psychology
U*""*47 5 M.Yu. SEMENOV
E. G. EFREMOV
MATERIAL SATISFACTION
The article provides a meaningful analysis of the concept of “material satisfaction” from the point of view of a psychologist. It is proposed to determine material satisfaction. In addition, factors that determine material satisfaction are identified, including the level of exact well-being, the level of material needs, the orientation of the individual, the experience of previous satisfaction of material needs, a positive high assessment of the likelihood of satisfying material needs in the future.
The results of K. Rubinstein's study made it possible to classify people into two significantly different groups: “materially satisfied” and “materially dissatisfied.” The former control their finances, while the latter allow money to control their behavior. So, if there is a desire to buy something too expensive, then representatives of the first group will try to either save enough money or forget about this thing. Those who are dissatisfied will most often try to borrow money. The second group also has a significantly higher incidence of emotional disorders and psychosomatic illnesses. We set ourselves the task of conducting a psychological analysis of the phenomenon of material satisfaction and dissatisfaction.
Previously, we examined the factors that determine human satisfaction. It has been shown that satisfaction depends on the strength of the need, the type of need, the magnitude of the ratio of the desired and the benefit received, the experience of satisfying the need in the past and the assessment of the likelihood of satisfying needs in the future. This corresponds to the formula proposed by S.V. Magun, but the relationships are not unambiguous, as presented in the formula, but more complex. This article will attempt to highlight the factors that determine material satisfaction
What is “material satisfaction” and the sphere of the material? Usually it includes monetary wealth, provision of things (for example, clothes or an apartment), services (for example, education).
travel or travel packages). Modern people receive most goods and services for money. “According to estimates, on average, in the modern world, 85% of a person’s needs for food are met through money, 90% for clothing, 80% for housing, 60% (in the USA, in Russia this percentage is almost 95) for transport services. Total “moneyization is a characteristic feature of the new stage of civilizational development that human society entered at the end of the second and beginning of the third millennium.” Therefore, in people's minds, material security is associated, first of all, with money. It is the attitude towards money that is an indicator of material satisfaction/dissatisfaction in work V.D. Rubinshtein.
One of the objectives of our study was to determine material satisfaction. Based on the above statements, based on the definition of the concept of “satisfaction” proposed by E. P. Ilyin, the following working definition can be given. Material satisfaction is a disposition that expresses a positive attitude towards material wealth as a factor of life, the material conditions of life as a result of repeatedly experienced satisfaction and guaranteed, from the point of view of the subject, to continue to receive this satisfaction. Material satisfaction is a long-term evaluation function of material security. Material satisfaction is a positive evaluative attitude, and material dissatisfaction is a negative one. Material satisfaction depends on the strength of material needs, on the amount of desired and available material wealth.
Material satisfaction is an emotional state that arises as a result of the implementation of the motive of material support. Another thing is satisfaction, understood as an attitude towards material security, material wealth.
Thus, material satisfaction is determined by:
Previous experience of successfully meeting material needs,
Positive assessment by the subject of the likelihood of meeting material needs in the future,
The forces of material needs.
The amount of desired and available material wealth.
This definition is close to the position of K. Lewin, who understood satisfaction as an emotional assessment of the relationship between the valence of a goal (the strength of the need embodied in the goal) and the possibility (or result) of achieving it. This definition is also consistent with the position of behaviorists, which is expressed in the following thought: “... the main mechanism of the functioning of motivation... is the body’s desire to relieve, reduce tension caused by a need. If one or another form of behavior led to the release of tension, to satisfaction certain need, then the probability of reproducing this form of behavior in the future (if a corresponding need arises) increases (law of effect).” (4, p. 347] Behavior is consolidated, which means the emotional reaction is consolidated and becomes stable, moving from satisfaction to satisfaction.
Material satisfaction and material well-being
Let's consider the relationship between material satisfaction and material well-being. These relationships can be represented as function (1).
Y MP = G (MO)
where Ump is the level of satisfaction of material needs, MO is the level of material security.
Thus, the level of satisfaction with one’s financial situation is a function of the level of material security. But this definition requires clarification.
To a first approximation, it can be argued that the higher the level of material security, the higher the level of satisfaction with the financial situation. In order to study the relationship between material satisfaction and well-being in more detail, we examine the function (1) indicated above. Let's consider the limits of this function.
1. If well-being tends to a minimum, then the following levels of material satisfaction are possible:
a) material satisfaction - homeless, saint, i.e. a person who has a low level of material needs and who is satisfied with the chosen “beggarly” lifestyle (high indicators on the y-axis). He may even be burdened by material wealth;
b) material dissatisfaction - poor, unsecured, refugee, dissatisfied with his situation, but by the will of fate found himself without a material resource (low indicators on the ordinate axis). He is burdened by material insecurity (graph 1).
Level of material satisfaction a
Graph 1. Dependence of the level of material satisfaction on the level of material well-being, if well-being tends to a minimum.
Thus, when describing the factors that determine material satisfaction, along with material well-being (existing), we also highlight the internal state - the need for material goods - as the desired level of well-being. Let's build a table.
A similar scheme is used by E. B. Fantalova [b] when assessing internal conflict, which in our terms can be designated as material dissatisfaction.
Based on this, we can express material satisfaction as a function of two variables:
= ((MO, MP),
Correlation between the level of well-being, strength of need and satisfaction
The ratio of the level of well-being and strength required™ State
Available = Desired Satisfied
Available “Desired Unsatisfied”
Available » Desired Satisfied years of military service/unsuccessful years of military service
where Ump is the level of satisfaction of material needs, MO is the level of material security, MP is the level of material needs.
