Service activity as a form of satisfying human needs. Work is aimed at satisfying needs Activity as a process of satisfying needs

Human needs as a source of his activity

Snezhana Ivanova

The human needs themselves are the basis for the formation of motive, which in psychology is considered as the “engine” of personality...

Man, like any living creature, is programmed by nature to survive, and for this he needs certain conditions and means. If at some point these conditions and means are absent, then a state of need arises, which causes the emergence of selectivity in the response of the human body. This selectivity ensures the occurrence of a response to stimuli (or factors) that are currently the most important for normal functioning, preservation of life and further development. The subject’s experience of such a state of need in psychology is called need.

So, the manifestation of a person’s activity, and accordingly his life activity and purposeful activity, directly depends on the presence of a certain need (or need) that requires satisfaction. But only a certain system of human needs will determine the purposefulness of his activities, as well as contribute to the development of his personality. The human needs themselves are the basis for the formation of motive, which in psychology is considered as a kind of “engine” of personality. and human activity directly depends on organic and cultural needs, and they, in turn, generate, which directs the individual’s attention and activity to various objects and objects of the surrounding world with the aim of their knowledge and subsequent mastery.

Human needs: definition and features

Needs, which are the main source of a person’s activity, are understood as a special internal (subjective) feeling of a person’s need, which determines his dependence on certain conditions and means of existence. The activity itself, aimed at satisfying human needs and regulated by a conscious goal, is called activity. The sources of personality activity as an internal driving force aimed at satisfying various needs are:

• organic and material needs (food, clothing, protection, etc.);
• spiritual and cultural(cognitive, aesthetic, social).

Human needs are reflected in the most persistent and vital dependencies of the body and the environment, and the system of human needs is formed under the influence of the following factors: social living conditions of people, the level of development of production and scientific and technological progress. In psychology, needs are studied in three aspects: as an object, as a state and as a property (a more detailed description of these meanings is presented in the table).

The meaning of needs in psychology

In psychology, the problem of needs has been considered by many scientists, so today there are quite a lot of different theories that understand needs as a need, a state, and a process of satisfaction. For example, K. K. Platonov saw in needs, first of all, a need (more precisely, a mental phenomenon of reflection of the needs of an organism or personality), and D. A. Leontyev looked at needs through the prism of activity in which it finds its realization (satisfaction). Famous psychologist of the last century Kurt Lewin understood by needs, first of all, a dynamic state that arises in a person at the moment he performs some action or intention.

Analysis of various approaches and theories in the study of this problem suggests that in psychology the need was considered in the following aspects:

• as a need (L.I. Bozhovich, V.I. Kovalev, S.L. Rubinstein);
• as an object to satisfy a need (A.N. Leontyev);
• as a necessity (B.I. Dodonov, V.A. Vasilenko);
• as the absence of good (V.S. Magun);
• as an attitude (D.A. Leontiev, M.S. Kagan);
• as a violation of stability (D.A. McClelland, V.L. Ossovsky);
• as a state (K. Levin);
• as a systemic reaction of the individual (E.P. Ilyin).

Human needs in psychology are understood as dynamically active states of the individual, which form the basis of his motivational sphere. And since in the process of human activity not only the development of personality occurs, but also changes in the environment, needs play the role of the driving force of its development and here their substantive content is of particular importance, namely the volume of material and spiritual culture of mankind that influences the formation of needs people and their satisfaction.

In order to understand the essence of needs as a motive force, it is necessary to take into account a number of important points highlighted E.P. Ilyin. They are as follows:

• the needs of the human body must be separated from the needs of the individual (in this case, the need, that is, the need of the body, can be unconscious or conscious, but the need of the individual is always conscious);
• need is always associated with need, by which we must understand not a deficiency in something, but desirability or need;
• from personal needs it is impossible to exclude the state of need, which is a signal for choosing a means of satisfying needs;
• the emergence of a need is a mechanism that includes human activity aimed at finding a goal and achieving it as a need to satisfy the emerging need.

Needs are characterized by a passive-active nature, that is, on the one hand, they are determined by the biological nature of a person and the deficiency of certain conditions, as well as the means of his existence, and on the other hand, they determine the activity of the subject to overcome the resulting deficiency. An essential aspect of human needs is their social and personal character, which finds its manifestation in motives, motivation and, accordingly, in the entire orientation of the individual. Regardless of the type of need and its focus, they all have the following characteristics:

• have their own subject and are an awareness of need;
• the content of needs depends primarily on the conditions and methods of their satisfaction;
• they are capable of reproducing.

The needs that shape human behavior and activity, as well as the motives, interests, aspirations, desires, drives and value orientations that result from them, constitute the basis of individual behavior.

Types of human needs

Any human need initially represents an organic interweaving of biological, physiological and psychological processes, which determines the presence of many types of needs, which are characterized by strength, frequency of occurrence and ways of satisfying them.

