduce, limit…)
Just by looking at the word we can simply guess that the human need of organize simply deals with us feeling responsible to control, reduce or limit stuff. This human need is the one that helps keep ourselves more organized in our lives in general. A simple example of a human being practicing this human need is when they feel the responsibility to write a schedule, plan, keep a room neat and so on.
The functions associated with this human need in MBTI or Jungian functions is Introverted Sensing (Si) and Introverted iNtuition (Ni). That is why types with these functions high up in there function stacks are usually stereotyped as very organised, for example, ESTJ, , ISTJ, ENTJ, ISFJ etc.
The human need of organise is very useful in our lives because of the sense of control it gives us and the ability to be able to decide in a much more faster way that it grants us. The opposite of this is the human need of Gather which I will explain next.
2. Gather (Explore, variety, Spontaneity…)
The human need of gather is responsible for making us human beings open minded and more explorative in nature. The fact that this human need is responsible for doing the things mentioned make it the ‘disorganized’ human need in general. An example of this human need in action is when someone is absorbing in new information, accepting to be flexible, experiencing something new like riding a bike for the first time.
In the Jungian Typology system, the functions associated with this human need are Extraverted iNtuition (Ne) and Extraverted Sensing (Se). So this is why you find types like the ESTP, INTP, ENTP, ESFP and so on being the most spontaneous types in MBTI who love to try out new things. This is obviously due to the fact that they have the Ne or Se function high up in their stack.
This function is good for us because it keeps us open minded and willing to improvise which is very useful in life. Overdoing the function would obviously lead to problems just like we all know ‘too much of anything is bad’. Examples of such would be a person who is always constantly wanting to gather new information without ever organising it which may lead to useless knowledge due to the fact that unorganised information can not be used for practical purposes in the real world.
3. Self (significance, confidence, identity…)
We probably have all felt at some point in our lives like we are crap and that the only thing that could save us from that feeling was ourselves and no one else. Well at that point it was your human need of ‘self’ probably being in use. This human need is responsible for making us feel confident in ourselves and making us form our own opinions based on our own understanding or values.
The functions responsible for this human need are Introverted Thinking (Ti) and Introverted Feeling (Fi). I am pretty sure we know the stereotype of the INTP, INFP, ISTP, ENFP and so on having their own personal opinion for almost any topic you bring up. This is no surprise due to the fact that, that high Ti or Fi is constantly wanting to understand or value things for themselves. These types of people tend to think of themselves first before others, which may sound to be very selfish but its also beneficial for everyone else in its own way.
This human need is very useful because its the one that gives us our self confidence and worth, which are very powerful tools of life. On the other hand, doing it way too much may result in being to biased in life and being viewed as a douchebag due to the fact that you a can not view other peoples point of views.
4. Tribe (Validation, Others, objectivity…)
The human need of ‘tribe’ or ‘validation’ is the simplest to understand and notice in people. I am pretty sure you have wanted someone’s validation at least one point in your life.
This human need is associated with the functions Extraverted Feeling (Fe) and Extraverted Thinking (Te). The types which have this function high up in their stacks are ENFJ, INFJ, ENTJ, ISFJ etc. If you were to notice one thing about these types, its definitely their need to impress or do things for others. Although the types with Te may appear to be ‘not trying to impress’ anyone, they actually are indirectly by trying to solve their problems for them. This is different from the Ti users who are usually solving problems for their own self benefit or understanding. The human need of Tribe is the opposite of the human need of self which can cause such people to be intrigued by each other because we all know ‘opposites attract’.
This human need is very useful n situations that require the person to be in a persons shoes or simply just to be more objective in our decisions. An example of the tribe human need being used is a scenario of a psychiatrist trying to solve another persons problem for them by constantly putting them selves in their customers shoes.
These were the four main basic human needs that every human being has in order to keep living life. These needs shape every persons personality by being ordered or prioritized in different orders which influence the the way and why we make different decisions for different situations.
I hope you have learnt something valuable from this article because these are some subtle things we humans have that only a few notice and actually take advantage of to fully understand themselves.