2. If well-being tends to infinity (naturally, relative to needs) and a person is completely financially secure, we can, based on life experience and observations, identify the following types of behavior:
a) a person continues to increase material wealth in the form of capital. He evaluates his level of material security not in comparison with the needs of his life, but in comparison, for example, with the wealth of other people, even richer (an insatiable man, "... there King Koschey is wasting away over gold..."). Then we can talk about satisfying, with the help of well-being, not material needs, but other needs, for example, the need for social recognition. But due to the fact that these types of satisfaction are associated with material satisfaction, a person can experience material dissatisfaction, even with complete material security. This means that the orientation of the individual is important, its main reference point, to which various resources are tied;
b) the person continues to engage in business, but increasing capital and making profits is not the goal for such an entrepreneur. He either receives satisfaction from the very process of making money, or sets for himself some goal outside the material sphere, and wealth acts as a condition or means to achieve this goal (perhaps J. Soros). If he separates for himself the spheres of material and other things, for example spiritual, he can be materially satisfied and spiritually dissatisfied. If it does not separate, then we get option (a), when a person associates material satisfaction with other dissatisfaction, which ultimately gives material dissatisfaction;
c) a person retires from work and devotes his time to activities “for the soul”: traveling, doing art, etc. d. Then we can talk about material satisfaction;
d) a person does not use his financial situation or is burdened by it. There are quite a lot of examples where teenagers or young people from wealthy families break ties with family and material wealth, as was common, for example, among hippies. A similar situation arises for missionaries or monks when they renounce material wealth in order to serve their faith. For them, other, spiritual needs come first.
e) A person has organized his life in such a way that, while working, he provides himself financially to the required extent. The main goal of such a person’s work is outside the material sphere. This type of people is described in detail by A. Maslow as self-actualizing
changing personalities. “Self-actualizing people, without exception, are involved in some kind of work, in something outside themselves. They are devoted to this work, it is something very valuable to them - it is a kind of calling, in the old, preaching sense of the word "They do something that is a calling of fate for them and that they love so much that for them the division of “labor and joy1” disappears. One devotes his life to the law, another to justice, someone else to beauty or truth." These people have material satisfaction.
These types of behavior and the corresponding relationship between material satisfaction are presented in Figure 2.
Level of satisfaction with well-being
Level of personal well-being
Graph 2. Dependence of the level of material satisfaction on the level of material well-being, if a person is fully financially secure.
The situation when a person is completely financially secure reveals the importance of direction and interests for analyzing the relationship between material satisfaction and well-being.
Thus, it can be assumed that satisfaction with one’s financial situation depends on:
Level of personal well-being,
A person’s ability to distinguish between material and non-material needs,
Level of material needs,
Directions and interests of the individual.
Combining functions 1 and 2, we can conclude that the level of satisfaction of material needs is a function of the following factors:
Ump =G(MO,MP,N-I), (3)
where Ump is the level of material satisfaction, MO is the level of material security, MP is the level of material needs, N is the orientation of the individual, I is the interests of the individual.
Personal factors that determine material satisfaction
The orientation and interests of the individual can be considered in this context as priority, dominant objects or phenomena towards which the subject’s activity is directed, that for which a person lives: 2-a: social recognition; 2-6, type: self-realization; 2-d: service.
The level of material needs - the desired - can be considered as the strength of the need (see E. B. Fantalova) and as the level of aspirations in this area. It depends on the existing maternal system
financial expenses, those norms of material life that were formed in a person under the influence of the reference and immediate social environment, the media, the parental family, etc.
The level of material security should perhaps be considered from the point of view of the part of the income that a person receives from the family budget in absolute terms. Then, to determine it, you should take the total family budget and separate the share of the family budget per person.
Thus, in this article we proposed a definition of material satisfaction, identified the factors that determine material satisfaction, which included the level of personal well-being, the level of material needs, personality orientation, previous satisfaction of material needs, and a positive high assessment of the likelihood of meeting material needs in the future.
Literature
1. Zhirinovsky V.V., Yurovitsky V.M. New money for Russia and the world. - M.: Publishing house "Grail". -1998. - 511 p.
2. Ilyin E. P. Motivation and motives. - St. Petersburg: Publishing House "Peter", 2000. - 512 p.: ill.
3. MagunS. V. On the relationship between the significance of various personal needs and their satisfaction // Questions of psychology. - 1978. - No. 6. - P. 86-93.
4. Modern psychology: a reference guide. - M.: INFRA-M, 1999. - 688 p.
5. Semenov M. Yu. Satisfaction and contentment // Omsk Scientific Bulletin. - December, 2000, issue. 13, - pp. 154 - 156.
6. Fantalova E. B. Diagnosis of internal conflict. Appendix No. 2 to the Journal of a Practical Psychologist. - M.: Folium, 1997, 48 p.
7. FenkoA. B. The problem of money in foreign psychological research // Psychological Journal, No. 1, 2000. pp. 50 - 62.
8. Maslow A Self-actualizing and Beyond. // Challenges of Humanistic Psychology. N.Y., 1967.
9. Rubinstein C. Money & self-esteem, relationships, secrecy, envy, satisfaction. // Psychology Today. 1981. No. 5. P. 24-44.
SEMENOV Mikhail Yurievich, teacher of the Department of General Psychology of Omsk State University.
EFREMOV Evgeniy Georgievich, candidate of psychological sciences, head of the department of labor psychology and organizational psychology. Omsk State Technical University.