Most often in psychology, the following types of human needs are distinguished:

• depending on the origin they are distinguished natural(or organic) and cultural needs;
• distinguished by direction material needs and spiritual;
• depending on what area they belong to (areas of activity), they distinguish the needs for communication, work, rest and cognition (or educational needs);
• by object, needs can be biological, material and spiritual (they also distinguish social needs of a person);
• by their origin, needs can be endogenous(occur due to the influence of internal factors) and exogenous (caused by external stimuli).

In the psychological literature there are also basic, fundamental (or primary) and secondary needs.

The greatest attention in psychology is paid to three main types of needs - material, spiritual and social (or social needs), which are described in the table below.

Basic types of human needs

Material needs of a person are primary, since they are the basis of his life. Indeed, in order for a person to live, he needs food, clothing and shelter, and these needs were formed in the process of phylogenesis. Spiritual Needs(or ideal) are purely human, since they primarily reflect the level of personal development. These include aesthetic, ethical and cognitive needs.

It should be noted that both organic and spiritual needs are characterized by dynamism and interact with each other, therefore, for the formation and development of spiritual needs, it is necessary to satisfy material ones (for example, if a person does not satisfy the need for food, then he will experience fatigue, lethargy, apathy and drowsiness, which cannot contribute to the emergence of a cognitive need).

Separately should be considered social needs(or social), which are formed and developed under the influence of society and are a reflection of the social nature of man. Satisfaction of this need is necessary for absolutely every person as a social being and, accordingly, as an individual.

Classifications of needs

Since psychology became a separate branch of knowledge, many scientists have made a large number of attempts to classify needs. All these classifications are very diverse and mainly reflect only one side of the problem. That is why, today, a unified system of human needs that would meet all the requirements and interests of researchers of various psychological schools and directions has not yet been presented to the scientific community.

• natural and necessary human desires (it is impossible to live without them);
• natural desires, but not necessary (if there is no possibility of satisfying them, then this will not lead to the inevitable death of a person);
• desires that are neither necessary nor natural (for example, the desire for fame).

Author of the information P.V. Simonov needs were divided into biological, social and ideal, which in turn can be the needs of need (or conservation) and growth (or development). Social and ideal human needs, according to P. Simonov, are divided into needs “for oneself” and “for others.”

Quite interesting is the classification of needs proposed by Erich Fromm. The famous psychoanalyst identified the following specific social needs of a person:

• human need for connections (group membership);
• need for self-affirmation (feeling of importance);
• need for affection (need for warm and reciprocal feelings);
• the need for self-awareness (own individuality);
• the need for a system of orientation and objects of worship (belonging to a culture, nation, class, religion, etc.).

But the most popular among all existing classifications is the unique system of human needs by the American psychologist Abraham Maslow (better known as the hierarchy of needs or pyramid of needs). The representative of the humanistic trend in psychology based his classification on the principle of grouping needs by similarity in a hierarchical sequence - from lower to higher needs. A. Maslow's hierarchy of needs is presented in table form for ease of perception.

Hierarchy of needs according to A. Maslow

Having proposed my classification of needs, A. Maslow clarified that a person cannot have higher needs (cognitive, aesthetic and the need for self-development) if he has not satisfied basic (organic) needs.

Formation of human needs

The development of human needs can be analyzed in the context of the socio-historical development of mankind and from the perspective of ontogenesis. But it should be noted that in both the first and second cases, the initial ones will be material needs. This is due to the fact that they are the main source of activity of any individual, pushing him to maximum interaction with the environment (both natural and social)

On the basis of material needs, human spiritual needs developed and transformed, for example, the need for knowledge was based on satisfying the needs for food, clothing and housing. As for aesthetic needs, they were also formed thanks to the development and improvement of the production process and various means of life, which were necessary to provide more comfortable conditions for human life. Thus, the formation of human needs was determined by socio-historical development, during which all human needs developed and differentiated.

As for the development of needs during a person’s life path (that is, in ontogenesis), here, too, everything begins with the satisfaction of natural (organic) needs that ensure the establishment of relationships between the child and adults. In the process of satisfying basic needs, children develop needs for communication and cognition, on the basis of which other social needs appear. The process of upbringing has an important influence on the development and formation of needs in childhood, thanks to which the correction and replacement of destructive needs is carried out.

Development and formation of human needs according to the opinion of A.G. Kovaleva must obey the following rules:

• needs arise and are strengthened through practice and systematic consumption (that is, habit formation);
• the development of needs is possible in conditions of expanded reproduction in the presence of various means and methods of satisfying them (the emergence of needs in the process of activity);
• the formation of needs occurs more comfortably if the activity necessary for this does not exhaust the child (ease, simplicity and a positive emotional attitude);
• the development of needs is significantly influenced by the transition from reproductive to creative activity;
• the need will be strengthened if the child sees its significance, both personally and socially (appraisal and encouragement).

In addressing the issue of the formation of human needs, it is necessary to return to the hierarchy of needs of A. Maslow, who argued that all human needs are given to him in a hierarchical organization at certain levels. Thus, every person from the moment of his birth in the process of growing up and developing his personality will consistently manifest seven classes (of course, this is ideal) of needs, starting from the most primitive (physiological) needs and ending with the need for self-actualization (the desire for maximum realization personality of all its potentialities, the fullest life), and some aspects of this need begin to appear no earlier than adolescence.

