Theory of the model
"Spectrum of Needs is an application-focused psychological approach that places people's needs at the center of their actions and interactions with others."
Three sub-areas
ME
The person who is "alone with himself". There is no interaction or relationship with other people. It is about the one person and no one else.
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The area of the "soul" has to do with the innermost part of the human being - the innermost core of the being. The "thinking ego" contains things that have to do with a person who sees themselves as a human being. The area of expression contains those needs that have to do with the external impact of this person.
WE
The "WE" area includes those needs that lie in interpersonal relationships.
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In the narrowest sense, the interpersonal concerns "the one second person", in the sense of a partnership. In real life, this can be a partnership in the sense of a love relationship, but also a friendship or family relationship. If we add other people with whom we are in a relationship (and "know" each other), we find the needs that have to do with a "team" of people. Here you can imagine a work team in exactly the same way as a team of friends or a family. The needs of "society" have to do with society itself - here it is no longer so much about the relationship between the participants, but about the joint work and the interrelationships between them (even if you don't know the other person that well).
SYSTEM
If we now ignore the idea that we are talking about people in life and look at the "system" - as if we were looking down on the planet from above, as if we were looking at an anthill - then we find the "existential" needs here.
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In other words: the non-being-dead, which leads to a system component (in our case this is a person) occurring in the system (and remaining there). If the system components now interact with each other according to certain mechanisms of action, rules and laws, we find the needs that have to do with the contribution and interaction of the system elements. In other words, the "controlled" processes in the system. If we then distance ourselves even further from the individual components and look at the system "as a whole", we find the issues that have to do with the "structure" itself.
Structure
If you look at the needs of the "soul" (ego area) and look clockwise across the "we" to the system, you can imagine the whole thing as if you were optically "zooming out" or "zooming in". Initially, you have the maximum focus on the innermost part of the individual, then you zoom out a little from the soul and look into the "thinking" spirit - if you zoom further, you see the "outwardly realizing" person. If you zoom out further, you see a second person - and then a team, and finally just "a bunch of people". If you zoom out further, you no longer see people but the individual system components of life.
If you zoom out further, you see the mechanisms and active processes that exist between these components can be seen. Zoomed out even further, you can recognize patterns and structures according to which this system moves.
And the trick at the end: once you have zoomed out so far that the entire system converges "into a whole" in its perfect interplay, you can see that this state merges almost seamlessly with the individual's need for calm, simplicity and clarity.
Needs ≠ Values or Feelings
Needs
Needs are abstract things that are important to us. All people have the same set of needs, but they are expressed differently. Strong needs can be thought of as "buttons" that can be pressed.
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In a positive sense, this means that a need is satisfied. The direct result is a pleasant feeling. Pressed in a negative sense means that a need is offended or neglected. As a further consequence, an unpleasant feeling arises. "Things that push buttons" include everything that either satisfies or offends a need. This includes external activities as well as perceptions (what I see or hear from the outside) and the corresponding thoughts. Thoughts alone (personal imagination, fantasy, ideas) also have an effect on our needs - thoughts can satisfy needs as well as offend them, just like external perceptions or actual activities.
Values
Values have a wide variety of connotations - completely different concepts are seen as "value" across cultures, times and people's minds.
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The definitions used by the social sciences, cultural studies, psychology and philosophy when talking about "values" are almost as different. In the context of human needs, the Spectrum of Needs model considers "values" to be merely "strategies", patterns by which people try to satisfy their needs or avoid offending them. This is not intended to replace or compete with other definitions for validity - however, a different understanding of the concept of values is better evaluated with the methodology and theoretical embedding of the discipline in question and should not be readily used to work with the Spectrum of Needs model.
Feelings
Feelings can be pleasant, such as love or joy, and unpleasant, such as sadness, frustration, fear or shame.
Source: Contact / Disclaimer
Pleasant feelings are triggered when a need is satisfied, and unpleasant feelings are triggered when a need is offended. Feelings cannot be controlled or controlled because they are mechanically linked to needs. Feelings are expressed verbally, in gestures and to a large extent in body language. These include things such as pupil width, the degree of tension and muscle tone (trembling) of the voice or limbs, the opening width of the larynx, the position (degree of tension) of the diaphragm, skin tension, breathing frequency and depth (matching the diaphragm), skin tension and much more. You can imagine that these elements are hardly under our conscious control (so much for "controlling your own body language"), but simply speak for themselves.
Feelings can be influenced by understanding your needs (e.g. identifying the button that is or could be pressed) and deriving a corresponding action. In the case of a negative feeling, this would mean changing the state that pushes the button. This state can be a state in the outside world that you perceive, something that is said - or even a thought. The latter can, if you like, be called "demons". This refers to thoughts that create an unpleasant feeling in us. With these thoughts, we should also distinguish whether the thought relates to a present, perceived reality - or whether it is a thought that relates to the future.
Good to know
Creative Commons
The entire model is subject to a Creative Commons license and can be used freely by anyone, whether in application or research. It is in the tradition of "open source" projects and can be seen as part of the public science scene. All results are freely available and all projects of which we are aware are included in our resource directory.
Interdisciplinary
The Spectrum of Needs combines psychological and philosophical principles with the core ideas of non-violent communication. It is equally at home in the social sciences as it is in the humanities and cultural studies. Current research activities are practice-oriented in the field of project management, but the model is also suitable for areas such as intercultural communication or mediation.
Development
In addition to our own activities to further develop the model, we are in contact with various people and institutions in order to complete, improve and expand the model. As a non-commercial project with scientific aspirations, Spectrum of Needs will never be "finished", but will grow and change as a living piece of knowledge.