UDC 159.947.5 V. S. KUBAREV
YU.V MATSNEV M. YU.SEMENOV
Omsk State Technical University
Omsk State University
EXCHANGE TRADES
AS A FORM OF PSYCHOLOGICAL GAME
The article provides a meaningful analysis of stock exchange activity as a special type of gaming activity for adults. Most modern foreign psychologists consider adult games from the point of view of psychoanalysis. The authors identified constructive and more destructive motives in games for adults. The unpredictability of the behavior of stock market traders, the high degree and price of risk give rise to irrational ways of behavior and the use of unconscious motives through the mechanism of projection. The authors identified three main factors that determine the effectiveness of a stockbroker: the personal factor, which involves the analysis of unconscious motives and constant emotional self-regulation; social factor, which presupposes the independence of decisions made from the influence of the stock exchange crowd; a mental factor that involves regional decision-making.
Modern psychology is increasingly spreading to various areas of human economic activity. The so-called “human factor” in the modern economy is acquiring leading importance. Exchange trading as a special economic phenomenon should be considered, including from the point of view of psychology. Thus, A. Edder points out three main psychological factors in the effectiveness of a stockbroker:
a) “reasonable psychology”, which involves control over one’s emotional state;
b) taking into account the influence of the stock exchange crowd on the consciousness of the individual;
c) control over capital, which implies a reasonable investment of one’s funds.
In Elder's work, from the point of view of the psychoanalytic concept, stock exchange activity is considered as a game of chance, where “the bet is made on
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The article provides a meaningful analysis of the concept of “material satisfaction” from a psychological point of view. A definition of material satisfaction is proposed. In addition, the factors that determine material satisfaction are identified, which include the level of personal well-being, the level of material needs, the orientation of the individual, the experience of previous satisfaction of material needs, and a positive high assessment of the likelihood of satisfying material needs in the future.
Material Satisfaction.pdf This article is devoted to describing the phenomenon of material satisfaction. Research results by V.D. Rubinstein made it possible to classify people into two significantly different groups: “materially satisfied” and “materially dissatisfied”. The former control their finances, while the latter allow money to control their behavior. So, if there is a desire to buy something too expensive, then representatives of the first group will try to either save enough money or forget about this thing. Those who are dissatisfied will most often try to borrow money. The second group also has a significantly higher incidence of emotional disorders and psychosomatic illnesses. We set ourselves the task of conducting a psychological analysis of the phenomenon of material satisfaction and dissatisfaction. Previously, we examined the factors that determine human satisfaction. It has been shown that satisfaction depends on the strength of the need, the type of need, the magnitude of the ratio of the desired and the benefit received, the experience of satisfying the need in the past and the assessment of the likelihood of satisfying needs in the future. This corresponds to what was proposed by S.V. Magun formula, but the relationships are not unambiguous, as presented in the formula, but more complex. This article attempts to highlight the factors that determine material satisfaction. What is “material satisfaction” and the sphere of materiality? Usually it includes monetary wealth, provision of things (for example, clothes or an apartment), services (for example, education or travel packages). Modern people receive most goods and services for money. “According to estimates, on average, in the modern world, 85% of human needs for food are met through money, 90% for clothing, 80% for housing, 60% (in the USA, in Russia this percentage is almost 95) for transport services. Total moneyization is a characteristic feature of the new stage of civilizational development that human society entered at the end of the second and beginning of the third millennium.” Therefore, in people's minds, material security is associated, first of all, with money. It is the attitude towards money that is an indicator of material satisfaction or dissatisfaction in V.D.’s work. Rubinstein. One of the objectives of our study was to determine material satisfaction. Based on the above statements. based on the definition of “satisfaction” proposed by E. P. Ilyin, we can give the following working definition: material satisfaction is a disposition that expresses a positive attitude towards material wealth as a factor of life, material conditions of life as a result of repeatedly experienced satisfaction and guaranteed, from the point of view of the subject, receipt of this satisfaction in the future. Material satisfaction is a long-term evaluative function of material security; it is a positive evaluative attitude, and material dissatisfaction is a negative one. Material satisfaction is an emotional state that arises as a result of the implementation of the motive of material support. Another thing is satisfaction, understood as an attitude towards material security, material wealth. Thus, material satisfaction is determined by: previous experience of successfully satisfying material needs, a positive assessment by the subject of the likelihood of satisfying material needs in the future, the strength of material needs, the type of need, the amount of desired and available material wealth. This definition is close to the position of K. Lewin, who understood satisfaction as an emotional assessment of the relationship between the valence of a goal (the strength of the need embodied in the goal) and the possibility (or result) of achieving it. This definition is also consistent with the position of behaviorists: “the main mechanism of the functioning of motivation... is the body’s desire to relieve, reduce the tension caused by the need that has arisen. If one or another form of behavior led to the relief of tension, to the satisfaction of a certain need, then the probability of reproducing this form of behavior in the future (if a corresponding need arises) increases (law of effect).” Behavior is consolidated, and, therefore, the emotional reaction is consolidated and becomes stable, moving from satisfaction to satisfaction. Material satisfaction and material well-being. Let's consider the relationship between material satisfaction and material well-being. These relationships can be represented as function (1). U il =f(MO), (1) where Ush is the level of satisfaction of material needs, MO is the level of material security. Thus, the level of satisfaction with the financial situation is a function of the level of material security. As a first approximation, it can be argued that the higher the level of material security, the higher the level of satisfaction with the financial situation. In order to study the relationship between material satisfaction and well-being in more detail, we examine the function (1) indicated above. Let's consider the limits of this function. 