According to A. Maslow, a person’s life at a higher level of needs provides him with the greatest biological efficiency and, accordingly, a longer life, better health, better sleep and appetite. Thus, goal of satisfying needs basic – the desire for the emergence of higher needs in a person (for knowledge, self-development and self-actualization).

Basic ways and means of satisfying needs

Satisfying a person’s needs is an important condition not only for his comfortable existence, but also for his survival, because if organic needs are not satisfied, a person will die in the biological sense, and if spiritual needs are not satisfied, then the personality dies as a social entity. People, satisfying different needs, learn different ways and acquire a variety of means to achieve this goal. Therefore, depending on the environment, conditions and the individual himself, the goal of satisfying needs and the methods for achieving it will vary.

In psychology, the most popular ways and means of satisfying needs are:

• in the mechanism of formation of individual ways to satisfy their needs(in the process of learning, the formation of various connections between stimuli and subsequent analogy);
• in the process of individualizing ways and means of satisfying basic needs, which act as mechanisms for the development and formation of new needs (the very methods of satisfying needs can turn into them themselves, that is, new needs appear);
• in specifying ways and means of meeting needs(one method or several are consolidated, with the help of which human needs are satisfied);
• in the process of mentalization of needs(awareness of the content or some aspects of the need);
• in the socialization of ways and means of satisfying needs(their subordination to the values ​​of culture and norms of society occurs).

So, at the basis of any human activity and activity there is always some kind of need, which finds its manifestation in motives, and it is the needs that are the motivating force that pushes a person to movement and development.

Society cannot exist without production. People must have food, housing and other vital goods for consumption. Nature, with few exceptions, does not provide people with the goods of life ready for consumption - they need to be produced. Production- this is an expedient, cumulative activity of people aimed at satisfying their needs . The result of production is the creation of material and intangible goods to satisfy people's needs.

Term production has two meanings:

· « production itself"- the direct process of creating wealth in a certain period.

· Public production, i.e. production is carried out not by isolated subjects, but in society, on the basis of the division of labor; in addition, participants in production decide on what conditions they will produce the product, how to distribute, exchange and consume.

Within our topic, we will talk about social production

So, the functioning of the economy as an economic system is based on the needs of people. Need - this is the need for something to maintain the life and development of a person (individual), a social group or society as a whole. People's needs change with historical development society. At the same time, people's needs, tastes, and habits are subjective. The needs of people and production mutually influence each other, which is reflected in the law of increasing needs . It expresses the objective need for growth and improvement of people's needs as production and culture develop. In addition, the German scientist E. Engel (19th century) established a connection between the monetary income of the population and the consumption structure, known as Engel's law . Its essence is that what The higher the quality of life of people, the lower their demand for food products. At the same time, the demand for industrial consumer goods increases, and with a further increase in people’s living standards, purchases of goods and services of improved quality increase. The needs are limitless and it is impossible to satisfy them collectively. This does not mean that the need for a particular product cannot be satisfied. The complex of people's needs is limitless, which can vary in size, structure and quality.

The needs are very diverse. Accordingly, the options for their classification are also diverse.

By importance

· Primary (biological),

Secondary (social)

By subject needs vary by:

Individual

Group

Public.

By object (the subject to which they are directed) needs are divided into:

Subsistence needs (food, clothing, shelter);

Needs for socio-cultural benefits (education, culture, leisure);

Needs for means of activity (items for the production of goods and services);

Needs for socially prestigious goods (luxury goods).

If possible:

· real

· ideal

By area of ​​activity highlight:

Labor needs;

Communications;

Recreation;

Economic.

By nature of satisfaction:

economic needs - that part of human needs for which production is necessary.

non-economic needs- can be satisfied without production (the need for water, air, sunlight).

Economics is primarily interested in economic needs

In general, people's needs can be represented in the form of a pyramid, at the base of which lie physiological needs, and at its top - spiritual needs. This pyramid was developed by an American psychologist A. Maslow, who divided all human needs into five main categories:

1. Physiological needs, which are necessary for human survival: the needs for food, water, shelter, clothing, rest and many other natural needs of people.

2. Security needs and confidence in the future are determined by the need to protect people from physical and psychological dangers from the outside world, maintain their health and a stable standard of living, etc.

3. Social needs express a person’s desire to be involved in communication with other people, to feel their support, affection, etc.

4. Esteem needs - imply the need for recognition of a person’s personal achievements, respectful attitude towards personnel at work and in all spheres of life, etc.

5. Self-expression needs include the possibility of a person’s self-realization, his desire to develop his inner potential, creative abilities, etc.

The means of satisfying needs are called goods . The good may be item (for example, apple, glasses, fork), state of the environment, if it gives a person pleasure (clear skies, beautiful sunset, fresh air), information (funny story, music, latest news). Man's use of goods to satisfy needs- This consumption .

