The 16 basic desires of every human being

An American psychologist has found 16 basic desires that are key to explaining our actions.

Human beings' interest in those elements that are elemental to life is nothing new. At the same time as the philosophy of affluence, a way of understanding life emerged that emphasizes the need to reduce basic desires to their minimum expression: Eastern asceticism, epicureanism, the practice of meditation or, more recently, the example of Henry David Thoreau and his life in Walden.

However, all these trends have in common the renunciation of desires from a spiritual or, at the very least, deeply subjective point of view. What happens when science intervenes in these inquiries?

What are man's basic desires?

In an investigation whose goal was to find the structure of human desires the structure of human desires, the American psychologist Steven Reiss found 16 basic desires, sources of motivation, which are key to explaining our actions, the volitional dimension of our species: what moves us to interpret, choose and act on our environment. This categorization of desires into 16 factors is based on a study involving more than 6,000 people and is a way of approaching the study of what shapes our behavior and the way we satisfy our needs.

However, it also serves to explain personality, it also serves to explain one's personality personality depending on which desires we give more importance to and which ones less. In this way, and depending on which desire is the most important for us, it would be possible to find what Reiss defines as the "point of happiness".point of happinessof happiness" of each person.

The author published this classification for the first time in the year 2000 with the book Who am I? The 16 Basic Desires that Motivate Our Actions and Define Our Personalitiesand is as follows:

1- Acceptancethe need to be appreciated.

2- Curiositythe need to learn.

3- Foodthe need to eat.

4- Familythe need to have and raise sons and daughters.

5- Honorthe need to be loyal to the traditional values of a collectivity.

6- Idealismthe need for social justice.

7- Independencethe need to have guaranteed individuality.

8- Orderthe need for stable and organized environments.

9- Physical activitythe need for exercise.

10- Powerthe need to have a certain capacity of influence.

11- Romantic lovethe need for sex and beauty.

12- Thriftthe need to accumulate.

13- Social contactthe need to have relationships with others.

14- Statusthe need to be socially significant.

15- Tranquilitythe need to feel secure.

16- Revengethe need to strike back.

Nuancing

It should be remembered however that, going to the concrete, the list of objectives, goals and sources of motivation are practically infinite in the human being, since any concept or representation can embody one of them.

In addition, cultural variations among people in each region, which may reward or repress certain manifestations of desire and will, must be taken into account. Reiss proposes a list of 16 basic desires common to all people that nevertheless different forms depending on our choices and our context, a theory of motivation.Reiss' theory of motivation.