Emotional Needs Pairs
Our emotional needs don’t exist in a vacuum. When one need emerges, others also tend to become activated. There is a logic to these patterns of activation.
- Strivings toward developing our full potential tends to be associated with the need for autonomy. Self-actualization generally requires that we have a certain degree of independence and permission to act autonomously.
- For many, the need for success goes hand in hand with the desire for social recognition.
- Strivings for ethics are often associated with strivings for caring. The striving for greater ethics tends to be a generalization of the need for caring from those we know well to those we don’t know at all.
- Because living in a fundamentally fair and just society is an essential pillar of personal security, safety and justice needs tend to move together.
These are just a few examples taken from the full set of 66 pairing of the 12 AgileBrain emotional needs. AgileBrain practitioners have observed the co-occurrence of different emotional needs in their clients. The purpose of this document is to help practitioners interpret those pairs. In the last column, we have also indicated which of the 10 AgileBrain States exemplify each activated pairing, which should provide greater context for interpreting the emotional needs of your client.
Safety & Authenticity
Unless we feel psychologically safe, we won’t feel comfortable “letting our hair down” and being our true selves.
Common in these states: Relief Seeking
Safety & Autonomy
Often observed in young children, we all need a secure base from which we can explore the physical and social environments. Knowing that we have a safe “home” to return to is an essential prerequisite for the kind of risk taking involved in autonomous exploration. Unsurprisingly, these are both foundational needs.
Common in these states: Connection Craving, Amiable Optimism
Safety & Caring
As social beings, when we don’t feel cared for, we naturally feel unsafe and insecure. By the same token, when we feel loved, we feel safe.
Common in these states: Connection Craving, Amiable Optimism
Safety & Ethics
When faced with selfishness on the part of authorities who control our fates, our security vanishes. Ethical breaches only pay off in the short run; in the long run those involved in wrongdoing will lose their own sense of safety.
Common in these states: Amiable Optimism
Safety & Immersion
We can only truly let go and lose ourselves in the moment when we feel safe. When unsafe, we can’t risk letting down our guard and state of vigilance.
Common in these states: Amiable Optimism
Safety & Inclusion
There is safety in numbers. For a social species inclusion means survival, and exclusion can mean death. Reflecting the high stakes involved, both are foundational needs.
Common in these states: Connection Craving, Relief Seeking, Amiable Optimism
Safety & Potential
If we don’t feel safe, we won’t be able to fulfill our full potential as humans because achieving excellence requires authentic self-expression.
Common in these states: Relief Seeking, Focused Striving, Amiable Optimism
Safety & Purpose
Paradoxically, the most basic human emotional need, safety, is deeply linked with the highest human need for a transcendent purpose. When we fall on especially hard times and lose all sense of safety, a common and highly adaptive coping strategy is to look for deeper meaning in our suffering. As summarized by André-Jean Festugière’s dictum, “Misery and mysticism are related facts.” By broadening the context and placing our misfortune within it as a purposeful means to a greater end, we can find inner harmony.
Common in these states: Relief Seeking, Amiable Optimism
Safety & Justice
Knowing that we live in a just, fair system is a foundation of our personal safety and security. Without fair treatment, safety is impossible. Accordingly, both are foundational needs.
Common in these states: Amiable Optimism
Safety & Recognition
When we feel unrecognized, we feel diminished, which is a precarious, insecure position. When we are validated, affirmed, and respected we live within a circle of protection.
Common in these states: Connection Craving, Relief Seeking, Amiable Optimism
Safety & Success
Our need for safety is a driving force behind many people’s strong desire for material success. This is particularly important for those of us who have experienced material deprivation either as we grew up or experienced income insecurity as an adult.
Common in these states: Amiable Optimism
Authenticity & Autonomy
Both relate to freedom of expression, asserting permission to be oneself and take control of one’s style or a formal process at work.
Common in these states: —
Authenticity & Caring
To the extent that differences between people can hinder connection, authenticity can slow inital acceptance into a group. However, once included, authenticity provides the strongest foundation for deep interpersonal caring because it is a form of honesty. Both of these experiential needs are achieved when we let down our guard and reveal our true selves without reservation.
Common in these states: —
Authenticity & Ethics
Both needs, for authenticity and ethics, are experiential needs for transparency and honesty. Authenticity is the need for honesty about who we are as people, whereas ethics is the need for transparency in our public dealings.
Common in these states: —
Authenticity & Immersion
Both of these needs are experiential, and both are kinds of letting go. Authenticity involves letting go of social restraints, expectations, and conformity pressures, whereas immersion involves letting go of self monitoring, self doubt and self criticism. Full immersion requires a lack of self-consciousness.
