Maslow's pyramid of needs is a hierarchy of human needs, a well-known theory of motivation, based on the works of an American psychologist who became the founder of humanistic verse.
Successfully used in modern economy Maslow's pyramid of needs, and is considered as a needs model of motivation theory, consumer behavioral factor.
Maslow's pyramid of needs first appeared in the form graphic image“Hierarchy of needs” in a textbook on marketing and psychology by W. Stopp in 1975, after Maslow’s death five years later. In the early 80s of the 20th century, the needs chart was replaced with a pyramid-shaped drawing, which was invented by his students to better understand Maslow’s theory in a visual form.
Maslow's pyramid of needs
1st need: physiological: removal of hunger, thirst, intimacy, sleep, oxygen, availability of clothing.
Sometimes this need is called instinctive, basic, basic. Therefore, a person gives it priority attention, otherwise he will feel uncomfortable.
According to Maslow, lower physiological needs lay the foundation for all other needs, and without their satisfaction, a person does not move or develop further. Even all living organisms have these needs.
Examples:
- Waking up in the morning before work, you want to have breakfast: drink hot coffee and eat a sandwich, and not finish reading the pages of an interesting work.
- The need to visit the restroom will be a priority, instead of finding your seat in the theater hall.
The needs of the first stage are very important, but they do not constantly prevail over the individual. Partial satisfaction is enough to move to the second stage of Maslow's pyramid.
2nd need for security: stability, defense, dependence, freedom from anxiety, fear and chaos.
Examples:
- A small child is scared, he is afraid of something, so he cries for a long time and persistently until he sees his mother or father. The absence of parents from his field of vision, the child becomes irritated, he does not care what others think about him. He needs protection.
- A believer also needs protection. Arriving at church, he feels the protection of higher powers. He calms down and believes only in a good future.
Stability in work and salary also relates to this need.
3rd need for love and belonging: friendship, family, circle.
It is natural for a person to become a part of society, he strives for this. In adolescence, it is necessary to join an environment where there is a leader or an idol in order to take an example of behavior from him.
With increasing age, a person sorts out the circle of his acquaintances, and it narrows. There remain several friends, acquaintances with the same views on life, work, and interests. In any case, people live and become a formed part of society, where they feel important and useful.
Certain individuals have a need to meet a new friend. Some limit themselves to their family and children.
After satisfying the 3rd need - social, a person strives for the 4th level of needs: success.
4th need for recognition and respect: respect in a team, proud of oneself, status, excellent reputation, fame, manifestation of talent.
A person cannot be content with only family, home, children. He wants more. Having received the status of a specialist, the team began to respect him. And if he became a businessman, he is proud of himself. And if his company becomes famous, his reputation increases.
Work becomes more than just work. A person awakens to spiritual motivation and a great desire to create, to create much more, better and of higher quality. A person automatically moves to the next stage of Maslow's needs.
5th (later 7th) need for self-realization: a person does his job, does it well. His inclinations and abilities help in his work.
When everything is perfect, life is good. It seems to a person that he has not yet achieved everything; he begins to engage in self-development, self-realization, spiritual needs appear, and the realization of his potential. A person is ready to move forward, to fight. Received life experience: democratic temperament, creativity helps to resist social habits, a person is ready to learn himself and teach others, form new views and convince.
Abraham Maslow's research showed that only 1-3% of humanity reach the fifth (seventh) stage of the pyramid, which has an excess of ideas and internal energy.
Scientist Maslow, his research
A little about Abraham Harold Maslow (from the former surname Maslov), was born into a poor family of emigrants (from Tsarist Russia) in 1908 in Brooklyn. He studied well, worked hard and often visited libraries. Became President of the Association social psychology and the Department of Aesthetics. The ten-year period from 1960 to 1970 was a fruitful period in his life, where most of his works were written.
The scientist believed that the behavior of humanity is motivated only to satisfy their personal life goals, moving gradually from one achieved need to the next and so on.
Abraham Maslow argued that large quantity All human needs are similar to the instincts of animals, which can be innate or acquired.
Research by scientist Maslow has proven that any person experiences five (seven) obligatory needs: from simpler, lower needs to higher needs. Human existence will cease if these needs are not satisfied, and human development will not fully develop.
