A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.
Charles Dickens
A study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology proposed that people tend to diminish the importance of others’ psychological needs, compared to their physical needs. This often occurs when people struggle to understand the mental experiences of others.
This research was carried out by Juliana Schroeder, a Behavioral Scientist and Professor at the University of California, Berkeley and Nicholas Epley, a Professor of Behavior Science and Director for the Centre for Decision Research at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
In 1943, Abraham Maslow proposed the famous hierarchy of needs, which states that all human needs can be organized into a hierarchy, with basic physical needs such as food and water at the bottom.
Only when a person has satisfied their physical needs can they tend to their psychological needs such as a desire for purpose and self-esteem. The setback of this theory is that it implies that psychological needs are less important, especially to those who can’t always fulfill their physical needs, such as the homeless.
As a result, there is a common tendency to downplay the importance of psychological needs. This can be quite dehumanizing, since all animals have physical needs, but a desire fotor fulfill one’s psychological needs is quite unique to humans.
Drs. Schroeder and Epley hypothesized that because psychological needs are intangible and can’t be observed, people underestimate how important these needs actually are to others.
Since one’s mental state can’t be observed, Schroeder and Epley tested whether people value the psychological needs of others more if they know how the other person is thinking (e.g. through conversations with a friend).
They recruited MBA students from the University of Chicago to participate in their study. The participants received an online survey with a list of low, middle and high needs and incentives.
They were asked how important each list item was to themselves in comparison to either (a) the average Chicago Booth MBA student, (b) the Chicago Booth MBA student who answered this question just before they did, or (c) their closest friend at Chicago Booth.
The results revealed that participants were less likely to demean the psychological needs of a close friend (who has likely shared their beliefs, emotional state, etc.) than other MBA students. This implies that having access to a person’s mind may reduce the tendency to undervalue the psychological needs of others.
In the following experiment, participants from a West Coast University were given a survey containing a list of needs and activities (i.e. eating breakfast, working, traveling, spending time with friends and family, relaxing, and getting a university degree).
The participants were asked to report the extent to which they engaged in each activity, in comparison to the person who answered the survey right before them. They were also asked to report whether they engaged in each activity because it satisfied their psychological or physical needs.
The results showed that compared to others, participants rated themselves as more likely to engage in each activity to satisfy their psychological needs (except for “eating breakfast”).
This suggests that people have a difficult time imagining others pursuing their psychological needs. In turn, this may account for the tendency to undervalue the importance of others psychological needs.
In their next study, the research assistants handed out surveys to charity donors and recipients at a “Christmas Giveaway” event hosted by a charity called Respond Now.
The individuals who received the donations were given a survey containing a list of three needs (i.e. living with a full sense of meaning and purpose in life, eating food and feeling loved).
They were asked to rate how important each item was to themselves as well as the typical charity donor and ranked each item from most to least important. They also listed what they received this year during the holiday drive, how happy it made them, how much they needed it, etc.
The charity donors were also given a survey listing the same three needs and rated how important each need was for themselves and the typical charity recipient. The donors were also asked how well they knew what the charity recipient needed, what they gave them, how much they spent, etc.
The researchers found that charity donors believed that charity recipients valued physical needs over psychological needs. However, charity recipients reported the opposite. They believed their psychological needs were significantly more important than their physical needs.
Unsurprisingly, donors were more likely to give a donation that would satisfy a physical need such as food. In contrast, 82% of recipients reported preferring cash or a cash equivalent such as a gift card, which could satisfy a psychological need.
Overall, these experiments supported the researcher’s hypothesis that people demean the psychological needs of others, compared to their physical needs. People do this, in part, because they have a difficult time understanding the mental experiences of others. As a result, it becomes easier to view people as primitive beings who simply value physical needs above all else.