1. If well-being tends to a minimum, then the following levels of material satisfaction are possible: a) material satisfaction - homeless, saint, i.e. a person who has a low level of material needs and who is satisfied with the chosen “beggarly” lifestyle (high indicators on the y-axis). He may even be burdened by material wealth; b) material dissatisfaction - poor, unsecured, refugee, dissatisfied with his situation, but by the will of fate found himself without a material resource (low indicators on the ordinate axis). He is burdened by material insecurity (Figure 1). Thus, when describing the factors that determine material satisfaction, along with material well-being (have-mine), we also highlight the internal state - the need for material goods - as the desired level of well-being (Table 1). Level of material satisfaction Level of personal well-being Figure 1. Dependence of the level of material satisfaction on the level of material well-being, if well-being tends to a minimum. Table 1. Correlation of the level of well-being, strength of need and satisfaction Correlation of the level of well-being and strength of need State Possessed = Desired Satisfaction Possessed Desired (what is a burden) Dissatisfaction Possessed > Desired (what is not a burden) Satisfaction A similar scheme is used by E.B. Fantalova when assessing internal conflict, which in our terms can be designated as material dissatisfaction. Based on this, we can express material satisfaction as a function of two variables: Ush ~f(MO, MP), (2) where Um is the level of satisfaction of material needs, MO is the level of material security, MP is the level of material needs. 2. If well-being tends to infinity (naturally, relative to needs) and a person is completely financially secure, we can, based on life experience and observations, identify the following types of behavior: a) A person continues to increase material wealth in the form of capital. He evaluates his level of material security not in comparison with the needs of his life, but in comparison, for example, with the wealth of other people, even richer (an insatiable person, “... there King Koschey is wasting away over gold. .."). Then we can talk about satisfying, with the help of well-being, not material needs, but other needs, for example, the need for social recognition. But due to the fact that these types of satisfaction are associated with material satisfaction, a person can experience material dissatisfaction, even with complete material security. This means that the orientation of the individual is important, its main reference point, on which various resources are tied. b) The person continues to do business, but increasing capital and making profits is not the goal for such an entrepreneur. He either receives satisfaction from the very process of making money, or sets for himself some goal outside the material sphere, and wealth acts as a condition or means to achieve this goal (perhaps George Soros). If he separates for himself the spheres of material and other things, for example spiritual, he can be materially satisfied and spiritually dissatisfied. If it does not separate, then we get option (a), when a person associates material satisfaction with dissatisfaction, which ultimately results in material dissatisfaction. c) A person retires from work and devotes his time to activities “for the soul”: traveling, doing art, etc. Then we can talk about material satisfaction. d) The person does not use his financial situation or is burdened by it. There are quite a lot of examples where teenagers or young people from wealthy families break ties with family and material wealth, as was common, for example, among hippies. A similar situation arises for missionaries or monks when they renounce material wealth in order to serve their faith. For them, other, spiritual needs come first. e) A person has organized his life in such a way that, while working, he provides himself financially to the required extent. The main goal of such a person’s work is outside the material sphere. This type of people is described in detail by A. Maslow as self-actualizing individuals. “Self-actualizing people, without exception, are involved in some matter, in something outside themselves. They are devoted to this work, it is something very valuable to them - it is a kind of calling, in the old, preaching sense of the word. They are doing something that is a calling of fate for them and that they love so much that for them the division “labor - joy” disappears. One devotes his life to the law, another to justice, someone else to beauty or truth.” These people have material satisfaction. These types of behavior and the corresponding relationship between material satisfaction are represented by well-being in Figure 2. Level of satisfaction with well-being Figure 2. Dependence of the level of material satisfaction on the level of material well-being, if a person is fully financially secure. The situation when a person is completely financially secure reveals the importance of direction and interests for analyzing the relationship between material satisfaction and well-being. Combining functions 1 and 2, we can conclude that the level of satisfaction of material needs is a function of the following factors: U MP =f(MO, MP, V, N-Shch, (3) where Ump is the level of material satisfaction, MO is the level of material security, MP - the level of material needs, B - a person’s ability to distinguish between material and non-material needs, N-I - the orientation and interests of the individual. The orientation and interests of the individual can be considered in this context as priority, dominant objects or phenomena to which the subject’s activity is directed, something for which a person lives. To classify orientation, you can use the hierarchical structure of motives proposed by A. Maslow. The level of material needs - the desired - can be considered as the strength of the need (see E.B. Fantalova) and as the level of aspirations in this area. It is determined by experience and upbringing: the existing system of material expenses, those norms of material life that were formed in a person under the influence of the reference and immediate social environment, the media, the parental family, etc. The level of material security should perhaps be considered from the point of view of the part of the income that a person receives from the family budget in absolute terms. Then, to determine it, you should take the total family budget and separate the share of the family budget per person. Based on the previous analysis, what are the psychological characteristics of financially satisfied and financially dissatisfied people? From the table above, you can see that many factors do not unambiguously determine material satisfaction, i.e. have a non-linear relationship with material satisfaction. This suggests that the mechanisms of the emergence and functioning of material satisfaction are quite complex. Then the next step in the study of material satisfaction is to build a typology of materially satisfied/dissatisfied people. In addition, in the future it is possible to compare motivational theories and factors that determine material satisfaction. Table 2. Characteristics of financially satisfied and financially dissatisfied people* Characteristics Materially satisfied Materially dissatisfied Experience of meeting material needs Successful Unsuccessful Assessment of the likelihood of obtaining the desired level of material well-being High positive Low positive or negative The ratio of what is available and what is desired I = F, IZH (when what is available is not in burden) IL (available as a burden) Level of material security Any, meeting the needs to a minimum Any Value of material well-being in comparison with other needs May be different May be different Strength of material needs Any Any Leading type of needs (according to A. Maslow) Any, except physiological Any Possibility to distinguish between material and non-material needs May be different May be different Factors that can serve as a basis for distinguishing between materially satisfied and materially dissatisfied people are highlighted in bold.
