What satisfaction acutally means?
Satisfaction Nr.3>>
Word satisfaction origins in latin words satis (enough) and facio (to make, do, create). And to satisfy means to do enough.
There is one amazing fact about the word satisfaction: it is totally not related to feelings or attitudes as we like to think. The origin of the word (satis - facere) means to-do-enough. Therefore (if it didn't sound silly) we could say:
- to finish the project, we satisfied (did enough)
- for water not leaking we satisfied (did enough)
- ...
It is obvious that the origin is not necessarily connected to human emtions or needs, but somehow this connection evolved during time.
The word itself can be mostly very good used for describing the physical or psychological state and in everyday usage it can mean feelings (I feel I am satisfied). Still we need to understand here that this is an everyday usage of this word and that it has simply plugged in for many other words such as: happy, excited, thrilled,... And it has somehow became the description of the state when all these feelings come together.
When someone says they're not satisfied with something it simply means that person has negative feelings about this - dissapointment, fear, anger. Strong negative feelings are ussualy even not described as "I'm strongly dissapointed" but as "I'm furious".
It is quite interesting that in some researches the respondents don't stay with the word satisfactions when it comes to describiong this phenomenon. Giese and Cote (2000) found out that by deep interviewing users describe satisfaction as certain emotion that evolves as reaction on certain situation. 64% of the respondents actually changed the word "satisfaction" into something else (love, excitement, euphoric,...).
So what is satisfaction? Word in everyday language or something more?
Dušan