Additional work on Maslow's pyramid
People heard about the “Theory of Human Motivation” in 1943, which contained Maslow’s main ideas about the peculiarities in the formation of human needs of successful and creative people. More detailed research was reflected in the book “Motivation and Personality” in 1954.
Scientist A. Maslow worked on a biography of healthy and active people. These included: Albert Einstein, Abraham Lincoln, Eleanor Roosevelt, who became his ideals when developing the theory of motivation and pyramids.
Maslow's 5-step pyramid was and remains an achievement of that time. The scientist constantly improved the pyramid of needs. Works published in the 20th century “Psychology of Being” - 62g, and 71g “Far Limits of Nature”.
In his writings, Maslow's pyramid retained all the needs: the first four remained in their places, and the fifth moved to seventh place. Two stages of the pyramid have been added:
5 need, cognitive: know-be-able-research.
A person constantly strives to learn a lot of information from smart cognitive programs. He devotes a lot of time to reading. Skillfully applies his knowledge in practice.
6 need, aesthetic: harmony-order-beauty.
Visiting art exhibitions and museums develops in a person the harmony of beauty and inspiration about beauty.
Final thoughts. Examples
Maslow's pyramid has seven main steps. And according to scientist A. Maslow, the hierarchy of needs is not stable, as it seems at first. But the majority of humanity obeys the order of the pyramid of needs, depending on their abilities and motivation, as well as age.
People are divided into different categories, some will be able to neglect satisfying basic needs for the sake of their goal.
Examples:
- First he wants to become a rich businessman, and then arrange personal life in old age.
- For others, the priority is power and its triumph.
- Third category - enough respect and love in the family.
- Fourth – glad to have a piece of bread and a bowl of soup.
Subjects learned to satisfy their desires in accordance with the necessary needs.
Maslow's pyramid is a seven-level ladder that presents a simplified version of the idea of satisfying a human need and its successive steps.
Do you want to know what stage you are at? Find yourself on the steps of the pyramid; if you have not achieved your goal, rise higher by accepting the recommendations of the scientist.
Maslow’s pyramid of needs can be found in textbooks and read on websites. The pyramid reflects human needs. It brings benefits and teaches you to correctly accept desires and needs. The main thing depends on each person, on the purpose in life and the ability to think.
Introduction
Abraham Maslow was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1908. He studied psychology at the University of Wisconsin and became a Carnegie Fellow at the college that trained college teachers, then an adjunct professor of psychology at Brooklyn College. In the mid-thirties, he began work on what would become his life's work, Motivation and Personality, published in 1954. As Maslow himself writes, “I wanted to synthesize the holistic, dynamic and cultural approaches that were so popular among young psychologists of the time. I felt a deep interrelationship between these approaches and perceived them as separate aspects of a single all-encompassing whole" (Maslow, 1954, ix). Maslow began to prepare this synthesis in earnest: he studied Gestalt psychology with Karl Wertheimer and Kurt Koffka at the New School Social Studies and studied psychoanalysis, including from Erich Fromm. After becoming familiar with psychoanalysis, he continued his study of psychology under the guidance of Alfred Adler. He studied anthropology with Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead and participated in an expedition to study the Northern Blackfoot Indian tribe, one of the Algonquian tribes.
In 1943, he published two works: “A Preface to Motivation Theory” and “A Theory of Human Motivation”, where he formulated a positive theory of motivation, which he defined as "generalized dynamic". Between 1947 and 1949, Maslow left his academic career and formed the Maslow Cooperage Corporation, deciding to go into business for himself. However, he maintained his academic connections and continued to publish articles in scientific periodicals during this period. Returning to academia, he became first an associate professor, then a full professor and head of department at Brandeis University in Massachusetts. Maslow's later works acquire an increasingly utopian and even mystical character. Abraham Maslow died in 1970.
1. The essence of A. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory
Abraham Maslow's theory of hierarchy of needs, sometimes called Maslow's “pyramid” or “ladder,” is a fundamental theory recognized by management scholars around the world. In his theory, Maslow divided human needs into five main levels according to a hierarchical principle, which means that when satisfying his needs, a person moves like a ladder, moving from low level to a higher one (Fig. 1.1).
