Human Psychology has always been a matter of intrigue.
Psychology is a combination of personality and environment. Personality is
innate and environment is external influence. Both contribute to Human psychology.
Environmental influence is the information people gather and assimilate over a
period of time and is also a component of learning.
Many Psychologists of the past have tried to understand
human personality and its forces and carved many theories. Personality is only
one part of human psychology and only in a limited way explains behavior. Human
Psychology on the other hand to a large extent tries to explain human behavior
and its vagaries.
One of the effective models to understand human psychology is
the Maslows need hierarchy. It basically classifies certain levels of needs of
Individuals.(Let me hasten to add that Human psychology is an important
contributor to National Economics. Sometimes this is not well understood.
Progress made in the individual
psychological front go a long way in creating economic progress. This is a very important axiom of Economics and
its principles there-of.). Human Beings progress from one level of need to
another.
Reflect on the World Wars for a moment…two of them within a
short gap of fifty years or less during the first half of the twentieth
century. It left the world famished in many ways creating far reaching impacts
on human psychology and behavior which we have time and again failed to learn
from. Study the Concentration camps of Hitler and the atrocities there-of it
only leaves people aghast as to how humans could behave with one another that
way or even the slavery of the United States or even some of the acts of the
British Raj and similar events from time to time.
Let us have a look at the maslows need hierarchy. It starts
with food and sustenance ..them to security…then to affiliation and
friendship…then to esteem needs and
finally to actualization. I don’t know if I have written the hierarchy in the right
order..but that doesn’t matter as long as the significance is understood….because
in it lies hidden the essence of Human behavior and Psychology.
Note that the first
four needs are inherent in
Animals as well and it is only actualization that is a human need and absent in
Animals. Actualization is what makes Human Human and not Animal.
I used the word Animal Economics.
What does that mean. It means a competitive environment for sustenance. It is
such poorly engineered environments that land up creating conflicts of various
kinds. When people become more aggressive due to scarcity there starts negative behaviours of various kinds.
What is the essence of human
psychology ? How is it related to the science of Economics. The essence of
human Psychology is the ability of communities through formal or informal
procedures to transcend people from the Animal domain to a more refined domain
of actualisation. It is through Actualisation that innovation works..it is through innovation
that all forms of Economics transcends to a more refined platform.
