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Human needs approaches to the study of international relations rest on the basic assumption that human needs are a key motivational force behind human behavior and social interaction. According to this perspective, there exist specific and relatively enduring human needs which individuals will inevitably strive to satisfy, even at the cost of personal disorientation and social disruption. As human needs theorists point out, there is empirical support for this assumption in a developed body of literature in the social sciences, both experimental and documentary, which demonstrates clearly that individuals have fundamental human needs such that if they are deprived of those needs, especially in the early years of development, they will suffer physically and psychologically.

DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-21003-9_9

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