Figure 1.1 Hierarchy of needs (Maslow's pyramid)
According to Maslow, “Human needs are arranged in a hierarchy. In other words, the emergence of one need is usually preceded by the satisfaction of another, more pressing one. Man is an animal constantly experiencing desires of one sort or another” (Maslow, 1943, p. 370). Maslow identifies five sets of goals, which he calls basic needs. He includes: physiological needs, the need for security, the need for love, the need to satisfy self-esteem and, finally, the need for self-actualization. The hierarchical nature of these needs or goals means that “the dominant goal monopolizes consciousness and in a certain way stimulates and organizes the various abilities of the organism required to achieve it. Less pressing needs are minimized or even forgotten or denied” (Maslow, 1943, pp. 394–395). Maslow considers the basis of this hierarchy to be physiological needs and, above all, the need for food. Here's what he writes:
Without a doubt, physiological needs are the most vital of all needs. First of all, this means that for a human being who has nothing at all, the basis of motivation will be precisely physiological needs, and not something else. A person deprived of food, security, love and respect will naturally, first of all, strive to obtain food. A craving for writing poetry, a desire to buy a car, an interest in American history, the desire to buy new shoes in emergency cases is completely forgotten or becomes secondary. For a person experiencing strong feeling hunger, there is no other interest other than food. He dreams and thinks about her, he remembers her and strives to find her... Freedom, love, a sense of community, respectful attitude - they are all dismissed as tinsel, because they cannot fill the stomach. Truly such a person lives only by bread alone. (Maslow, 1943, pp. 373–374)
Maslow writes that in the United States and other developed societies such chronic acute hunger is a rare occurrence. However, he notes that people often mistake the presence of a healthy appetite for hunger.
Indeed, in developed societies such difficult living conditions and starvation can most likely be only a consequence of some emergency. Naturally, other physiological needs must also be satisfied, such as the need for air or water.
Maslow writes:
When there is no bread, a person really lives by bread alone. But what happens to a person's desires when he does not lack bread? Other (more “elevated”) needs immediately arise, which replace physiological needs and become dominant. When they find satisfaction, new (and again “more sublime”) needs arise, and so on. This is what we mean when we say that basic human needs form a hierarchy of relative dominance... Only unsatisfied needs are dominant for an organism and its behavior. If hunger is satisfied, the feeling of hunger loses its significance in the system of personality activity factors. (Maslow, 1943, p. 375)
If physiological needs are satisfied, then, according to Maslow, new needs will arise, in this case, security needs. He believes that “everything said about physiological needs can be - albeit to a slightly lesser extent - applied to desires of this kind. The body can only be covered by them. They can act as almost the only principles that determine behavior, subordinating all the abilities of the organism, which allows us in this case to imagine the organism as a mechanism striving to achieve safety” (Maslow, 1943, p. 376). Maslow illustrates his idea of the need for security by considering the desire for security in a child and the behavior of neurotic or almost neurotic adults, who in many cases behave in the same way as a child who does not feel safe. As with physiological needs, he believes that “the security needs of the healthy, normal, successful adult are sufficiently satisfied within our culture... as a result of which such needs do not play an active motivational role. Just as a well-fed person does not feel hunger, a person who is secure does not experience much anxiety in this sense” (Maslow, 1943, pp. 378–379). If both physiological needs and the need for safety are satisfied sufficiently, then, according to Maslow, the need for love, affection and a sense of belonging to a certain community of people arises, and the whole cycle described in relation to physiological needs and the need for safety repeats . Thus, “a person begins to feel especially acutely the absence of friends, lover, wife or children. He craves sensual relationships with other people, he tries to occupy a certain place in a certain group and actively strives to achieve this goal. He wants this more than anything in the world and usually completely forgets that at that time, when he was hungry, love made him smile” (Maslow, 1943, pp. 380–381). Unlike the need for security and physiological needs, the need for love, affection and belonging to a certain group of people is satisfied in modern society much harder. As Maslow points out, “the failure to satisfy these needs is usually the cause of all sorts of disorders and more serious mental pathologies” (Maslow, 1943, p. 381). And again, when these needs are sufficiently satisfied, needs of a different kind arise. Maslow writes:
