Understanding Yourself

Influences on Behavior

Factors Affecting Your Decisions

• Needs• Wants• Personal Priorities• Goals• Standards

Needs:

Basic items that are required for living.

Needs

• All people have the same basic needs.

• Must be met for proper growth and development.

• Regardless of how these needs are met, they must be at least partially satisfied before going on to other needs.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Physical Needs• Food, water, clothing, shelter.• Necessary for good health, comfort, and to sustain life.

Safety and Security Needs• People need to feel free from danger, risk, or injury in their surroundings.• Knowing what to expect in the future helps people fulfill their needs for security.

Love and Acceptance Needs• Feel loved by other people• Feel their presence is important to other people• Everyone needs to be accepted, supported, praised, and loved by others.

Esteem Needs• People seek respect and admiration.• Like yourself and have pride in yourself.• You will have a sense of importance and confidence.

Self-Actualization• The highest level in Maslow’s ranking of human needs.• All other needs must be at least partially satisfied.• If reached, have the need to develop to their full potential!• Set goals for themselves, and reached many of them.

FACT

• People’s behaviors differ according to the level of need they are trying to fulfill.

• Everyone has the same basic needs. However, people have different wants.

Wants:

Things people desire, but don’t need.

Wants

• Not necessary for survival.

• May bring satisfaction, but life will go on without them.

• Sometimes people want something they don’t really need.

Needs & Wants

• Example: You need food in the morning before you begin your classes. You may eat at home or you may want to eat in the cafeteria at school.

• Either way your need has been satisfied, but you chose the way you wanted to satisfy it.

Needs & Wants

• People satisfy their needs in different ways…if this were not so, everyone would eat the same kind of food and live in the same kind of houses.

• Factors that make people’s decisions different

• Personal priorities, goals, standards.

Personal Priorities:

The beliefs, feelings, and experiences you consider to be important and desirable.

Examples: honest, friendship, freedom, happiness, popularity, health, education, beauty, or status may be personal priorities you consider important.

Personal Priorities

• They guide the decisions you make everyday.

• Affected by your experiences you have had throughout life.

• They change as you change!

Factors Affecting Your Personal Priorities

• Your relationship with other people (your friends)

• Your experiences (education, knowledge)• Needs• Beliefs and morals

• Personal Priority Judgment: the level of importance to a certain item or action.

Goals:

The aims people consciously try to reach.

When you reach your goals, you attain something you wanted and considered important.

Types of Goals

• Short-term: from a week to a year.

• Long-term: a year or more.

• Visionary: don’t really expect to achieve• May inspire you to do more than you

thought you were capable of doing.

Steps for Achieving Goals

1. Make a list of what you want out of life.

2. Consider your personal priorities.

3. List ways you could achieve your goals.

4. Make plans, group short-term goals together to achieve long-term goals.

5. Establish deadlines and rewards

Standards:

Accepted levels of achievement.

Standards

• Many different kinds of standards…

– Your appearance

– How well you are at certain skills

– The quality of your possessions

Influences on Your Behavior and Decisions

• Family’s culture and traditions

• Peers

• Expectations of society– Ways other people find appropriate

• Your Future!– The decisions you make today will affect you as an

adult!