Common in these states: —
Authenticity & Inclusion
Interestingly, the needs for authenticity and inclusion function at odds with each other because sameness facilitates acceptance. We tend to like people who are more like us, and stark differences can be off-putting, at least at first.
Common in these states: Relief Seeking
Authenticity & Potential
Authenticity is the gateway to fulfilling our full potential because only when we are able to truly be ourselves can we become all that we can be.
Common in these states: Diligent Struggling, Relief Seeking
Authenticity & Purpose
In a way, both needs are forms of transcendence. Authenticity represents the impulse to transcend group norms and prescribed behaviors to be one’s true self, whereas the pursuit of a higher purpose involves shedding one’s self entirely.
Common in these states: Relief Seeking
Authenticity & Justice
Permitting people to be themselves fully is a constant theme in the pursuit for social justice. At a deeper level, both justice and authenticity represent a commitment to the truth.
Common in these states: —
Authenticity & Recognition
Being unique can slow the process of social acceptance, however, those who are truly themselves ultimately receive the strongest respect and admiration.
Common in these states: Relief Seeking
Authenticity & Safety
Authenticity & Success
Success can be pursued either as your full, authentic self or it can be pursued in a manner that conceals the true self, as the “company man” or “woman”, who presents themselves as a clone devoid of personality. When pursued with honesty and authenticity, success brings with it complexity, nuance, and culture; it actually stands for something.
Common in these states: —
Potential & Authenticity
Potential & Autonomy
The needs for autonomy and potential are deeply intertwined. Pursuit of mastery brings greater independence and freedom because greater skill and understanding allow you to pursue new opportunities for greater autonomy.
Common in these states: Equality Seeking, Amiable Optimism
Potential & Caring
These needs tend to oppose each other insofar as they represent focus on one’s own self and ideas on the one hand, and on other people and their needs on the other hand.
Common in these states: Connection Craving, Equality Seeking, Amiable Optimism
Potential & Ethics
The interplay between potential and ethics tends to show up in the relations between superiors and subordinates. Selfishness and jealousy in a leader can cause them to limit opportunities for subordinates, thereby stunting their growth and delaying their self-actualization.
Common in these states: Amiable Optimism
Potential & Immersion
In much the same way that immersion provides the platform for success, total immersion in the moment is required for real growth to occur, which is the mechanism by which we can fulfill our full potential. The rule that 10,000 hours of intentional practice is required to achieve mastery (popularized by Malcolm Gladwell) speaks to the close relationship between immersion and potential. Furthermore, the ability to let go and immerse yourself in a performance is the greatest proof of mastery – knowing that your performance will be amazing by focusing only on it.
Common in these states: Amiable Optimism
Potential & Inclusion
These needs have a complex interplay. We tend to be drawn toward others who are highly competent. However, there is a point at which their excellence can be off-putting and even threatening to our self-esteem. Excellence and personal mastery are great “door openers,” but they provide no guarantee of successful integration into the group. Furthermore, true genius tends to focus the mind inward, away from other people. Indeed, some of our greatest geniuses (Isaac Newton, Marie Curie, Nikola Tesla, Vincent Van Gogh, among others) showed very little interest in other people.
Common in these states: Stress Revealing, Connection Craving, Relief Seeking, Equality Seeking, Amiable Optimism
Potential & Purpose
Both are aspirational end-states. Living up to one’s full potential is the “pedestrian” version of being all you can be because you are still limited by the confines of your self. Purpose necessarily reaches beyond the self. Purpose can directly fuel our ability to reach our full potential. Research on underprivileged students has shown that reminding them of their ultimate goals, values, and purpose significantly increases motivation, erasing the achievement gap.
Common in these states: Relief Seeking, Amiable Optimism
Potential & Justice
A common theme in social justice movements is unfair differences in access to opportunity (via racism, sexism, homophobia, religious intolerance, etc.). Reflecting its foundational character, the need for justice is strongly linked to the need for safety, which is foundational to the ability to become all that we can be.
Common in these states: Equality Seeking, Amiable Optimism
Potential & Recognition
As aspirational needs in opposing domains, these needs have a complex relationship. In their simplest manifestations, they operate as opposite tradeoffs between the desire to impress oneself (potential) and the desire to impress others (recognition). At a deeper level, however, we tend to deeply respect those who have achieved personal mastery in some domain. Excellence is no guarantee of recognition, of course, as many of the most talented artists, writers, and scientists only received recognition after their deaths (e.g., Galileo, Poe, Mendel, Kafka, Keats, Vermeer, etc.).
