Scientists and philosophers have been thinking about the importance of desires for decades and centuries. Yet, no studies could be found that empirically examined the essence of this phenomenon. Evidently it was necessary to carry out a preliminary study to explore the importance of desires for students and the conceptual differentiation to similar terms such as hope, longing, and will, based on semi-standardized interviews. The results were taken as a starting point for a survey on individual desire-habits introduced in this thesis. The driving force behind this project is not only to implement a basic research about desires but also to find repercussions on pedagogy eventually, namely how to develop desire-competences, as desires are seen as a fundamental motivating force. Various theses based on theoretical considerations build the groundwork for the empirical survey: for instance the different roles of possible co-players involved in the desire-process. A close look at desires reveals that various types exist, such as short- and long-term desires, as well as preceded desires and ritualized desires. Those are to be differentiated on behalf of an appropriate analysis. Also different subject areas that explore the desire-phenomenon have developed different perspectives. These will help getting an extensive understanding on the phenomenon. Aside from desire research one can find important hints for the connection between individual and desires, too. Therefore a closer look on theories about personality development, socialization, and the peculiarity of emotions was taken. Based on problem centered interviews lead with students and analyzed by the reconstructive 'Documentary Method' two types of wishers were identified. The first one being the 'structured, emotional, and integrated' type, who knows precisely where own desires originate from and what the priorities of future desires are. The desires of the affected are marked by reflected emotions and are a natural part of their everyday life. Whereas on the other hand the 'diffuse, distant, and exclusive' type does not know about desire origins and also keeps an emotional distance to the mentioned desires which makes it impossible to find a hierarchy for them. A recurrent concern of the latter type is also the distancing from wishes that are assumed to be usual and considering oneself as an exclusive wisher. The present study can be seen as a first step towards an empirically based desire research. As there was such a small sample, however no output generalization was possible. Further surveys have to be carried out to gain a more solidly grounded theory. Hitherto the assumption of a connection between personality and types of wishers could be confirmed provisionally and presented in detail on a subject related level.