The previous presentation dealt primarily with the vital needs of man, the economic nature of needs, and goods as sources of satisfying needs. Let us now concentrate on considering the various types of needs and differences in individual, group, collective, and social needs.
Material needs are the needs of people that are satisfied through goods in material form, in the form of things, objects, energy. This is the most diverse group of objects people need, the number of varieties of which amounts to millions. Every twenty to thirty years, the number of types of material products created in the world doubles.
Material needs usually include needs for such things as food, clothing, shoes, housing, raw materials, building materials, fuel, cars and many other material objects. In reality, people do not need these funds on their own. The human body does not need food, but the proteins, fats, carbohydrates, and vitamins contained in these products. People need clothes and shoes not as such, but to protect the body from bad weather and prying eyes, and for decoration. People do not need firewood and other types of fuel, but the heat they produce, not light bulbs, but light, not cars and trains, but transportation, the movement of goods and passengers. Unless drinking water directly embodies both a need and a means of satisfying it.
But people have become so accustomed to satisfying needs through specific things, objects, goods that they began to consider these objects as needs. We talk about a shortage of medicines and doctors, when there is a lack of health, about the lack of sufficient air, when the body does not receive the oxygen it needs.
Let us also emphasize the fact that direct, immediate, final people's material needs determine the need for means to satisfy them, which require many other things to create. Food needs are satisfied by food products produced from crop and livestock products, which requires the use of feed, fertilizers, water, energy, and machinery. To produce cars, you need ferrous and non-ferrous metals, plastics, and equipment. The production of metals, in turn, creates a need for ore. All these indirect, derived from basic, economic needs are usually called production needs, since they are satisfied mainly through material production.
Many people's needs for services are of a different material nature. Although the services themselves are not represented by things, but by a number of activities that people need, the provision of many services is directly related to the use of objects, things, materials, and energy. Laundry, cleaning, and washing services require the use of detergents and cleaning products and washing machines. Repair services include the use of materials and spare parts. The provision of educational services is based on the use of material media and technical teaching aids. The medical services of doctors are accompanied by the administration of medications and the use of medical equipment.
The connection between the needs for services and the things through which the services are provided is sometimes so great that the needs for services are spoken of as the need for objects to provide services. Thus, the need for treatment is associated with the need for medicines, the need for transporting goods and passengers - with the need to have a car, the need for training - with the availability of educational literature.
So services represent a typical case of combining the needs to change the quality of goods consumed and, accordingly, living conditions, the state of people with the need to use objects with a material, material essence for these purposes.
Along with the need for material goods, people have a need for goods that do not have a purely material nature and are not represented in the form of the provision of material services by some people to other people. These are needs of a special nature, called spiritual. The truth has been known since ancient times: “Man does not live by bread alone.” People also need spiritual food for the mind and soul, which in economics is called spiritual benefits. The need for spiritual goods is not as obvious and obvious as the need for food, clothing, shelter, and warmth, but this does not diminish the urgency of this category of needs.
The main difference between man and animals is his inherent intelligence and consciousness, which animals have only in their infancy. The presence of thinking and mental activity requires the maintenance of these processes, constant comprehension of one’s own existence and contacts with the outside world, development of a line of reasonable behavior and attitude towards everything that exists. This actually expresses the nature of spiritual needs as a consequence of a person’s spiritual life, the needs of his soul.
Without spiritual, intellectual food, modern man is not able to exist. In the absence or insufficiency of such food, a person becomes an inferior being, degrades and even dies. One of the most terrible tortures is deprivation of the opportunity to speak, listen, read, write, communicate with other people, reason, exchange opinions, think freely, and have one’s own point of view. Under conditions of extreme restrictions on spiritual activity, a person gradually loses his mind, goes crazy, degenerates as a creative person, and becomes a humanoid creature. There are cases where children who accidentally found themselves in a world isolated from people and grew up in this environment lost their human appearance.
The spiritual world of people is based on information. Thoughts, images, ideas, sensations, intentions, fixed in consciousness, have an informational nature and represent different types of information. Spiritual food, received by a person from the outside and created by him himself, is ultimately information in the form of figurative representation, models of the real world, knowledge, information, data. In this sense, useful, necessary information is the most common spiritual benefit, the need for which is inherent in all people.
Spiritual needs, people's needs and ways to satisfy them are varied. A person perceives and receives an information product, food for the mind, with the help of vision, hearing, smell, touch, and taste. People are armed with such means of spiritual communication with their own kind as language, writing, speech, gestures, facial expressions, and gaze. Intelligent beings are capable of creating spiritual food through thinking, reasoning, analyzing opinions, acquiring knowledge, observing objects, processes in nature and society. All this taken together represents a vast arsenal of people’s intellectual life, ways of satisfying their spiritual needs and desires.