Common in these states: Connection Craving, Relief Seeking, Equality Seeking, Amiable Optimism
Potential & Safety
Potential & Success
These needs represent the highest aspirations in the adjacent Self and Material domains. The nature of this pairing comes down to the way we define meaningful achievement: The reward of excellence in itself, which is fulfilling one’s potential, or meeting someone else’s criterion or standard, which is success. To what degree is your sense of achievement based in impressing yourself vs. receiving rewards for impressing others?
Common in these states: Amiable Optimism
Autonomy & Authenticity
Autonomy & Caring
Acting autonomously contains within it the suggestion of acting alone, without need for consultation, coordination, or permission. Caring, to some degree, represents giving up of autonomy, and, consequently, the simultaneous activation of both needs can suggest conflict.
Common in these states: Connection Craving, Equality Seeking, Amiable Optimism
Autonomy & Ethics
Ethical breaches often involve the denial of autonomy to others. In business, this can take the form of preventing valued “workhorse” subordinates from exposure to growth opportunities. In academia, the conferral of degrees can be delayed to useful graduate students by professors. Any denial of opportunity to others out of self-interest of superiors represents an ethical breach.
Common in these states: Stress Revealing, Amiable Optimism
Autonomy & Immersion
Autonomy is the direct precursor for Immersion, representing the first two levels of the Material domain. Only when we feel that we have both the capability and permission to act can we let go of self doubt and immerse ourselves in activity, leading to success.
Common in these states: Amiable Optimism
Autonomy & Inclusion
For autonomy to be granted, inclusion is often first required; that is, we tend to give control of decisions to people we already know and trust. These are both foundational needs. When someone already has autonomy, and doesn’t need our permission or consent to act, this can appear threatening and interfere with group cohesion.
Common in these states: Connection Craving, Equality Seeking, Amiable Optimism
Autonomy & Potential
Autonomy & Purpose
The need for autonomy is foundational for taking action in the material world. It is difficult to imagine how a person could effectively pursue a higher purpose without first establishing their autonomy. Of course, the very denial of autonomy often provides the spark that ignites strivings for the higher purpose of championing human rights.
Common in these states: Stress Revealing, Amiable Optimism
Autonomy & Justice
A major category of injustice is the denial of autonomy to others. The institution of slavery is the most obvious example, the large-scale denial of autonomy to an entire people. More recent examples include segregation, the arrest and imprisonment of the , limitations on freedom of movement and assembly, limitations on freedom of the press,
forced labor and “re-education” — all involve disempowerment of others.
Common in these states: Stress Revealing, Equality Seeking, Amiable Optimism
Autonomy & Recognition
Meaningful recognition usually requires meaningful social accomplishments, those worthy of respect and admiration. To achieve such accomplishments, we must act autonomously to receive credit for our accomplishments. Accomplishments and activities we are expected to do generally don’t count.
Common in these states: Stress Revealing, Connection Craving, Equality Seeking, Amiable Optimism
Autonomy & Safety
Autonomy & Success
Without first establishing that we have attained the ability, control, and permission to take action, achieving success isn’t possible.
Common in these states: Amiable Optimism
Immersion & Authenticity
Immersion & Autonomy
Immersion & Caring
Both immersion and caring are experiential needs related to “doing.” In a sense, active caring is a form of immersion (when done well) as any parent of young children or to an elder can attest. Focused immersion in one’s tasks is similarly a form of caring; in bespeaks consideration for the leader, one’s peers, and even oneself.
Common in these states: Amiable Optimism
Immersion & Ethics
Immersion and ethics are both experiential or “doing” needs; they are related to taking action. Demonstrating commitment to full immersion in one’s work is a sign of conscientiousness, or commitment to principle. In this case, the principle is fair distribution of labor for the common good. Those who avoid immersion by allowing themselves to be distracted by conversations, social media, music, or daydreaming are implicitly engaged in unethical selfishness.
Common in these states: Amiable Optimism
Immersion & Inclusion
We are drawn to hard workers because we tend to respect their devotion to principle and conscientiousness. Immersion is inherently pro-social because by doing their part, these individuals lighten the load for everyone else. Accordingly, we tend to trust them more than slackers. These characteristics make it easier for those who immerse themselves fully to gain social acceptance.
