Acceptance of Others is Necessary

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Acceptance of Others is Necessary

All living things have needs. Whether the needs be as basic as food or as complex as discovering the reason for existence, all organisms have them. “Maslow wrote that, beyond the basic needs for water, food, shelter, and the like, people’s needs are ‘for safety, belongingness and identification, for close love relationships, and for respect and prestige’”. In a way, we all strive to fulfill these needs at some point in our lives. For example, in order to satisfy the need for safety, human beings live together in a society with laws that, if broken, have undesirable consequences attached. Most people also have friends and family throughout their lives to satisfy the need for close love relationships. As people grow older, they will, at least at some point, try to fulfill this need through a relationship with a significant other. One human need at all age levels and one that is recognized by Maslow is the need for belongingness or acceptance by one’s peers. However, the way people become accepted is harder to determine than the other needs. How do individuals come to be accepted by their peers? One approach to gaining acceptance is by knowing the essential cultural knowledge common to your peers. This essential cultural knowledge changes as we grow older in order to better suit the maturity level of our peers, and gain the acceptance we all long for.

Many people agree that, in most cases, as we grow older, our maturity level grows as well. One way of measuring the maturity level of children is by seeing the way a child responds to authority. Mature children will respect authority, be well mannered to some degree, and know the difference between right and wrong even if they don’t a...

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...orm the cultural knowledge for that particular group. What makes this cultural knowledge essential is the human need for acceptance by peers.

This is a new and unpredictable world in which it seems everything revolves around money. It is nice to know that there are still some things that are free that can make people feel like a million bucks. Being accepted by a group that cares about one’s well-being can make that person feel incredible. If everyone understood the way in which this acceptance is obtained, there will be fewer crazed lunatics roaming the streets seeking the destruction of these groups. Basically, when it all boils down to it, everyone, whether they know it or not, longs for acceptance by some other person or group. It is this basic human need that, when satisfied for everyone, could make this world a much safer and happier place to live.

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