Spiritual, informational consumption product differs from the material primarily in the type of matter in which it exists and from which it is created. The fundamental feature of spiritual, incorporeal matter, in comparison with material, is that the intellectual product is not consumed, does not decrease as it is consumed. One and the same portion of spiritual food, for example knowledge, can satisfy the needs of many people, and this will not reduce the mass of the “spiritual portion”. Another thing is that spiritual food becomes outdated and needs renewal and replenishment, as the needs for it grow quantitatively and qualitatively. In addition, the consumption and use of a finished intellectual product or information is associated with the need to expend effort on its distribution, transmission, processing, and assimilation.
It is important to know and understand that the creation of intellectual values, the production of information, the satisfaction of the spiritual needs of a person, people, society are as closely related to the economy as the production of things and the provision of material services. Spiritual food does not come to people from natural sources as a result of natural processes. To create it you need brain, mental activity, requiring the expenditure of substances, materials, energy, time, money. The spiritual information product is recorded and displayed on material media in the form of books, magazines, newspapers, photographs, images, recordings on disks, films, without the production of which spiritual life would freeze. Radio, television, cinema, computer technology, means of transmitting and converting information, information networks such as the Internet serve to satisfy the needs for a spiritual product.
So the result of intellectual, informational activity can rightfully be considered an economic, paid benefit. By producing spiritual goods and information for his personal needs with the help of his own thinking apparatus, a person receives them as if for free, but even in this case, resources are spent and a product with value and value is created. Therefore, even spiritual production for itself rests on an economic basis.
The resource-intensive process of creating and using spiritual goods, their cost to consumers, the ability to sell and buy spiritual values indicate that the satisfaction of intellectual needs is directly related to the economy. The consumption of spiritual goods is preceded by them production, distribution, exchange, but in specific forms that differ in many respects from similar economic processes of obtaining and using material goods.
Historical experience confirms the pattern inherent in civilization, according to which the spiritual needs of man and society increase to a greater extent than material needs. As a result, there is a tendency to increase the share of the economy designed to satisfy the needs for spiritual products, intellectual and information services.
In the previous presentation, the main attention is paid to describing the manifestation of needs at the level of the individual and family. But needs are equally characterized by both an individual and a collective, mass character. Collective, and in a broader sense, social needs, are determined by the presence of a number of life problems that reflect the needs and affect the interests of many people at the same time, as a whole. In this regard, needs are divided into levels according to the extent of their commonality, highlighting the needs of an individual, family, social group, production team, organization, industry, region, country, state, world community, which is discussed in more detail below.
It is customary to refer to social needs as those that are characteristic of large-scale communities of people, associated with social character, the joint existence of these people in a single society, geographical and social space. Due to the social nature of such needs, they are included in the group social. Social needs can be material and spiritual, needs for services. But the main thing about them is different - they are determined by the need of many people to live together, to coexist in conditions of interconnection and interaction, cooperation, mutual support and assistance, ensuring collective security, and protection from common threats. The task of meeting social needs extends both to the social community as a whole and to individual members of this community - individuals, citizens, families.
Let us consider the most significant types of public, social needs and means of satisfying them.
The social nature of life in modern society gives rise to the need for movement, movement of goods, mutual contacts, and information exchange. This range of needs in the broad sense of the word is referred to as communication needs. The means of railway, water, air, road, pipeline transport, highways, postal, telephone, telegraph, telefax communications, radio communications, and satellite communications make it possible to satisfy such needs. The economy is called upon to create and develop means of communication and ensure their accessibility and the possibility of widespread use.
In modern conditions, characterized by a reduction in free living space, urban growth, pollution of the natural environment by hazardous industries, an increase in the number and intensity of vehicle traffic, an increase in conflict situations and crime, people increasingly need security, protection from threats to their lives and well-being. The most dangerous were natural disasters, terrorism and banditry, road traffic accidents, antisocial acts, and, of course, armed conflicts that threaten to degenerate into war. By creating means of protection, rescue, counteraction, providing them to the police, the army, other law enforcement agencies, fire services and emergency response services, the economy is able to reduce threats, reduce the risk of the population and citizens becoming victims of the mentioned dangers.
The elderly, disabled, unemployed, young children and large families, poor, innocently injured people need social protection and assistance provided by the state, insurance funds, and charitable organizations. Social support for these segments of the population is provided through the provision of funds, the provision of free or partially paid services, and the satisfaction of needs for certain types of material and spiritual benefits.
The social nature is inherent in the needs for acquiring knowledge based on education, in connection with cultural values. These spiritual needs are characteristic of each individual person to varying degrees, but at the same time, being massive, they acquire social content. The level of good manners and education of the population, the development of science and culture in the country are indicators of the progress of the state and society as a whole. Therefore, education and culture are needed by everyone, and by everyone together. To satisfy these needs, it is necessary to spend part of economic resources on the needs of science, education, upbringing, culture, and art.
Among the paramount ones is the need for health, its preservation, maintenance, and the prevention of loss of health. Everyone strives to be healthy, but, in general, this is a public, social need. It’s not for nothing that they talk about the health of the nation and people. Population health level as a social indicator, it is measured by the average duration of active human life in a country or region, as evidenced by the number and severity of diseases. The economic arsenal of health care means includes medical personnel, medicines, devices and equipment for treating patients, sanatoriums and resorts, and items of therapeutic and recreational physical culture. A significant part of the economy, called health economics. Health is also supported by economic living conditions. As a result, there is every reason to consider health not only a physical and physiological, but also an economic benefit.
