Below is my attempt to list all human needs ranked according to their typical importance (from most important to least). Thanks for the idea, Maslow!
I’m defining a “need” here as something non-replaceable (i.e., you can’t just substitute it for something else), which, if substantially unsatisfied, would inhibit well-being for the vast majority of people.
You might say that you “need an iced tea” on a hot day, but it could be easily replaceable with lemonade or iced coffee, so iced tea is not a “need” in the sense that I mean. On the other hand, water (if you haven’t had any in a couple of days) really is irreplaceable, and a lack of it greatly reduces well-being. I’m using well-being here in a broad sense, to include everything from not dying to not feeling miserable to feeling happy.
Someone might say, “I need X if I’m going to achieve Y,” but that’s also not the sort of need I mean here (unless Y is “well-being” and X is something non-fungible).
My organizational scheme is to place needs into five levels, from highest to lowest average importance:
NEEDS
Level I: Immediate Survival
Level II: Extended Survival
Level III: Mental Health
Level IV: Relationships
Level V: Satisfaction
Immediate Survival needs come first because if you don’t satisfy them, you will quickly die. So all other needs usually take a back seat. Extended Survival needs are usually next in importance when they are not met (most of the time) because if you don’t satisfy them, you eventually die. The categories after that are harder to rank strictly, but in acute states of poor mental health, it is a lot harder to focus on relationships and higher forms of satisfaction, so I place mental health third. After that, I put relationships because they seem to create stronger needs for most people most of the time than the final level (satisfaction needs).
Beyond Level V there is another level, “Intrinsic Values,” but I do not include them as “needs,” per se, because while they are things people want, they differ a lot from person to person, and having them be poorly met often is not sufficient to inhibit well-being. For instance, someone may have an intrinsic value of people all around the world being happy, but they may not have their own day-to-day well-being limited by the lack of happiness of strangers around the world.
Note that it is definitely possible to attain higher-level needs while not having all the lower-level needs met. For instance, someone who is a prisoner could build meaningful relationships with other prisoners despite not having privacy or enough food to eat.
While most people have all or almost all of the needs listed below, the degree to which people experience the needs differs. Hence the order here should be taken as only very approximate. Moreover, some people fully lack some of these needs, especially items later in the list, so these should not be thought of as universal.
An additional factor is that how much people seek a need depends both on the importance of that need and on the perceived difficulty of satisfying it. For instance, someone who has not had any water in a day will likely be very focused on finding water if they believe it is attainable, but if they believe it is not attainable, they may be focused on other (higher up) needs.
List of Human Needs
Level I: Immediate Survival
1. Oxygen – an open airway (between our lungs and the outside world) and a constant supply of air that is at least 19.5% oxygen (and partial pressure of oxygen of less than 1.4 atm)
2. Functioning – freedom from severe/acute injury, bodily damage, and organ failure
3. Safety – no immediate threats from the environment, including from dangerous human or nonhuman animals
4. Temperature – protection from hypothermia or hyperthermia (i.e., one’s core body temperature needs to stay within 95-104 degrees Fahrenheit at all times)
5. Hydration -at least a few liters of water every three days
Level II: Extended Survival
6. Noncontamination – no more than trace quantities of poisons, radiation, and toxins
7. Lack of infection – the absence of severe infection with dangerous viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoans, helminths, and prions
8. Dryness – a sufficiently dry environment at least every few days (or else our skin will macerate)
9. Sleep – at least ~28 hours of sleep per week
10. Energy – at least ~25,000 calories every three weeks
11. Macronutrients – sufficient quantities of the three macronutrients each month (varieties of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins) plus fiber
12. Macrominerals – sufficient quantities of the essential macrominerals every so often (sodium, chloride, potassium, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, sulfur)
13. Microminerals – at least a tiny bit of the microminerals every so often (which probably include iron, zinc, iodine, selenium, copper, manganese, fluoride, chromium, molybdenum, nickel, silicon, vanadium, cobalt).
14. Vitamins – sufficient quantities of the 13 essential vitamins every few months (vitamins A, C, D, E, K, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B7, B12, Folate)
Note: these nutrients/minerals/vitamins may not all be truly essential for survival, and there could be other nutrients, vitamins, or minerals that are essential that science doesn’t yet know about or that I just haven’t heard of.
