Needs and Wants: Understanding Hesitation in Self-Advocacy and the Role of Self-Esteem in Family Support
Overview
This paper explores the distinction between needs and wants, examining why individuals hesitate to ask for either. The author argues that needs are essential for survival while wants enhance quality of life, and that stigma around poverty inhibits people from requesting necessities, while pride and self-determination prevent requests for wants. The paper concludes by proposing self-esteem building techniques for teenagers in family support systems.
What this essay covers
- Conceptual distinction between needs and wants with hierarchy and temporal characteristics
- Analysis of poverty stigma and social conditioning that inhibits requesting needs
- Examination of psychological barriers to requesting wants including pride and autonomy
- Application of self-esteem techniques for teenagers in family service interventions
Preview
Needs and Wants
Your Name
Department of ABC, University – Whitewater
ABC 101: Course Name
Professor (or Dr.) Firstname Lastname
Date
Needs and Wants
Do you think people have more difficulty asking for things they need?
Needs are necessary to function and live. On the other hand, wants are things that, when obtained, can improve the quality of life. Based on this distinction, a hierarchy can be developed in which factors like food, clothing, medical care, and shelter are needs necessary to sustain life itself. Everything else that improves or enhances the quality of life once needs have been fulfilled is wanted. A critical distinction between the two is that a need grows stronger with time while a want weakens with time. However, a similarity between the two is that people have more difficulty asking when seeking a need or want, but the context of each is different.
Do you think people have more difficulty asking for things they need?
Explain why it is that people hesitate to ask for what they want or need?
As already defined, needs are the factors that support life, without which a person would die. Lacking these factors is the epitome of acute poverty, where an individual cannot sustain self or the family within the economy. These include homelessness, malnutrition due to limited access to food, and lack of access to quality healthcare. Poverty comes with a burden of stigma in which people living in poverty are considered uneducated, lazy, dependent, and beggars.