Most people feel the need for labor, V labor activity. Such a need is combined with necessity, and to a certain extent, with obligation. Labor is a condition for the existence of people, humanity. The need for labor is twofold. On the one hand, labor is needed as a source of obtaining benefits, monetary income arising as a result of labor activity. Individual people, society, and the state need such labor results. On the other hand, a normal person experiences an internal need to participate in the labor process as a form of creative creation, self-expression, and a response to the urge to active life. Labor is closely related to the economy as the main source of material and spiritual economic benefits.
People need availability space, space and freedom of economic action, creating the opportunity to vary and select resources, rational ways of using them, creative, proactive economic behavior. Economic freedoms are just as important as political ones. They represent one of the unique forms of economic benefits, the satisfaction of needs for which plays a significant role for an individual, family, team, people, society. The presence of a wide field of freedom of economic action, carried out through the formation and use of resource potential within the framework of natural limitations, is the main condition for the creation efficient, effective economy. And an effective economy is able to most fully satisfy numerous individual and collective needs.
Despite the importance of the need for economic freedom, such freedom cannot and should not be unlimited. Firstly, freedom of activity is constrained by limited economic resources, primarily natural ones, and as a result, what one gets is not given to others. Secondly, and even more important, the wider the freedom for some economic entities, the greater the danger of infringement, restrictions, and damage to other participants in economic activity associated with these entities. For example, free use of river water by industrial enterprises harms fish farming and fisheries. The free increase in prices for goods and services by producers and sellers leads to an undesirable increase in consumer costs. Free sale and freedom of consumption of alcoholic beverages, tobacco products, weapons, and narcotic drugs entail a threat to the life and health of people.
It follows that along with the need for freedom of economic activity, there is a need to limit it to certain frameworks and conditions. This is, first of all, a social need, but its effect extends to all participants in economic processes. As life shows, it is necessary consistency, coordination actions of economic entities participating in joint activities or influencing the activities of others through their actions.
In other words, a socially organized economy needs management, directing and coordinating the production, exchange and consumption of many different goods and services. Management is based on a combination of permissible economic freedoms and inevitable restrictions, and even prohibitions, established by laws, regulations, decisions of governing bodies, and rules of economic behavior.
Concluding our consideration of needs, we note that in economic theory they are divided into saturable and unsatiable. Satisfiable needs are characterized by the presence of a maximum amount of goods sufficient to fully satisfy them. Typically, a family does not need more than two or three refrigerators. For a man, and even a woman, it is enough to have five to ten pairs of shoes. As the author of one of the economics textbooks jokingly notes, a person does not need more than one appendicitis operation. Unsatisfied needs do not have a clearly defined limit on the sufficiency of their quantity. Unsatisfiable needs include the needs for knowledge, cultural values, for some people these are the needs for wealth, money, fame.
As a rule, we devote most of our time and energy to work. And we want its implementation to bring us pleasure or at least satisfaction - whether moral or material. It’s better to have both, right? We talked to experts about whether there is a dream job and how to find it, what motivates us and why there is always not enough money.
If you enter the query “dream job” into a search engine, it will become obvious that many people are looking for it (in every sense of the word): 743,000,000 links speak for themselves. I wonder, apart from the vacancies that Australians offer from time to time on their Hamilton Island, how many people actually find that very desired and only dream job?
“We must understand that this is an absolutely artificial, marketing term that is used to attract personnel,” notes Alexander Evdokimenko, Candidate of Psychological Sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of Psychoanalysis and Business Consulting at the National Research University Higher School of Economics. “The feeling of a dream coming true is still a short-term state.”
“Employers can change. I would say that you need to look for your own business, your calling,” explains business coach Alla Kuznetsova. - Moreover, you can start from knowing yourself (“what do I want?”) and from studying offers on the market. Now more and more functionality and work are appearing that we knew nothing about just recently.”
By expanding your skills, you increase your expertise and, therefore, your cost in the market
According to experts, for the work you devote yourself to to truly bring joy and pleasure, three key points must coincide. As psychotherapist, business trainer, and coach Natalya Tumashkova said, “I believe that you can find your dream job if you at least have a dream.” So the first thing is your desire.
You must understand your goals, define short-term and long-term goals. “Although it’s easy to say,” admits Alla Kuznetsova. - Some people know themselves better, others worse, and enter the same university on the advice or coercion of their parents, in company with friends, and so on. But it’s never too late to listen to yourself and decide what you really want.”
The second is your knowledge and skills. After all, desire is a dream, a fantasy, and skills are a kind of reality (“what can I really do?”). Regardless of length of service, experience and self-confidence, experts do not recommend taking the position of an all-knowing and all-powerful craftsman: everyone has something to learn.
Remember: by expanding your skills, you increase your expertise and, therefore, your cost in the market. “You should understand that everything is changing very quickly,” notes Alla Kuznetsova, “and therefore you need to constantly keep yourself on your toes, see the field for your development, analyze what else is worth working on.”
Finally, the third thing is circumstances. Even if you are ready to change your field of activity and idea of what you would like to do next, evaluate your capabilities at this stage of life. For example, if your child has just started school, is experiencing stress, and is constantly sick against this background, it is worth soberly assessing the situation and, perhaps, devoting your free time not to studying in a new specialty, but to helping your first-grader. But the fulfillment of your dream will have to wait a little.
Many would probably also name high wages as an important component of an ideal job. Is this the main and truly motivating factor for us?
Material vs moral satisfaction
“Every 40 minutes of teaching gives me the kind of joy that at my main job I experience only once a month - with an SMS notification about replenishing my account,” says 22-year-old Anton. At school, as a graduate of a prestigious Western university, he is kept by his favorite job, and by his salary in a good position in a large company. He is not ready to give up either money or pleasure, so he has to sacrifice almost all his free time.