All people in our society (with the exception of pathological cases) have a need for stable, solid (and usually high) self-esteem, self-esteem or self-esteem, which must be reinforced by respectful treatment from other people. By solid self-respect we understand the feeling that is caused by certain real achievements and the corresponding respectful attitude of others... Satisfaction of the need for self-esteem leads to the emergence of a feeling of self-confidence, dignity, a sense of one’s own strength, capacity, usefulness and necessity in this world. The impossibility of satisfying these needs results in the emergence of feelings of inferiority, weakness and helplessness. (Maslow, 1943, pp. 382–383)
Maslow considered self-realization, self-actualization to be the last and highest stage in the hierarchy of needs. If physiological needs and the needs for safety, love and respect are satisfied to a sufficient extent, “we can expect that a person will have (this does not always happen) a new need, unless he is already doing what he seems to be doing.” he is called. A musician must create music, an artist must paint pictures, a poet must write poetry, otherwise they will not feel happy people. A person must become what he can become. This need we call self-actualization... it consists of the desire to become more and more who you are, to become everything that is determined by your capacity for becoming” (Maslow, 1943, p. 382). Maslow readily agrees that this need can vary greatly from person to person. He again emphasizes that the prerequisite for the emergence of the need for self-actualization is the satisfaction of physiological needs, for safety, love and respect. He writes: “We have the right to call people who have satisfied the indicated needs [of the first four levels] “generally satisfied people”; and from this it follows that we can expect from them the most complete (and healthy) creativity. Since "generally satisfied people" are the exception in our society, we are not very familiar - both experimentally and clinically - with the phenomenon of self-actualization. Its study is a matter for the future” (Maslow, 1943, p. 385).
In today's publication I decided to combine the well-known Maslow's pyramid and personal finance. I will project Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs onto the financial sphere, tell you what financial aspects and characteristics correspond to each of its stages, and how to properly build your financial pyramid needs and why. I think it should be interesting, and most importantly, useful.
So, if anyone still doesn’t know what Maslow’s pyramid is in general, then I’ll briefly remind you. This is a stepwise representation of human needs in a hierarchy: from lower to higher, which was developed and proven by the American psychologist Abraham Maslow. Schematically, Maslow's pyramid is depicted as follows:
According to Maslow's theory, the hierarchy of human needs is as follows:
- The first level (lower) is physiological needs.
- The second level is security needs.
- The third level is the need for communication, involvement in society, social groups.
- The fourth level is the need for respect and social recognition.
- The fifth level (highest) is the need for self-realization.
Maslow proved that in the vast majority of cases a person satisfies his needs in this order, adhering to this hierarchy. That is, for example, until his physical needs are satisfied, he does not think about safety, until he is safe, he does not think about belonging to society, etc. Although, in in some cases, as with any rule, there may be exceptions, but in general this is true.
How to project all this onto personal finances? Very simple! Any of the steps of Maslow’s pyramid depends to one degree or another on, and often this dependence is generally almost one hundred percent. Let's take a closer look.
To satisfy his physiological needs, a person needs money. For money, he buys food, water, clothing, housing (own or rented). Please note that this is the lowest need, without satisfying which it is impossible to think about satisfying the next needs in the hierarchy. Therefore, initially, the first person should direct his financial resources here is to sufficiently and adequately satisfy physiological needs. Otherwise, he simply will not be able to fully satisfy higher needs.
Next in Maslow's pyramid are safety needs. How does personal finance fit into this? It’s also simple: in order to feel safe, a person modern world must have some kind of financial reserve. Because if he doesn’t exist, then under any force majeure he will not be able to find the necessary money and will find himself in a financial hole, which means that even the satisfaction of lower physiological needs will be at risk. Therefore, following Maslow's hierarchy of needs, secondly, a person should take care of creating financial and financial needs in order to feel relatively safe.
The next level of Maslow's pyramid is involvement in society, friendship, love, family. Is personal finance necessary here? Yes, we need them too! A person’s social circle very closely depends on his financial condition. And the higher and better it is, the more the path opens to satisfying the subsequent, higher steps of the pyramid. Is it possible to build a relationship, a family, without money? Even if yes, in some cases, it will most likely be a short-lived relationship. Because money still plays a very important role in the family. I once wrote an article and described this relationship. So when financial condition a person allows him to satisfy his physiological and security needs, he begins to “invest” finances in building relationships with society, relationships, and creating a family.
