Human needs are things all humans require for normal growth and development. These needs have been studied by psychologists and categorized in a number of ways. Henry A. Murray, one of the founders of personality psychology who was active in developing a theory of motivation, identified a list of core psychological needs in 1938. He described these needs as being either primary (based on biological needs, such as the need for food) or secondary (generally psychological, such as the need for independence). Murray believed the interplay of these needs produce distinct personality types and are internal influences on behavior.
Murray’s research underpins the work of psychologist Abraham Maslow who also studied human needs, motivation, and personality. While working with monkeys during his early years of research, he noticed that some needs take precedence over others. For example, thirst is relieved before hunger because the need for water is a stronger need than the need for food. In 1954, Maslow published what has become known as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. [Figure 1]
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| Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs |
According to Maslow, human needs go beyond the obvious physical needs of food and shelter to include psychological needs, safety and security, love and belongingness, self-esteem, and self-actualization to achieve one’s goals. Human needs are satisfied in order of importance. Once a need is satisfied, humans work to satisfy the next level of need. Need satisfaction is an ongoing behavior that determines everyday actions.
What was apparent in multiple studies, however, was that humans have needs that affect their ability to focus on the task at hand. Learners tend to show little to no motivation or attention if most of their needs are not met. If a learner is hungry (physiological), their focus of perceptions (attention) will not be on the instructor and the subject being presented. Rather, it will be on satisfying the physiological need as soon as possible. The same can be said about an anxious learner attempting a fully-developed stall for the first time. If the learner feels unsafe (safety and security), their focus of perception is on their “flee” response and not the skill that the learner it trying to acquire. However, what is important here is the focus of perceptions, and the ability of the instructor to concentrate the learner’s senses on the subject being presented.
Many learners are able to complete a maneuver or demonstrate knowledge while being hungry or thirsty, which means that for the most part, the entire need does not have to be fulfilled to 100 percent. What needs to be addressed is whether parts of each level have been met, which allows the focus of perception to be concentrated on the instruction given. It does not matter which order the needs are met, the order has little to no effect on the learner’s learning ability. What matters is that the instructor verifies that most of the needs has been met (law of readiness) and is then able to focus the learner’s senses (perception) on the lesson.
One of the main responsibilities of an aviation instructor is to help learners learn, which encompasses the law of readiness. To satisfy the law of readiness, an instructor can verify that a learner’s needs have been met by conducting a thorough pre-assessment prior to beginning the lesson. The pre-assessment should verify whether the learner is physically and mentally ready to learn.
Meeting Human Needs to Encourage Learning
Physiological
These are biological needs. They consist of the need for air, food, water, and maintenance of the human body. If a learner is unwell, then little else matters. Unless the biological needs are met, a person cannot concentrate fully on learning, self-expression, or any other tasks. Instructors should monitor their learners to make sure that their basic physical needs have been met. A hungry or tired learner may not be able to perform as expected.
Security
Once the physiological needs are met, the need for security becomes active. All humans have a need to feel safe. Security needs are about keeping oneself from harm. If a learner does not feel safe, he or she cannot concentrate. The aviation instructor who stresses flight safety during training mitigates feelings of insecurity. A flight instructor should be aware of his learner’s fear of certain flight regions and ease them into those situations carefully.
Belonging
When individuals are physically comfortable and do not feel threatened, they seek to satisfy their social needs of belonging. Maslow states that people seek to overcome feelings of loneliness and alienation. This involves both giving and receiving love, affection, and the sense of belonging. For example, aviation learners are usually out of their normal surroundings during training, and their need for association and belonging is more pronounced. Instructors should make every effort to help new learners feel at ease and to reinforce their decision to pursue a career or hobby in aviation.
Esteem
When the first three classes of needs are satisfied, the need for esteem can become dominant. Humans have a need for a stable, firmly based, high level of self-respect and respect from others. Esteem is about feeling good about one’s self. Humans get esteem in two ways: internally or externally. Internally, a person judges himself or herself worthy by personally defined standards. High self-esteem results in self-confidence, independence, achievement, competence, and knowledge.
Most people, however, seek external esteem through social approval and esteem from other people, judging themselves by what others think of them. External self-esteem relates to one’s reputation, such as status, recognition, appreciation, and respect of associates.
When esteem needs are satisfied, a person feels self-confident and valuable as a person in the world. When these needs are frustrated, the person feels inferior, weak, helpless, and worthless. Esteem needs not only have a strong influence on the instructor-learner relationship, but also may be the main reason for a learner’s interest in aviation training.
Cognitive and Aesthetic
In later years, Maslow added cognitive (need to know and understand) and aesthetic (the emotional need of the artist) needs to the pyramid. He realized humans have a deep need to understand what is going on around them. If a person understands what is going on, he or she can either control the situation or make informed choices about what steps might be taken next. The brain even reinforces this need by giving humans a rush of dopamine whenever something is learned, which accounts for that satisfying “eureka!” moment. For example, a flight learner usually experiences a major “eureka!” moment upon completing the first solo flight.
Aesthetic needs connect directly with human emotions, which makes it a subtle factor in the domain of persuasion. When someone likes another person, a house, a painting, or a song, the reasons are not examined—he or she simply likes it. This need can factor into the learner-instructor relationship. If an instructor does not “like” a learner, this subtle feeling may affect the instructor’s ability to teach.
Self-Actualization
When all of the foregoing needs are satisfied, then and only then are the needs for self-actualization activated. Maslow describes self-actualization as a person’s need to be and do that which the person was “born to do.” To paraphrase an old Army recruiting slogan, self-actualization is to “be all you can be.”
Self-actualized people are characterized by:
- Being problem-focused.
- Incorporating an ongoing freshness of appreciation of life.
- A concern about personal growth.
- The ability to have peak experiences.
Helping a learner achieve his or her individual potential in aviation training offers the greatest challenge as well as reward to the instructor.
Instructors should help learners satisfy their human needs in a manner that creates a healthy learning environment. In this type of environment, learners experience fewer frustrations and, therefore, can devote more attention to their studies. Fulfillment of needs can be a powerful motivation in complex learning situations.