The Psychology of Quality and More

C Style: Standards and Guidelines (contents)

CHAPTER 2 : Psychological Factors

PART 1 : BASICS

CHAPTER 2 : Psychological Factors

2.1 Pattern Recognition
2.2 Filtering
2.3 Habit
2.4 Redundancy
2.5 Cues and Context
2.6 Recognizing Basic features
2.7 Short Term, Working and Long Term memory
2.8 Chunking
2.9 The Rule of Seven
2.10 Context Switching
2.11 Modifying the image
2.12 Memorizing sounds
2.13 Eye focus
2.14 Eye movement
2.15 Looking ahead
2.16 Looking back
2.17 The subconscious is always right
2.18 Natural ambition
2.19 Summary

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2.18 Natural ambition

One of the landmarks in motivational psychology was the description by Abraham Maslow of the 'hierarchy of needs'. Simply put, this means that when we have one thing, we immediately want something better. Maslow described five levels of need:

1. Physiological (The need to keep the body going)
2. Safety (The need to avoid danger)
3. Love (The need for affection, to belong)
4. Esteem (The need for respect, by self and others)
5. Self-actualization (The need for self-fulfillment)

We tend to focus on the lowest unsatisfied level. Thus you would put yourself in danger to find food and if there were a large rock falling towards you, all thought of respectable behavior would vanish until you got out of the way!

These needs can also cause negative behavior, such as where esteem needs may cause recognized experts to oppose any demystifying and standardization of their work. However, if the groundswell of popular opinion can be moved, then those same esteem needs may help to change the guru's own opinion on standards and their use.

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