There are also anti-goods , - objects and conditions of the environment that a person does not want to consume because they give him unpleasant sensations(eg loud noise, rain, mosquitoes). Some anti-goods for a person may be deadly (poison, drugs, alcohol); by consuming these anti-goods, life may become impossible, and therefore the absence of such anti-goods is a good of prime necessity.

Consumption of a good brings pleasure to a person. The ability of goods to satisfy needs in economic theory is called usefulness . Accordingly, the unpleasant sensations caused by consumption anti-good, are called anti-utility (or negative utility).

1. All benefits are divided into:

Free benefits - these are the benefits that available in unlimited quantities(air, sunlight).

Economic benefits - these are goods that are for consumption require the renunciation of a certain amount of other goods and therefore consumed in limited quantities. Economic goods can simply be rare goods that can be used in various ways (for example, a pearl found can be used as jewelry or as a gift. If you give it, you will not be able to wear it yourself). Economic goods are also those that require limited resources to produce (for example, to produce bread, you need to expend resources and labor that could be spent on producing a cake. Therefore, you have to sacrifice the cake to buy bread).

Benefits can be free or economic depending on the conditions of the place and time in which a person is located. For example, water will be a free good on the river bank and an economic good in the desert; light is a free good during the day, but an economic good at night.

Serviceology

A type of activity aimed at meeting people's needs by providing individual services.

Subject of study of service science

3. A person with certain needs, interests, value orientations, psychological identity and life style - this is

Object of study of service science

4. The performer in the service sector is -

An enterprise, organization or entrepreneur providing a service to a consumer

5. The consumer of services in the service sector is -

A citizen who receives, orders, or intends to receive or order services for personal needs.

6. Choose your ideal service

An abstract, theoretical model of a particular type of service activity includes rules for serving the population, quality standards, and technology for providing services.

7. Choose what is relevant to the actual service

Specific material actions aimed at meeting the needs of the consumer are individual according to the performers, consumers, and specific conditions for their provision.

8. Determine the main difference between socio-cultural services

Services that satisfy the spiritual and intellectual needs of people and support their normal functioning.

10. Choose an objective need that the person himself may not experience or realize Need

11. What term denotes a desire in which the subjective moment, whim, predominates? Whim

12. Determine the external expression of the need that is recognized by the person wish

13. What term denotes the manifestation of social needs, as a conscious expression of the relationship of a person or social group to their needs and the conditions for their satisfaction? Interest

14. Choose a term that denotes a person’s system of views on the world as a whole and his place in the world Worldview

15. Determine which of the following are primary needs health need

16. Which of the following are secondary needs?

Need for knowledge

17. Needs that correspond to scientific ideas about the consumption of goods and services necessary to maintain a healthy lifestyle and the harmonious development of the individual are called reasonable

18. What is the name of the distinctive feature of a service, which lies in the fact that the service is intangible in nature and cannot be offered to the client in tangible form until the completion of the service process? intangibility

19. What is the name of the distinctive feature of a service, which is that it cannot be stored; the process of providing and consuming services occurs simultaneously, and consumers are direct participants in this process unpreservability

20. Determine what your basic needs are

Universal needs inherent in all people include: biological, material, social and spiritual

21. Material needs are

Needs for means and conditions to satisfy biological, social and spiritual needs

22. Spiritual needs are based on the spirituality of people. Spirituality is

The desire for beauty, for contemplation of nature and classical works of literature and art

23. Service activities are usually classified according to the following criteria:

By scale, degree of adaptation and consumer

24. Of the following, spiritual needs include: need for creativity

25. Define what constitutes a direct service

Combines services whose target value is predetermined by the subject of the trade transaction and is aimed at the material product and the user

26. Identify the main features of an indirect service

Aimed not at the object of a trade transaction, but at creating favorable conditions that ensure long-term mutually beneficial cooperation

27. A man learned that the Moscow Bolshoi Theater was on tour in the city. He decided that he would definitely go to the performance, even if he had to overpay for the ticket. What need will be satisfied? Spiritual

28. According to the time of its implementation, the service is divided into the following types -

Legitimate and illegitimate

91. New types of services include:

Personalized service

94. What type of services include television, Internet and radio services?

Communication services

95. What type of services include the services of cinema and film distribution institutions, services of theatrical and entertainment enterprises, concert organizations and philharmonic groups?

Services of cultural institutions

96. What services include: individual tailoring of clothes and shoes, construction of housing, their design material

97. Services of human activity that do not have material content Intangible

98. Services whose objective function is to satisfy the personal needs of the population Consumer

99. The economic functions of services include:

Soft service

102. What services are classified as services that create new consumer values?

Tailoring

103. What services are classified as services that restore consumer properties? dry cleaning of products

104. How do production and consumption of services coincide? In time

105. A service that includes all services related to maintaining the functionality, reliability and specified parameters of the functioning of a product is called Hard service

Serviceology

1. Service activities are

a type of activity aimed at meeting people's needs through the provision of individual services.

