Shaping the Relative Importance of Needs from Recent to Early Autobiographical Experiences

Joseph P Green,Kathryn A Williams,Patrick J Carroll

doi:10.18061/ojs.v117i2.5815

Abstract

Although past work suggests that people place greater importance of enhancement needs (e.g., self-esteem) over safety needs, recent work demonstrates that contextual factors like event valence (satisfying or distressing) can shift the importance of security above enhancement needs. This study examines whether the effect of event valence on relative need importance for recent memories can carry over to shift the importance of safety relative to enhancement needs in one's earliest childhood memories. At time 1 (T1), participants recalled their most "distressing" (security-relevant) or "satisfying" (enhancement-relevant) experience and rated the importance of 10 needs in defining the event. Next, all participants freely recalled their earliest memory and rated the importance of different needs in defining that event. As predicted, event valence determined the importance of security relative to enhancement needs at T1, such that enhancement needs were more important for satisfying events whereas security needs were more important for distressing events. Moreover, as predicted, these differences in relative need importance at T1 (satisfying vs. distressing) carried over to shape relative need importance in participants' earliest memories. We close by discussing implications for human motivation.

Highlights

The study of needs has attracted psychologists for many reasons
Consistent with past work and predictions, we replicated the effect of changes in event valence on the relative importance of security and relatedness vs. individual enhancement needs
The findings primarily supported the novel prediction that-on a subsequent free recollection-the changes on relative need importance evoked by recollections of more recent distressing or satisfying experience would bias the subsequent recollection of participants’ earliest life memory to fit the relative importance of security/ relatedness compared to enhancement needs for the recent memory

Summary

Introduction

The study of needs has attracted psychologists for many reasons. First, needs have enormous explanatory value in that a single need can explain a wide range of behaviors. The need for relatedness can explain why people derogate out-group members to why they develop intimate relationships (Baumeister and Leary 1995). Beyond their explanatory significance, needs have practical significance in that they offer precise recommendations for what can restore health when it is lost. Whereas the importance of goals or motives may change across contexts, psychologists can generally depend on the absolute importance of Whereas the above work suggests that the absolute importance of needs may extend across most contexts, recent work suggests that the relative importance of basic needs may depend upon contextual factors (Sheldon et al 2001). The current investigation aims to extend past work to show that contextual shifts in need importance for recent memories may bias relative need importance in the free recall (that is, no instructions to recall positive or negative memory) of earliest autobiographical memories

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