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The Human Needs
Introduction
This is the third part of our introduction to the Objective Personality System.
In the first part, we talked about the scientific data-driven approach of OPS.
In the second, we explained what we track: the subjective emotional states of people. We call them Saviours and Demons.
In this article, we present the first proper aspect of the OPS model: the Human Needs.
It’s the foundation of the entire model and its most significant part, both for typing and personal growth. Everything else is built on top.
Understanding the Human Needs is already extremely valuable on its own, even without knowing the rest of the system.
Definition and Origin
What are the Human Needs, and where do they come from?
They found their way into OPS through Tony Robbins, although he probably stole them somewhere else (John A. Schindler mentions them in his 1956 book “How To Live 365 Days A Year”).
Tony works with six Human Needs:
Significance,
Contribution,
Certainty,
Variety,
Connection, and
Growth.
The OPS model uses the first four.
Significance and Contribution form a pair of opposites. Essentially, they’re two sides of the same coin, which is why we call them a binary coin. The same goes for Certainty and Variety.
Let’s go through the four Human Needs one by one.
Significance is self-focused. It’s the need to feel important, unique and valued. It’s about being aware and prioritising your own perspective.
Contribution is the opposite. It’s others-focused. It’s the need to serve others and receive validation. It’s about being aware and prioritising other people’s perspectives over your own.
Certainty is the need for stability, security, and predictability. It’s less concerned with you and other people and more with events, circumstances, and things.
The same goes for its opposite, Variety. It’s the need for novelty and change, for the new and exciting.
The most important thing to understand about the four Human Needs is that everybody has every need. You will see them in yourself and everybody else.
It’s not about one being good or bad. It’s about finding a balance between the needs and being adaptable to what’s actually going on around you.
Essentially, your recurring problems come from overindulging in two of them.
Cognitive Functions
Now we know what the Human Needs are. But how did they make it into the OP System?
Shan and Dave (the founders of OPS) were trying to track Carl Jung’s cognitive functions objectively but couldn’t make it work. Then they noticed a connection between the functions and the Human Needs. The underlying focus was the same.
But what are these cognitive functions we’re speaking of? Carl Jung described mental processes that we use to perceive information, make decisions, and interact with our environment.
He defined eight cognitive functions that are organized into four binary coins. Each pair consists of an extroverted and introverted function. People have different personality types based on the functions they use and how they use them.
We will explain the cognitive functions in more detail in upcoming videos. For now, we’ll only name them and relate them to the Human Needs.
Shan and Dave tried to track the cognitive functions in people to figure out how they process the world. But the functions, as they were described by Jung, couldn’t be objectively tracked.
However, they noticed that two of the functions share the same underlying Human Need that drove them.
Introverted Thinking and Introverted Feeling, Ti and Fi, share the underlying Human Need of Significance. In OPS terminology, we call Ti and Fi the Introverted Decider functions, which are shortened to Di. Instead of Significance, we simply call the Human Need “Self.”
Extroverted Thinking and Extroverted Feeling, Te and Fe, share the underlying Human Need of Contribution. We call Te and Fe the Extroverted Decider functions and shorten them to De. We call the Human Need “Tribe.”
The so-called Introverted Observer functions are Si and Ni, Introverted Sensing and Introverted Intuition. We call their underlying Human Need “Organize” instead of Certainty and shorten it to Oi.
Se and Ne, Extroverted Sensing and Extroverted Intuition, are the Extroverted Observers. Their underlying Human Need Variety is called “Gather” in OPS. We shorten it to Oe.
You can’t track the functions directly, but you can track the Human Needs if you look for Saviours and Demons.
The Deciders, Self and Tribe, form a pair or binary coin and so do the Observers Organize and Gather.
Always remember: everybody as every Human Need!
Saviours and Demons
But—and this is the key to doing personality typing that actually works: you regard two of your Human Needs as Saviours and the other two as Demons.
It’s about how you express the Human Needs. One Decider is a Saviour, the other one is the Demon. The same goes for the Observers.
This is the question we're trying to answer. We look at the Decider coin and the Observer coin separately and ask: which side is the Saviour and which side is the Demon?
What does that look like?
You could be Saviour Self and Demon Tribe. In this case, your obvious responsibility is your own point of view. You’re aware of your internal world and subjective experience, and you act on it. You do it consistently in a calm state.
You also have the tendency to overdo it to the detriment of others. The Human Need of Tribe is your Demon. Being aware of other people’s points of view is not your default responsibility. It’s the unknown that you fear. Losing your individuality to the tribe causes you anxiety.
The others case would be being Saviour Tribe and Demon Self. The tribe’s point of view is your obvious responsibility. You think about what the tribe needs and actively look for validation from them in a calm state.
At the same time, you neglect the Human Need for Self. You’re unaware of your own perspective and don’t know what you want. You’d prefer for others to tell you who you are.
The Observer coin works the same.
You can be Saviour Organize and Demon Gather. Your default responsibility is to organise and narrow down information. You prefer going over the same information and having structure and routine. You don’t just talk about it, you do it in a calm Saviour state.
At the same time, you’re weary of new options and fresh information. You struggle to accept it and frame it as chaos. You gather new, but you do it in a forced Demon state.
You can also be Saviour Gather and Demon Organize. In this case, the new excites you. You seek novelty and you keep your options open. You gather more in a Saviour state. Openness is obviously something positive.
Organize is your Demon. It’s the default negative for you, and you consistently frame it as such. You don’t want to narrow down, exclude or control.
It’s not like you can’t do it. But when you do it, it’s in an awkward Demon state.
Conclusion
When you type, you don’t just look for what people do. You definitely don’t just look for what they say.
Always look for Saviours and Demons and cross-check: if they really have one side of the coin as a Saviour, do they also have the other side as the Demon?
This is the main concept behind Objective Typing.
In upcoming articles, we explore the remaining coins and how the different sides show up as Saviours and Demons.