2. Organization, forms and methods of individual service to a person - this is

Earlier we said that the subject of needs can be physical (object-oriented needs), social (subject-oriented needs) and cultural (person-oriented needs) aspects of the world. Accordingly, as a result of satisfying needs, certain bodily (physiological), social and personal changes occur. These changes can be reflected in consciousness (for example, a change in the state of consciousness when taking psychoactive substances or joy from achieving a high social status) or occur without the participation of consciousness (maintaining the sclera of the eye in a moist state). Needs can be satisfied either passively (for example, when the temperature drops, the blood capillaries in the skin narrow) or actively (moving to a warmer place). Moreover, the active form of satisfaction can be instinctive or active.

Let us note that a person’s method of actively realizing any need is sociocultural in nature. For example, a person does not tear a raw piece of meat with his hands, but prepares a steak from it, which he eats with a knife and fork. The basic specificity of human needs (compared to representatives of the animal world) is as follows:

• 1) a person is able to produce new items to satisfy his needs (for example, invent synthetic fibers);
• 2) at a certain stage of its development, it acquires the ability to arbitrarily regulate needs (for example, it can go on a hunger strike as a sign of protest);
• 3) new needs are constantly being formed in its activities;
• 4) a person is included in the dynamics of objectification and deobjectification of his existing needs, i.e. can change (including consciously choose) items of need.

From the point of view of adequate satisfaction of needs, the processes of their objectification And deobjectification. In the act of objectifying a need, a motive is born. The essence of the process of objectifying a need is the meeting of a living being with the world, when the internal readiness for action acquires a specific focus - it becomes an activity. Activity is always motivated, i.e. determined by the motive - the object to which it is directed. The possibility of the opposite process - the deobjectification of needs - provides flexibility and variability of behavior both in the event of changes in the external world (animal habitat or human living conditions) and in connection with changes in the subject himself, which is especially important for the life of the individual.

Instinctive Need Satisfaction

The most significant needs from the point of view of evolution acquired fixed methods of satisfaction in phylogenesis. Behavior to satisfy needs, which is carried out on the basis of innate programs, is called instinctive behavior. Instinctive satisfaction of needs is homeostatic in nature. The principle of homeostasis is chronologically the first explanatory principle of the mechanism of action of need. It consists in affirming the body’s tendency to maintain a constant internal state of the body that is optimal for a representative of a given species. In homeostatic concepts, need is thought of as tension that the body seeks to minimize.

The implementation of instinct is a chain of fixed actions, which is initiated by something innate and specific to a given animal species signal stimulus, those. some aspect of the environment (color, size, smell, etc.), rather than a complete object. For example, the male of a small fish, the three-spined smelt, has a bright red belly during the mating season. The red spot on the fish's abdomen acts as a signal stimulus that triggers instinctive territory defense behavior in other males. During the breeding season, male smelt will make menacing attacks even on a rough dummy with a red spot, while maintaining complete indifference towards the male of their own species, whose redness will be masked.

The classic concept of instinctive behavior was formulated by K. Lorenz and N. Tinbergen, who were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1973. Scientists argued that both internal and environmental factors are important for the realization of instinct. The model proposed by Lorenz and Tinbergen was called hydromechanical model of motivation (Fig. 4.2).

Instinctive behavior of a certain type can be initiated under different conditions. Firstly, such a large amount of instinctual “energy” can accumulate in the “reservoir” that behavior begins to unfold without the influence of external stimuli. Thus, hunger forces an animal to look for food, even when nothing in the external environment reminds of it; and some birds perform very complex mating dances in the absence of a potential partner simply because “the time has come.”

Rice. 4.2.

1 – a reservoir in which activation “energy” is accumulated, different for each need. Energy accumulation is associated with the physiological state of the body; 2 – external signal stimuli (“weights”); 3, 3", 3" – options for the intensity of implementation of instinctive behavior; 4 – threshold for triggering instinctive behavior

Secondly, a sufficiently high degree of activation reduces the threshold for triggering instinctive behavior, and a low-intensity signal stimulus is triggered. A striking example of such a mechanism is the migration of salmon (A. Hasler, 1960). Pacific salmon are born in streams in the western United States and Canada. Then the fry go with the current into the Pacific Ocean. Two years later, when the required level of sex hormones accumulates in their bodies, salmon rush back to their place of birth. The implementation of the salmon’s sexual instinct includes focusing on the minimum concentration of chemicals in their native stream, which gives them the opportunity to accurately choose the direction and go where they need to spawn. Fish that have not reached sexual maturity remain indifferent to this kind of signal stimuli, while mature fish demonstrate fantastic sensitivity: literally a drop of native water is enough to trigger instinctive behavior.

Rice. 4.3.

With instinctive motivation, the process of objectifying a need is often of the nature imprinting, those. instantaneous and irreversible finding by need of its object. The discovery of the imprinting phenomenon belongs to Douglas Spalding (D. Spolding, 1875), who, observing the development of chicks hatched from eggs, discovered that in the first days after birth, chicks follow any moving object. They seem to “consider” him as their mother and subsequently show affection for him. However, Spaulding's observations were not appreciated during his lifetime and only became widely known in the 1950s.