Common in these states: Amiable Optimism
Immersion & Potential
Immersion & Purpose
Both are forms of transcendence. Immersion is the commonplace version of transcendence, accessible through amusement parks, films, and music festivals. The deeper and higher transcendence involves letting go of the self, and although it retains some of the pleasures of immersion, it goes much further
Common in these states: Amiable Optimism
Immersion & Justice
A large part of the reason that we tend not to trust slackers stems from the inherent injustice in avoiding hard work. When a coworker doesn’t take on their fair share of the load, the burden becomes shifted to others who are more conscientious. Conversely, taking on the fair share, and exceeding it, are clear markers of prosocial intentions because they exemplify one’s commitment to fairness and to the well-being of teammates.
Common in these states: Amiable Optimism
Immersion & Recognition
We tend to respect hard workers, those who are devoted to their craft. The path to mastery is laid by immersion, the hours of intentional practice resulting in an accumulation of small gains. The danger in receiving acclaim for a long period of immersion is “resting on one’s laurels,” which means giving up the immersive tendencies that brought success in the first place.
Common in these states: Amiable Optimism
Immersion & Safety
Immersion & Success
Total immersion in serious work or serious play is the key ingredient in ultimately achieving success. Meaningful success is never based on luck, it is always based on immersion in hard work.
Common in these states: Amiable Optimism
Success & Authenticity
Success & Autonomy
Success & Caring
Success, when it acts as a means of shoring up of resources for the benefit of others, can be a form of caring. But it doesn’t have to be. It can be, and often is, entirely selfish. When these needs co occur it generally means that success is being defined as at least partially for the benefit of others.
Common in these states: Connection Craving, Amiable Optimism
Success & Ethics
There is an antipodal relationship between the material and spiritual domains, as evidenced by the lowest need-to-need correlations observed in our data. A major reason for unethical, selfish behavior is an outsized interest in personal gain at the expense of others, which is the very definition of unethical behavior. Wrongdoing almost always represents out of control material self-interest.
Common in these states:Amiable Optimism
Success & Immersion
Success & Inclusion
Material success draws a crowd and often leads to immediate, albeit superficial, acceptance in many groups. The loss of money and status is often accompanied by a receding low tide of these superficial relationships as aptly captured by Eric Clapton’s song “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down & Out.”
Common in these states: Connection Craving, Aspiring Agreement, Amiable Optimism
Success & Potential
Success & Purpose
As the highest levels of attainment in the antipodal material and spiritual domains, the needs for material success and higher purpose largely represent opposite points of the continuum: The opposite of a higher purpose is indulgence in materialism. It is possible to sincerely pursue both sets of needs as exemplified by the decision by Patagonia’s founder, Yvon Chouinard, to place his company’s assets in a trust to help fight climate change. This act of commitment to a higher purpose would have been impossible without a great deal of material success.
Common in these states: Amiable Optimism
Success & Justice
Representing the antipodal life domains of the material and the spiritual, there is a natural tradeoff between the need for material success and the need for justice. Ironically, it is well known in social science that the poor donate more to charity per capita than individuals in higher income brackets, a vivid demonstration of the “seesaw” running between the material and spiritual domains.
Common in these states: Amiable Optimism
Success & Recognition
There are different evolutionary levels of each need. “Retail-level” recognition, like receiving a lucite trophy or the “employee of the month” parking space, is the cheap variety. The deeper version is sincere respect and admiration. Selfish success breeds superficial recognition. Selfless success (and other good works) breeds true admiration. Selfish success brings and abundance of “fair weather friends” who feel a mix of admiration and jealousy for others’ material success while it lasts.
Common in these states: Cautious Concealing, Connection Craving, Aspiring Agreement, Amiable Optimism
Success & Safety
Inclusion & Authenticity
Inclusion & Autonomy
Inclusion & Caring
As the foundational and experiential needs within the social domain, a sense of inclusion and belonging provides the platform upon which deep, mutually satisfying relationships can form. Without a fundamental sense that we belong, it is extremely difficult to form a deep, caring relationship with a group member. The unlikeliness of such relationships is a standard trope of Young Adult romance novels wherein a group member becomes close with an outsider.
Common in these states: Connection Craving, Equality Seeking, Amiable Optimism
Inclusion & Ethics
Exclusion of others can be both an injustice and a breach of ethics. To the extent that we behave in a moral and ethical manner, it suggests that we care about other people and facilitates connecting with others by letting them know we can be trusted.
Common in these states: Stress Revealing, Amiable Optimism
Inclusion & Immersion
Inclusion & Potential
Inclusion & Purpose
To some extent, pursuit of a higher purpose can involve a withdrawal from others and can place this need at odds with “normal” socializing. Nevertheless, we tend to be drawn to people who have a clear higher purpose, as long as we have sufficient self-esteem that we don’t find it threatening to our egos.