Level III: Mental Health
15. Comfort – freedom from intense pain or discomfort (e.g., due to a pinched nerve, migraine, having to pee extremely badly, or a kidney stone)
16. Urge Satiation – freedom from an intense addiction or urge that can’t be satiated (e.g., a heroin user who is in the throes of a very strong urge to use again or someone who is very hungry when there is food just out of reach that they can’t get to)
17. Rest – the ability to stop exerting yourself once you have been engaged in a strenuous physical or mental activity for a long time
18. Cleanliness – a body and environment that doesn’t feel extremely dirty, contaminated, or infested
19. Understanding – not being confused about what is happening around you and being able to make sense of events.
20. Choice – the ability to make choices about what we do and don’t do (including freedom from imprisonment, enslavement, and extreme coercion or control)
21. Calmness – the sense that most of the time we, and the things that matter to us, are sufficiently safe (or else we are likely to have chronic anxiety)
22. Self-esteem – the sense that we have value and are capable of doing things that are worth doing
23. Hope – the sense that there will be value that we can create in the future and that the future will contain at least some good things (or else we are likely to be depressed)
24. Privacy – the ability to do things without being monitored and to have time to yourself without other people there (e.g., when showering, using the bathroom, or just when wanting to be alone)
Level IV: Relationships
25. Trust – a sense that the people in our immediate environment will not manipulate us, trick us, steal from us, use us, or hurt us.
26. Social interaction – social interaction with people we like and care about, and the sense that there are people who like and care about us
27. Community – the sense that we are accepted socially in at least one community, and ideally also that we are valued and have a role to play in that community
28. Sex – at least one partner we can engage in sexual activity with
29. Romantic love – a romantic partner we have a strong emotional bond with, who loves us and whom we love
30. Non-romantic love – family members or friends that love us and that we love back
31. Children – either children of our own, a partner we plan to have children with, or children of our relatives to help care for. Note: not everyone feels a need to have children, though many people do.
Level V: Satisfaction
32. Stimulation – sufficiently novel stimuli to keep us interested, or engaging tasks that bring us into a flow state (or else we become bored)
33. Enjoyment – the availability of activities that we enjoy
34. Meaning – goals, relationships, causes, or activities that feel important or meaningful to us, or that we feel we “live for” (or else our lives lack a sense of purpose and meaning)
35. Authenticity – the ability and confidence to behave as our authentic self without facing severe negative consequences
INTRINSIC VALUES
Beyond needs (i.e., non-fungible inhibitors to well-being), there are “intrinsic values,” which are things you desire for their own sake (not as a means to other ends) and which you would want even if they brought you nothing else. By definition, the things we intrinsically value, we want there to be more of.
Some intrinsic values are things we want for ourselves, others we want for our friends, family, or community, and still others we want for the world or universe.
Intrinsic values can be organized into something like 22 categories. Our categorization of them includes longevity, legacy, reputation, virtue, loyalty, justice, fairness, diversity, respect, caring, protection, nature, beauty, purity, spirituality, truth, learning, achievement, and freedom. Normally I would also include happiness, pleasure, and non-suffering in that list, but those bleed into needs, and so I would leave them out in this case to make the distinction between needs and intrinsic values clearer.
To learn more about your own intrinsic values, you can take our Intrinsic Values Test.
This essay was first written on July 28, 2021, and first appeared on this site on September 16, 2022.
Simple Go-To Guide:
Safety, food, sex, bond, status, play is what humans feel, want, do, watch, work for, buy; think, argue, pray, and communicate about.
Yeah, cool post. I broadly agree with most of this… couple considerations which came to mind for me:
– The loops between different items on this list being causes and effects on each other. E.g. items under the relationship category affect the mental health category (think – social interaction affecting mental health which can then affect one’s abilities to have more positive social interactions).
– Some of the items under relationships (specifically romantic relationships and sex) don’t appear to be applicable to everyone. E.g. due to one’s sexuality or cultural/societal attitudes affecting one’s norms regarding romance & sex. Similar reasoning may be applicable to other items on the list to but these are the ones that stood out to me.