K. Lorenz repeated and significantly expanded Spalding's data. He believed that the phenomenon of imprinting is possible only at a strictly defined stage of organism development ( sensitive periods ). The chick exhibits a pronounced following reaction (mother imprinting) only in the period 5–25 hours after hatching from the egg. After this period, when a similar object approaches, he is more likely to demonstrate a fear reaction. The presence of sensitive periods for the instinctive objectification of needs is biologically expedient. Indeed, the creature that the cub sees immediately after birth will most likely turn out to be its mother, and the one that comes later may be a dangerous predator. In turn, the mother also experiences imprinting of her baby. So, goats have a special sensitivity to the smell of the baby, which quickly disappears. If you replace a kid during this sensitive period, then, according to P. Klopfer and J. Gamble, the goat will perceive it as one of its own, and will reject its own baby (R. Klopfer, J. Gamble, 1966).

The question of the presence of instinctive behavior in humans still remains controversial. There is evidence that phenomena similar to imprinting in animals are also observed in humans. The term " bonding " is used to refer to the process of emotional attachment between parents and a newborn, forming in the first hours and days after birth. For example, fathers who were present at the birth of their children and had the opportunity to communicate with them in the first hours of life subsequently showed much more love and involvement An alternative interpretation of these results is that such men were generally more interested in fatherhood and this was what influenced their attitude towards children.

Another study found that mothers who shared a room with their baby for three days after birth showed significantly higher attachment to their babies, even years later, than those whose babies were only brought in for feeding. There is also evidence that people who spent their childhood together have no sexual attraction to each other. This fact is associated with the action of a mechanism similar to kin imprinting in animals: since inbreeding is evolutionarily dangerous, animals avoid their family brothers when forming a pair, imprinting them in an early period of life.

Despite the important role of instinctive behavior for biological evolution, it is obvious that at the human level, lifelong acquired forms of need satisfaction play an incomparably greater role than innate ones. This is especially significant in the process of deobjectification of needs, i.e. when a need changes its subject. As mentioned above, the classical idea of ​​instinct includes the idea of irreversible imprinting – the formation of a rigid motivational connection with an object. Although outwardly similar phenomena can be observed in human behavior (some men, for example, fall in love only with blondes), in fact, we can only talk about “instincts” in a person in a metaphorical sense: human activity is motivated not by isolated characteristics of the environment, but by a holistic picture of the world , having semantic and value dimensions.

Activity satisfaction of needs

In human life, the instinctive way of satisfying needs (if it exists at all) is more a rudiment than a predominant form. A person is included in a constant chain of activity in which he not only satisfies his existing needs, but also creates new ones. We can say that a person acts as a “producer” of his motives. A person sets goals (conscious ideas about the desired future) and is guided by them no less than by the current situation.

One of the ways to generate new motives in activity is the mechanism shifting the motive to the goal, described by A. N. Leontyev. In this case, a new motive arises from the purpose of an action that was previously a component of another activity. Let us explain the operation of this mechanism with an example. A student goes to a lecture by a new teacher, attracted by the intriguing title of his course. She is driven by cognitive motivation, as well as a motive of achievement, since she wants to best master everything necessary for her future profession. These two inherent motives for our heroine were embodied in action - going to a lecture. But upon entering the classroom, she discovers that the new teacher is a very attractive young man. From that day on, she does not miss a single lecture of his, and even those given at other faculties and not included in her curriculum; the teacher acquires a motivating force for her in himself, as a person of interest to her. There was a shift in the motive to the goal, i.e. what at first was the goal of a specific action for the student (listening to a course) within the framework of a higher level activity (training and mastering a profession), has now turned into an independent motive (to see this person). Using this example, it is convenient to explain another important division in the activity approach into external And internal motives of activity: internal motives are those that coincide in content with the activity being performed, and external motives are those that go beyond its scope. In our case, the internal motives of the student remain the motives of learning and achievement (after all, the girl has not ceased to be interested in her profession and has not become less inquisitive), coinciding with what she actually does (goes to college and attends lectures). The external motive for her was the attractiveness of the teacher. At first glance, this motive is not related to educational activity, but in fact it additionally encourages and supports it.

Basic concepts and essence of service activities

Service activities is a type of activity aimed at meeting people's needs through the provision of individual services. The implementation of the service is carried out through the service sector with its most developed component - the service sector.

In accordance with Russian GOST 50646-94 “Services to the public. Terms and Definitions" service(service) is the result of direct interaction between the performer and the consumer, as well as the performer’s own activities to satisfy the consumer’s needs.

Executor- an enterprise, organization or entrepreneur providing a service to the consumer. The producers of services are teams, specific employees of service enterprises, generators of new ideas and technologies in service, managers and entrepreneurs.

Consumer- a citizen who receives, orders or intends to receive or order services for personal needs. Consumers of services are buyers, clients, customers, visitors, users.