Not everyone has the opportunity to combine several jobs; most often you have to set priorities. Some people care about prestige and status; they feel comfortable only when they drive a car no worse than a certain make and model; others feel good when they do what they love.
Alla Kuznetsova recalls the story of a 35-year-old banker who decided to leave an unimaginably high position and for the next 2 years not to “capitalize” on his services to the company, but to study in the West in order to become competitive at the international level.
Another example is a woman who admitted that she would never go to a little-known organization “without a name”, about which it is necessary to explain what it is. The importance of “identifying oneself with a certain community” is also noted by Alexander Evdokimenko (“for example, the military has a specific motive - wearing a uniform”).
Three reasons to do
In the May 1978 issue of Psychology Today, researchers Edward Lawler and Patricia Renwick published an article entitled “What You Really Want from Your Job.” The three winners, according to the results of the research, looked like this:
1) call;
2) involvement in the creation of something significant;
3) the opportunity to expand your skills.
Salary took only 12th place.
It is wrong to consider some reasons and motives when choosing a job to be good and others to be bad - to each his own. The question is different: was the choice made in favor of one or the other by the person himself? Is this his desire? “People often don’t think seriously about what is most important to them in life, for what they respect themselves, and do not dare to honestly answer the question of what place in this self-respect is played by what and how they earn money,” notes Natalya Tumashkova . - It often turns out that money as an incentive to work is an illusion.
As therapeutic practice shows, in pursuit of financial success and the social labels that accompany it, people are sometimes simply trying to prove to their long-dead parent that they are worth something. And sometimes for them this is the only condition for psychological safety. In the same way, the attitude “money is not important to me at all” can be deceitful. Still, in order to earn them, you need to get off the couch, on which a person can be kept, for example, by the fear of failure that comes from childhood, and not by the pathological laziness and irresponsibility attributed to him by his relatives.”
To find out what motivates us to work more, American psychologist and behavioral economist Dan Ariely conducted a series of studies. One of them was as follows: participants were given sheets of letters, the same ones had to be combined into pairs.
The first group handed over signed works to the organizer, who looked through them and folded them. The second sheets, on which names and surnames were not indicated, were collected without looking. The answers of the third group were immediately sent to the shredder.
According to the conditions of the experiment, less and less money was awarded for completing each subsequent task, but participants in the second and third groups demanded to double the agreed upon amount. The first group did not ask for an increase, since conditional recognition was enough for them - the fact that their work was not destroyed or ignored.
But according to statistics from the recruiting agency Kelly Services for 2012, 76% of Russian employees still say pay is the main motivator. And it is understandable why many do not dare to leave a job that pleases only with stability - and not even always with the level of salary.
“One of the effective tools for keeping a person in the workplace is credit dependence,” notes Alexander Evdokimenko. - Many people work to repay debts for goods they have already purchased and experience psychological fear of a situation of uncertainty and the unknown. People are naturally afraid of leaving themselves and their families without a livelihood.”
“If you have nothing to pay for the apartment, you don’t have much choice,” agrees Alla Kuznetsova. “No one has canceled Maslow’s pyramid: first of all, it is necessary to ensure that basic needs are met.” It’s another matter if the financial issue is not acute and circumstances allow you to take risks and change your boring job to your favorite thing.
Alla cites the example of the founders of Google, Facebook, Steve Jobs or, say, Quentin Tarantino, who worked in a video store and then made “Pulp Fiction.” “He just wanted to make this film without thinking about millions. Together with recognition and popularity, they came for him themselves. Obsessed passionaries who put their souls into it and sincerely believe in what they do are often overtaken by success and money, although they have never been an end in themselves for these people.”
Growth in income and requests
Another popular query in search engines is “Why is there always little money?” (74,200,000 links). Probably, it is asked not only by those for whom it is primary when choosing a vocation and work. “A larger salary always provides more opportunities,” says Alexander Evdokimenko, “and for some time there is more motivation to work.”
But it is important to remember that we adapt to positive changes, including financial ones, quite quickly. “I remember how I was waiting for a raise, how I thought that then I would be able to afford it... But when I finally received an increased salary, I soon suddenly realized that I again did not have enough for everything I would like,” complains 27-year-old Elena, “My wish list also became larger, and not in proportion to my income.”
The main thing is to find yourself, and your dream job will follow!
Alla Kuznetsova explains the desire to acquire some things by external reference: “A person himself doesn’t really know what he wants, but then he saw something from someone, ran and bought it too, without even thinking about whether he needed it or whether he had it.” This is money. You have to be able to separate: yes, some people can afford this, but what does that have to do with me?”
Another reason for thoughtless purchases beyond your means is low self-esteem. The illusion arises that the appearance of a fabulously expensive thing can help to gain respect and status as a person who already possesses this thing.
According to Alla, many people lack budget planning skills. And in this case, it is very disciplined to have a goal for which you need to save. “As a rule, money is found and “sort of” put aside for what you really need and important,” notes Natalya Tumashkova.
She talks about the theory of dividing people into three categories:
with the psychology of “beggars” (with objective financial solvency, they always have the feeling that this is just random luck and will soon end),
with the psychology of “millionaires” (even with complete collapse, they are sure that this difficulty is temporary)
and with the position that yes, there is not enough for luxury, but there is enough for everything necessary, and this is not an obstacle to the pleasure of life.
“The main thing,” Natalia sums up, “is to find yourself, and your dream job will follow.”