Common in these states: Stress Revealing, Relief Seeking, Amiable Optimism
Inclusion & Justice
As the foundational needs of the adjacent social and spiritual domains, there is a strong interconnection between the needs for inclusion and justice. Social exclusion is a major target of social justice movements from dismantling “Jim Crow” laws in the US to apartheid in South Africa. Social exclusion is a potent weapon wielded by children on the playground, who must be taught that exclusion is a form of unfairness and injustice, complex concepts that require maturation.
Common in these states: Stress Revealing, Equality Seeking, Amiable Optimism
Inclusion & Recognition
As the foundational and aspirational needs of the social domain, feeling welcome and included provides the basis for ultimate success in the social domain, which is gaining the admiration and respect of the group. Simply being a member is insufficient, however, for making the climb to recognition; it requires the kind of mutual giving and receiving that characterizes the need for caring.
Common in these states: Connection Craving, Equality Seeking, Relief Seeking, Aspiring Agreement, Amiable Optimism
Inclusion & Safety
Inclusion & Success
Caring & Authenticity
Caring & Autonomy
Caring & Ethics
As adjacent experiential needs, caring and ethics are closely linked. Both involve subjugation of our own needs in order to preserve and promote the wellbeing of others. Ethics is the generalization of caring to people and other living things we don’t know.
Common in these states: Amiable Optimism
Caring & Immersion
Caring & Inclusion
Caring & Potential
Caring & Purpose
Caring is a prerequisite to purpose, and highly connected to ethics, which is the direct predecessor and foundation of purpose.
Common in these states: Amiable Optimism
Caring & Justice
Genuine concern about justice is a form of caring. It is an abstraction or generalization of the impulse to care for others.
Common in these states: Equality Seeking, Amiable Optimism
Caring & Recognition
As the platform for the emergence of sincere admiration, a history of caring provides the basis of mutual respect. On the other hand, crass “hogging the spotlight” runs counter to genuine caring.
Common in these states: Connection Craving, Amiable Optimism
Caring & Safety
Caring & Success
Recognition & Authenticity
Recognition & Autonomy
Recognition & Caring
Recognition & Ethics
Similar to the relationship between recognition and justice, true respect is accorded to those who limit their self-interest and behave in a consistently ethical manner.
Common in these states: Stress Revealing, Amiable Optimism
Recognition & Immersion
Recognition & Inclusion
Recognition & Potential
Recognition & Purpose
As the highest needs of the adjacent social and spiritual domains, there is a strong relationship between earning the social capital of respect and admiration and living for a higher purpose. This relationship can get complicated by the crass, retail type of striving for recognition (e.g., social media likes), which is squarely at odds with striving for a higher purpose.
Common in these states: Stress Revealing, Relief Seeking, Amiable Optimism
Recognition & Justice
For someone to be genuinely admired and respected, there needs to be a history of fairness and commitment to justice. Our culture explicitly accords the highest regard to those who are famously fair (e.g., the Wisdom of Solomon) and committed to Justice (Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr., among others). The failure to recognize the hard work and contributions of others is a clear sign of injustice, as is the unfairness of hard workers being passed over for kudos and promotions.
Common in these states: Stress Revealing, Equality Seeking, Amiable Optimism
Recognition & Safety
Recognition & Success
Justice & Authenticity
Justice & Autonomy
Justice & Caring
Justice & Ethics
As the foundational and experiential levels of the spiritual domain, striving for justice and fairness provides the scaffold upon which self-interest is voluntarily limited for the greater good. Without concern for rewarding good and punishing bad deeds, no checks and balances limiting self-interest will emerge.
Common in these states: Stress Revealing, Mission Questing, Amiable Optimism
Justice & Immersion
Justice & Inclusion
Justice & Potential
Justice & Purpose
As the foundational and aspirational levels of the spiritual domain, concern with a higher, transcendent purpose requires generalized concern for nature and humanity, which is expressed through commitments to justice and ethics.
Common in these states: Stress Revealing, Mission Questing, Amiable Optimism
Justice & Recognition
Justice & Safety
Justice & Success
Ethics & Authenticity
Ethics & Autonomy
Ethics & Caring
Ethics & Immersion
Ethics & Inclusion
Ethics & Potential
Ethics & Purpose
Transcendent purpose is the ultimate letting go of self and submission to a higher will. Ethics is fundamentally a voluntary curtailing of self-interest and provides the platform for higher purpose to flourish.
Common in these states: Stress Revealing, Mission Questing, Amiable Optimism
Ethics & Justice
Ethics & Recognition
Ethics & Safety
Ethics & Success