An important feature of a service is its useful effect for the consumer, and this effect can be provided by both living labor (intangible service) and labor embodied in a tangible product. This is the fundamental purpose of services, their social function is to directly serve the population, create comfortable living conditions: in transport, in public places, during recreation.

Beneficial effect of the service- this is a set of useful properties of a service directly aimed at satisfying a particular human need.

The result of the service is the restoration (change, preservation) of the consumer properties of a product, the creation of a new product to order, movement, creation of conditions for consumption, ensuring or maintaining health, spiritual or physical development of the individual, improving professional skills.

In service science, there are concepts of ideal and real service.

Ideal service is an abstract, theoretical model of a particular type of service activity. It includes rules for serving the population, quality standards, and technology for providing services.

Real service- These are specific material actions aimed at satisfying consumer needs. These services are individualized according to performers, consumers, and specific conditions for their provision.

SCHEME Service organizations provide material and socio-cultural services.

Material services- These are services that satisfy the material needs of people. In particular, material services include household services (services for repair and maintenance of products, buildings and structures, photographic services, hairdressing services), housing and communal services, catering services, transport services, agricultural services, etc.

Social and cultural services- these are services that satisfy the spiritual and intellectual needs of people and support their normal functioning. Social and cultural services provide maintenance and restoration of health, spiritual and physical development of the individual, and improvement of professional skills. Socio-cultural services include medical services, cultural services, tourism and education.

The result of material services is the work or product performed. The result of socio-cultural services (the services themselves) does not have a material form (the result of tourism or excursion services).

Material and socio-cultural services are complementary. Often the purchase of goods is accompanied by the consumption of services, such as after-sales services, and the consumption of services is accompanied by the purchase of related products. For example, when consuming public catering services, the consumer receives a product - food, a place to consume food, a service for serving food and drinks, and psychological relief.

Public service sector- a set of enterprises, organizations and individuals providing services to the population. Service- the activity of the performer in direct contact with the consumer of the service.

Service provision in terms of process management can be divided into separate stages:

SCHEME provision of necessary resources, technological process of execution, control, testing, acceptance, maintenance process.

The service sector is an integral part of the national economic complex; it participates in the general system of economic relations and is subject to the general economic laws operating in a given society.

As a rule, in economic literature the service sector includes: household services, passenger transport and communication services, housing and communal services, educational and cultural services, tourist and excursion services, medical and health services, legal services and others.

The cost structure in the service sector differs sharply from those, for example, in industry and construction. Thus, material costs, including depreciation, in theaters amount to 13.3%, in circuses - 17%, in concert organizations - 3.5%, in parks - 20.3%, and in industry - 82.8%, in construction - 64.8%.

Since ancient times, production or the provision of services has been an essential part of human economic activity and his social life. It is the presence of services as a social institution, as a form of relationship between people, as a useful activity and, finally, as an act of goodwill of a particular person that is an attribute of human society and existence. It can be argued that it is services that reflect and embody the level of development of society and not only its productive forces, but also its spiritual and moral state.

At the moment, a service is understood as work (a set of activities) performed to satisfy the needs and requirements of clients, which is complete and has a certain cost.

Distinctive features of the services are:

1) intangibility, that is, their intangible nature, in other words, the service cannot be offered to the client in a tangible form until the process of servicing him is completed. Although the production of services usually requires material resources and equipment;

2) services cannot be stored, that is, the process of providing and consuming services occurs simultaneously, and consumers are direct participants in this process;

3) provision of services - this is an activity, therefore, services cannot be tested and evaluated before the buyer pays for them;

4) variability in their qualities, since they largely depend on the qualifications of the employee, his individual personality traits and mood.

The main and fundamental difference between a service and a product is as follows. A product is a materialized result of labor alienated from the manufacturer. The process of bringing the product to the consumer is carried out through a standard set of procedures (transfer of the product to wholesale and retail trade and its subsequent sale). In the production of services, there are no stages of “storage” and “sale” (in fact, the production of a service is combined with its consumption).

The interaction between the consumer and the service provider occurs during the service process. The nature of interaction depends on the form of service provision and can be direct (face-to-face) or indirect (correspondence). At direct interaction there is direct contact between the performer and the consumer, and when indirect- contact can be made through intermediaries or support staff of the service provider.

Service- this is the activity of the service provider, which takes place in direct contact with the consumer. The service process is provided by means of production and personnel of the service enterprise. Service includes analysis of the consumer’s order, development of projects for the provision of services (technical specifications and the process of providing the service), searching for compromise solutions in the conditions of multivariate methods of providing services, establishing and ensuring the required quality of service, coordination, execution and delivery of the service to the consumer.

Customer service is carried out either in specialized premises of the service enterprise, or in any other place necessary to perform the service, in accordance with the type of service and the customer’s needs. The quality of service is influenced by the service conditions that affect the consumer during the service process.

Thus, the basis of service activities are the personnel performing the service, the service facilities and the service conditions.