When these needs are satisfied, a person has a need for respect and recognition from society. In other words - in your activity of any kind - work, business, hobby, etc. Is personal finance necessary here? Undoubtedly! Any field of activity requires some kind of financial participation, without money you can’t go anywhere. But a person should think about this only when his lower needs in Maslow’s pyramid are satisfied.
And finally, the highest level of the pyramid is the need for self-realization. This is the acquisition of new aesthetic needs, the creation of a favorable environment for oneself, new and new successes, achievements, strengthening of moral qualities. All this can be combined into two words: personal growth. Is there a connection between personal growth and personal finance? Yes, it does too. All this in varying degrees requires financial costs. And a person begins to spend money in this direction when all the previous steps of Maslow’s pyramid have already been fully satisfied.
Why did I even make this comparison: Maslow’s pyramid and personal finance? So that now you look around, and perhaps at yourself, and see that many people live, let’s say, incorrectly in financially(this example is just one of the few that point to this).
What is this “wrongness”? The fact is that they mistakenly prioritize their list of needs and often “jump over the steps” of Maslow’s pyramid. That is, they strive to satisfy the highest needs (and, in a very dubious manner), at a time when their lowest ones are not even satisfied.
To make it clear, I will give a few examples.
Example 1. A person earns very little, he does not have enough money to eat well and buy quality clothes, he does not have his own home (lower physiological needs), and at the same time he buys the latest model iPhone, most likely also on credit (seeks to satisfy the need for respect and public recognition - you have an iPhone, which means it’s cool).
Example 2. Young people do not have a stable and good income, do not have housing or even the ability to rent it (physiological needs), do not have any financial assets (security needs), and at the same time start a family (social needs).
Example 3. A person who does not have a “penny to his name,” family, friends, work, income, public recognition (the 4 lowest steps of Maslow’s pyramid), dreams of becoming, say, a pop star, a great artist or poet (the highest level is self-realization).
I think it will be clearer with examples. Of course, I repeat that there are exceptions to any rule. And perhaps for someone who has similarly violated or is violating the hierarchy of needs of Maslow’s pyramid, everything will turn out well. But these are isolated exceptions that you shouldn’t count on too much.
Therefore, in conclusion, I urge everyone to adequately assess their needs and capabilities, follow the hierarchy proven by scientists and develop as nature intended. This is exactly what Maslow's pyramid represents. Therefore, learn to correctly see and understand your needs, and direct your personal finances to meet these needs thoughtfully and in order of priority, and not spontaneously and chaotically. Then you will have complete order in both self-development and finances.
In turn, the site will always help the development of your financial literacy. Stay with us and stay tuned for updates. See you in other posts!
Maslow's pyramid of needs is a visual representation of human needs in the form of a hierarchical pyramid. Based on the works of Abraham Harold Maslow, an American psychologist and founder of humanistic verse.
The main idea of Maslow's pyramid theory:
- Each stage is a level of need.
- A more increased need to be is lower, and a less pronounced need is higher.
- It is impossible to satisfy a higher need without satisfying, at least partially, the lower one.
- As needs are satisfied, desires—the needs of a person—shift to a level, step, higher.
Description of Maslow's pyramid:
- Physiology– base needs of the body aimed at its vital activity (hunger, sleep, sexual desire, etc.)
- Safety– the need to be sure that nothing threatens life.
- Sociality– the need for contact with others and one’s own role in society (friendship, love, belonging to a certain nationality, experiencing mutual feelings...)
- Confession– respect, recognition by society of his success, the usefulness of his role in the life of such a society.
- Cognition– satisfying a person’s natural curiosity (to know, prove, be able to and study...)
- Aesthetics– internal need and motivation to follow the truth (a subjective concept of how everything should be).
- I– the need for self-realization, self-actualization, the highest mission of one’s existence, spiritual need, the highest role of a person in humanity, understanding one’s meaning of existence... (the list is very large - Maslow’s pyramid of needs - is often used by many people and “spiritual” organizations, with different systems worldviews and the elite put their highest concept of the meaning of human existence).
Important Note. It is very easy to characterize the most basic need, and just as easy to satisfy it. After all, anyone can answer what to do to make a person well-fed. But as the height of the position increases, it becomes more and more difficult to answer what is needed to satisfy this particular need. For example, on step 4: recognition– some people only need to win the respect of their parents, while others crave public fame. There will no longer be a universal answer for everyone.
