Which of the Four Psychological Needs is Most Prevalent for You?

    People have four psychological needs. They are: getting something done, getting something
    right, getting along, or getting attention. Which is most prevalent for each of you?

Rick Brinkman and Rick Kirschner’s work was intended for use in business situations to deal with difficult people, but this information is helpful in all relationships. There are four main drivers of behaviour, these researchers found, in relation to how we get along with others. Of these four, two are task-driven – getting something done and getting something right. The others are people-driven – getting along and getting attention.

We can all probably name someone who falls under the category of getting attention. They make sure they are hard to miss. The drama queen, the one-upper, the hero.

The person whose psychological need is to get along is the person you turn to for comfort. They are the person that comes to work with fresh baked brownies, is the peace maker, and a shoulder to cry on.

On the day we want to move, everyone hopes that among their friends they have someone who primarily wants to get something done. They will work hard and stay to the end because they hate to leave a task half finished.

While the owner of a company would want employees who want to get things done, he probably hopes they also have a lot of the ‘get something right’ as a strong attribute. Especially if it is a job where the small details really matter. You certainly would want your lawyer to be a person who gets something right.

No one is all one, possessing nothing of the rest; rather, we are points on the spectrum. Someone who is ‘wants to get along’ may find that a way to do this is to ‘get things done’. What these researchers found was that under duress, one of the four is our default and is expressed most significantly.

What is a negative of knowing someone who is looking to get attention? They may not be someone you want at your wedding, when you want the day to be about you. They show up in an outfit more befitting a hooker on the arm of a biker. In a relationship, you may find it exhausting to always have to praise them or always take the subordinate role. When their need is unmet, they will make sure they are hard to ignore because even negative attention is attention. Alternately, they will find a person who will give them attention.

A relationship with someone who strives to get along might seem comforting, especially if you are someone who had many needs unfulfilled in your childhood. Down the road, though, you might want to shake them and say, “Tell me what you really think! Fight with me!” Their sacrificing may leave you making all the decisions and them burnt out as they never see to their own needs.

Someone who gets something done will mean you can spend Saturday in the hammock while they mow the lawn and clean the house. If things are not being achieved, they may become controlling and take over the project. If the goal is just to check the item off the to-do list, will they cut corners? They tend to speed up to reach their goal and, in doing so, make mistakes. Will you be okay if your lawn looks like it was mowed by a gorilla?

If someone always needs to get it right, it is a good thing if they are working on legal documents, but not if they are cooking the turkey for Easter dinner with the in-laws. Will the perfectionism become an obsession? Will this person work slowly and never think it is good enough? Will they even begin because they are so focused on the details that they never take action?

What will a fight look like between someone whose default is get it done and the other a get it done right? Spring cleaning the garage might mean the finisher is throwing items into bins that the perfectionist bought to categorize items. The perfectionist is getting angry that they aren’t putting enough thought into what goes into what bin or placing them in carefully. The finisher just wants to grab a cooler and go sit by the pool because it is good enough.

What about two people who only want to get along? Every conversation will contain this phrase: ‘I don’t know, what do you want?’ There will be an endless cycle of inaction because they do not want the other to be unhappy. In the end, nothing is achieved because no one will say what they actually want. Maybe they do not even know what they really want.

These are our go-to behaviours when we are under pressure. Knowing our beloved’s primary intent means that when the shit hits the fan and they are feeling threatened, we will know what behaviours we will see and can tailor our response to help them feel balanced again. Afterwards, a discussion can be had about how we ended up there and plan for the future.