The efficiency of a service enterprise depends on the correct organizational and managerial activities of managers. Organizational and managerial work includes:

Planning the service activities of the organization, forecasting the development of the organization when the market or range of services changes;

Assessment of production and non-production costs;

Optimization of the composition of technological equipment and technical means, taking into account the range and level of quality of services;

Organization of a contact area for communication with the service consumer;

Selection of employees with psychological abilities to work with consumers.

Thus, service activity is a complex multifaceted process, which is ensured by competent management of personnel and resources of the enterprise, compliance with the requirements of service standards, and compliance of the services provided with the needs of consumers.

Note

The lecture is accompanied by excerpts from GOST R 50646 – 2012 “Services to the public. Terms and Definitions »

Homework:

· Outline the basic concepts from GOST R 50646 – 2012 (section 1)

Control questions

1. Difference between service and maintenance?
2. Describe the stages of the service from the point of view of process management
3. Distinctive features of services


4. Lecture 2 Service activity as a form

satisfying human needs

In the existing system of activities, the fundamental activity is aimed at obtaining the individual’s means of subsistence.

Activity is the internal (mental) and external (physical) activity of a person. From the outside, activities are regulated by production requirements, technological discipline, instructions from managers, etc. Internal regulators of activity are mental processes, states, needs, interests, etc.

Needs are defined as a need, or lack of something necessary to maintain the life of an organism, a human person, a social group, or society as a whole (an internal stimulator of activity).

Any a need motivates a person to take action to realize it.

Basic needs are universal needs inherent in all people; basic needs include: biological, material, social and spiritual needs.

Biological(natural) needs are the general primary needs of the body’s vital activity, normal functioning, nutrition, the need to expand living space, etc.

Material- needs for means and conditions to satisfy biological, social and spiritual needs,

The norm of material needs is determined by the existing level of development of material production in the country, the presence of natural resources in it, the position of a person in society, the type of activity and should provide each individual with normal conditions for his work and other activities,

All material needs and methods of satisfying them taken together determine a person’s standard of living.

Social needs in the hierarchy of needs play a decisive role. They can be classified according to three criteria:

1) needs for others are needs that express the essence of a person: communication, protection of the weak, in altruism - the need to sacrifice oneself for the sake of another.

2) needs for oneself - the need for self-affirmation in society, the need for self-realization, the need for self-identification, the need to have one’s place in society, in a team, the need for power, etc.

3) needs together with others - this is a group of needs that express the motivating forces of many people or society as a whole: the need for security, freedom, peace, etc.

Spiritual needs. Spirituality is the desire to overcome oneself in one’s consciousness, to achieve high goals, to follow personal and social ideals, and universal human values. Spirituality is also manifested in the desire for beauty, the contemplation of nature, and classic works of literature and art.

Value-oriented needs. The basis for identifying this group of needs is the classification of needs according to the criteria of their humanistic and ethical orientation, according to their role in the lifestyle and comprehensive harmonious development of the individual.

Service enterprises satisfy the needs of the population, taking into account the individual needs of the individual through the provision of services, where the service acts as the unity of the process and result of work to satisfy needs.

The range of needs is determined by the functional characteristics of the service sector as an institution of service activity:

Freeing a person from household chores (household trifles);

Increasing a person’s free time and creating the necessary conditions for his creative development;

Forming the reasonable needs of people by instilling in them a culture of behavior, promoting aesthetic values, what is new and significant in the field of fashion, household design, etc.;

Target service activities - meeting the needs of the population for services. The service is the purposeful activity of the service provider, ensuring the satisfaction of the specific needs of the individual customer.

The needs satisfied by services are divided into by functional purpose into four groups:

1) the need for the manufacture of new products;

2) the need for restoration, repair, and maintenance of products;

3) sanitary and hygienic needs;

4) socio-cultural needs.

IN depending on the subject presenting the need, distinguish between individual and collective needs.

The needs of an individual are personal and family-wide. Personal needs include sanitary and hygienic needs, needs for educational services, information and advisory services, etc.

General family needs include the need for repair and maintenance services for household appliances and electronic equipment, vehicles, furniture, houses and apartments, house cleaning, banking services, security services, etc.

Vary needs of local and temporary residents. This division of needs is relevant for regions with an increased influx of temporary population - recreation and tourism areas, large centers with a developed network of social and cultural service facilities, zones with pronounced pendulum migration of the population.

There is the following classification of needs:

By sources (channels) of satisfaction:

1) needs satisfied in the service system;

2) needs satisfied by individual entrepreneurs;

3) needs satisfied through self-service.

By frequency of occurrence:

1) continuously ongoing (permanent);

2) periodic (appearing at certain intervals);

3) episodic (of a rare, one-time nature).

According to seasonality of occurrence:

1) needs with a strong seasonality;

2) with high seasonality;

3) with moderate seasonality;

4) with slight seasonality.

The emergence of needs and demand for services are subject to seasonal fluctuations. The needs for tourism and excursion services, sanatorium and health services, and agricultural services have a strong seasonality. The needs for photography services, dry cleaning, repair and maintenance of household appliances, clothing repair and tailoring are moderately seasonal. The seasonal nature of the need for services is due to natural and climatic factors.