Controversial, disadvantages of the pyramid of needs
Firstly, myself I didn't invent the pyramid Mr. Abraham Maslow, and marketing companies that train their employees to increase sales. Maslow himself devoted half his life to the study of human needs. It turns out that this is - a primitive diagram of his works.
She can't stand it constructive criticism. For example, a person fasting (religious fasting) contradicts its concept.
This is a theory, and not an axiom - theories must be proven; proving the pyramid of needs is quite difficult. How to prove - if there is no specific universal tool for every person - "consumer meter"(how to measure the strength of a need?).
Positive aspects of Maslow's pyramid
She is very popular– studied everywhere in universities. It is used both in production - for personnel (even for organizing an employee’s workplace), in trade (searching for supply and demand), in trainings...
She is simple and concise– it is used in the absence of a more convenient theory of needs.
It's universal– suitable for different social organizations.
She's like a prototype– its revised “improved” versions are often found in various psychological concepts.
The history of the creation of Maslow's pyramid of needs. Conjectural thought
In general, I was looking at the pyramid - I had the feeling that this had already been seen somewhere.
A. Maslow himself mentioned that the transition from one need to another is a person’s life (by the age of 50 to the 7th step), but, in my opinion, it is still simpler:
Stages 1 and 2 (physiology and safety): these are the first years of the baby - all his needs are limited to food and the presence of his mother.
Stages 3 and 4 (social needs and recognition): the child has already grown up - he attracts all attention to himself; wants to be taken into account.
Stage 5 (cognition): period of “why”.
Stage 6 (aesthetics): adolescence - understanding what is good and what is bad.
Stage 7 (I - self-actualization): adolescence - maximalism, search - why I live.
P.S. I wanted to experimentally confirm this theory using the example of search queries from Yandex and Google. The idea itself: the higher the level (and the corresponding request), the less they look for it. The idea was partly a success (for example, the word [God] is searched for 1,000 times less than - [piiii...], cut out by censorship), but the problem arose in the objectivity of the evidence.
Maslow first introduced his concept of the hierarchy of needs in his 1943 paper “A Theory of Human Motivation” and in his subsequent book “Motivation and Personality.” This hierarchy suggests that people are motivated to fulfill basic needs before moving on to other, more advanced needs.
While some of the existing schools of human personality (psychoanalysis and behaviorism) tended to focus on problem behavior, Maslow was much more interested in studying what makes people happy and what they do to achieve this goal.
As a humanist, Maslow believed that people have an innate desire to be self-actualized, that is, to be all that they can be. However, to achieve these ultimate goals, a number of more basic needs must be satisfied, such as the need for food, security, love and self-esteem.
There are five different levels of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Let's take a closer look at Maslow's needs, starting from the lowest level, which are known as physiological needs.
From basic to more complex needs
Maslow's hierarchy is most often depicted as a pyramid. The lowest levels of the pyramid consist of the most basic needs, while the most complex needs are at the top of the pyramid.
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Pyramid The needs at the bottom of the pyramid are the basic physical requirements, including the need for food, water, sleep and warmth. Once these lower level needs are satisfied, people can move on to the next level of safety and security needs.
As people move up the pyramid, needs become more psychological and social. Soon the need for love, friendship and intimacy becomes important. Further up the pyramid, the need for personal dignity and a sense of accomplishment take priority.
Like Carl Rogers, Maslow emphasized the importance of self-actualization, which is the process of growing and developing as an individual to achieve individual potential.
Deficiency needs and growth needs
Maslow believed that these needs are similar to instincts and play a major role in motivating behavior. Physiological, safety, social security and esteem needs are deficit needs that arise due to deprivation Deprivation (Latin deprivatio - loss, deprivation) - reduction or complete deprivation of the ability to satisfy basic needs - psychophysiological or social.. Satisfying these lower level needs is important in order to avoid discomfort or consequences.
Maslow named the most high level pyramids with growth needs. These needs do not stem from a lack of something, but rather from a desire to grow as a person.
Although the theory is usually portrayed as a fairly rigid hierarchy, Maslow noted that the order in which these needs are fulfilled does not always follow this standard progression. For example, he noted that for some people the need for self-esteem is more important than the need for love. For others, the need for creative fulfillment can crowd out even the most basic needs.
Physiological needs
Basic physiological needs are probably pretty obvious - these are things that are vital to our survival. Some examples of physiological needs include:
- Breath
- Homeostasis
In addition to the basic requirements of food, air and temperature regulation, physiological needs also include things such as shelter and clothing. Maslow also included sexual reproduction at this level of the hierarchy of needs because it is essential for the survival and spread of the species.
Safety and security needs
As you move into the second level of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the requirements begin to become a little more complex. At this level, safety and security needs become a priority. People want control and order in their lives, so this need for safety and security greatly contributes to behavior at this level.
Some of the basic security needs include:
- Financial support
- Health and wellness
- Safety from accidents and injuries
Job search, getting health insurance And medical care, depositing money into a Savings Account, and moving to a safer area are all examples of actions motivated by safety and security needs.
Together, the safety and physiological levels of the hierarchy constitute what is often called basic needs.
Social needs
Social needs in Maslow's hierarchy include things like love, acceptance and belonging. At this level, the need for emotional relationships determines human behavior. Some of the things that satisfy this need include:
- Friendly contacts
- Romantic attachments
- Family
- Social groups
- Community Groups
- Churches and religious organizations
To avoid problems such as loneliness, depression and anxiety, it is important that people feel loved and accepted by others. Personal relationships with friends, family, and lovers play an important role, as does participation in other groups, which may include religious groups, sports teams, book clubs, and other group activities.
Need for respect
The fourth level in Maslow's hierarchy is the need for appreciation and respect. When the needs at the lower three levels are satisfied, respect begins to play a more prominent role in motivating behavior.
On at this stage It becomes increasingly important to earn the respect and appreciation of others. People have a need to achieve something and then have their efforts recognized.
In addition to the need for a sense of accomplishment and prestige, esteem needs include such things as self-esteem and personal worth. People need to feel valued by others and feel like they are making a contribution to the world. Participation in professional activity, academic achievement, sports or team participation, and personal hobbies may play a role in satisfying esteem needs.
People who are able to satisfy their esteem needs by achieving good self-esteem and recognition from others tend to feel confident in their abilities. Those who lack self-esteem and respect for others may develop feelings of inferiority.
Together, respect and social levels constitute what is known as psychological needs of hierarchy.
Needs for self-realization
At the very top of Maslow's hierarchy are the needs for self-actualization. “What a person can be, he must be,” Maslow explained, referring to the need for people to achieve their full potential as human beings.
According to Maslow's definition of self-actualization:
“It can be roughly described as full use talents, abilities, opportunities, etc. Such people seem to realize themselves and do the best that they are capable of doing... These are people who have developed or are developing to the level of which they are capable.”
Self-actualizing people are self-aware, care about personal growth, care less about the opinions of others and are interested in realizing their potential.
Critique of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
Maslow's theory has become wildly popular both within and outside of psychology. The theory has been particularly affected by the fields of education and business. Despite its popularity, Maslow's concept was not without criticism.
The main ones:
Needs do not necessarily follow a hierarchy
Although some studies have shown some support for Maslow's theories, most studies have failed to substantiate the idea of a hierarchy of needs. Wahba and Bridgewell reported that there was little evidence of Maslow's ranking of needs and even less evidence that these needs were in a hierarchical order.
The theory is difficult to test
Other critics of Maslow's theory have noted that his definition of self-actualization is difficult to test scientifically. His research on self-actualization was also based on a very limited sample of people, including people he knew, as well as biographies famous people, whom Maslow considered self-actualized.
So why was Maslow's hierarchy of needs so influential?
Regardless of these criticisms, Maslow's hierarchy of needs represents part of an important shift in psychology. Rather than focusing on abnormal behavior and development, Maslow's humanistic psychology focused on the development of healthy individuals.
Although there has been relatively little research to support the theory, the hierarchy of needs is well known and popular both within and outside of psychology. In a study published in 2011, researchers at the University of Illinois set out to test the hierarchy.
They found that although need satisfaction was closely related to happiness, people from various cultures around the world reported that self-actualization and social needs were important even when many of the most basic needs were not met.
Such results indicate that although these needs can be powerful motivators of human behavior, they do not necessarily take the hierarchical form described by Maslow.
Sources: ☰
All materials are for informational purposes only.
