The original version of the Hierarchy of Needs was published by Abraham Maslow in
1943. He believed that people seek fulfilment and change through personal growth.
He studied the healthy personality. Unlike Sigmund Freud, he was not interested in
the sick mind but in the fulfilment of human potential. He characterised the human
condition as one of ‘wanting’ – meaning we are always seeking and desiring something.
Maslow conceptualised these wantings or needs into a hierarchy.
The Hierarchy is predetermined in order of importance. It is often depicted as a
pyramid consisting of 5 levels. The lower four layers of the pyramid are what Maslow
called ‘deficiency needs’ or ‘D-needs’. With the exception of the lowest needs -
physiological ones - if the deficiency needs are not met, the body gives no indication
of it physically but the individual feels anxious and tense. These deficiency needs
are: Physiological, Safety & Security, Love & Belonging, and Esteem.
Deficiency needs must be met first. Once these are met, seeking to satisfy growth
needs drives personal growth and Self-Actualisation.
to do with people's yearning for a predictable, orderly world in which injustice
and inconsistency are under control, the familiar frequent and the unfamiliar rare.
In the world of work, these safety needs manifest themselves in such things as a
preference for job security, grievance procedures for protecting the individual from
unilateral authority, savings accounts, insurance policies, and the like.
For the most part, physiological and safety needs are reasonably well satisfied in
the ‘First World’. The obvious exceptions, of course, are people outside the mainstream
— the poor and the disadvantaged. If frustration has not led to apathy and weakness,
such people still struggle to satisfy the basic physiological and safety needs. They
are primarily concerned with survival: obtaining adequate food, clothing, shelter,
and seeking justice from the dominant societal groups.
Safety & Security needs include:
- Personal security from crime
- Financial security
- Health and well-being
- Safety net against accidents/illness and the adverse impacts
Social Needs
After physiological and safety needs are fulfilled, the third layer of human needs
is social. This psychological aspect of Maslow's hierarchy involves emotionally-based
relationships in general, such as:
- having a supportive and communicative family
Humans need to feel a sense of belonging and acceptance, whether it comes from a
large social group, such as clubs, office culture, religious groups, professional
organisations, sports teams, gangs (‘safety in numbers’), or small social connections
(family members, intimate partners, mentors, close colleagues, confidants). They
need to love and be loved (sexually and non-sexually) by others. In the absence of
these elements, many people become susceptible to loneliness, social anxiety, and
Clinical Depression. This need for belonging can often overcome the physiological
and security needs, depending on the strength of the peer pressure; an anorexic,
for example, ignores the need to eat and the security of health for a feeling of
control and belonging.
Esteem Needs
All humans have a need to be respected, to have self-esteem, self-respect, and to
respect others. People need to engage themselves to gain recognition and have an
activity or activities that give the person a sense of contribution, to feel accepted
and self-valued, be it in a profession or hobby. Imbalances at this level can result
in low self-esteem or an inferiority complex. People with low self-esteem need respect
from others. They may seek fame or glory, which again depends on others. It may be
noted, however, that many people with low self-esteem will not be able to improve
their view of themselves simply by receiving fame, respect, and glory externally,
but must first accept themselves internally. Psychological imbalances such as Depression
can also prevent one from obtaining self-esteem on both levels.
Self-Actualisation
The motivation to realize one's own maximum potential and possibilities is considered
to be the master motive or the only real motive, all other motives being its various
forms. In Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, the need for Self-Actualisation is the final
need that manifests when lower level needs have been satisfied.
The
revised Hierarchy of Needs
Throughout his work in the 1950s and 1960s Maslow explored aspects of Self-Actualisation
and growth needs or ‘being needs’ (‘B-needs’). By 1956 he was writing definitively
of Self-Actualisation as being a way of thinking - a move beyond ‘maximum potential
and possibilities’.
In 1970 he formally revised the Hierarchy, splitting off two lower-level growth needs
prior to the general level of Self-Actualisation.
Cognitive Needs
These are concerned with knowing, understanding and exploring.
Aesthetic Needs
This is the desire to appreciate symmetry, beauty and order.
In his last work, published posthumously in 1971, Maslow, who had become involved
in the development of Transpersonal Psychology, proposed that some self-actualisers
were able to transcend their own self and experience something beyond – effectively
creating two qualities of Self-Actualisation – the higher level he dubbed ‘Self-Transcendence’.
Self-Transcendence
"[Transcenders] may be said to be much more often aware of the realm of Being (B-realm
and B-cognition), to be living at the level of Being… to have unitive consciousness
and ‘plateau experience’ … and to have or to have had peak experience (mystic, sacral,
ecstatic) with illuminations or insights. Analysis of reality or cognitions which
changed their view of the world and of themselves, perhaps occasionally, perhaps
as a usual thing.”
’The Further Reaches of Humanity’ (Maslow, 1971)
Clare W Graves, who originally tried to map his own research to the Hierarchy, claimed
(1971/2002) to have influenced Maslow’s acceptance of there being something beyond
Self-Actualisation.
(Self-Actualisation corresponds to Graves’ G-T level while H-U is effectively Transcendence.)
Maslow did not explicitly state that Self-Transcendence is a level on the Hierarchy;
but his differentiation between self-actualisers and transcenders clearly implies
it. Thus, Maslow, in the end, had an 8-level model and a number of psychologists
and researchers in the Maslowian tradition - eg: Henry Gleitman, Alan Fridlund &
Daniel Reisberg (1999) - have treated the Hierarchy as an 8-Level model.
Criticisms
& Evaluation
Maslow's theory was regarded as a major improvement over previous theories of personality
and motivation and it has been highly influential throughout much of the second half
of the 20th Century. Particularly it has been applied to the field of Organisational
Psychology in an attempt to understand what motivates people to work (apart from
money) and what gives satisfaction at work. The Hierarchy of Needs is arguably the
most used psychological model outside of academia, being used in counsellling, business,
marketing, etc, etc
Unfortunately most people working with the Hierarchy tend to use just the original
5-level version. The 1970 7-level version is often overlooked and Maslow’s concept
of Transcendence is usually ignored except by those devoted to Maslow’s work and
those interested in Spiral Dynamics and/or various schools of Transpersonal Psychology.
However, the theory has had its detractors. It is said to oversimplify human needs
and behaviour. The 4 D-needs may not always have to be fully satisfied before someone
is able to self-actualise. If this is so, then it raises queries about what level
of satisfaction is needed before someone can move up to the next level. Also, what
about the possibility someone may be satisfying different levels of need at the same
time? Maslow (1970) did concede that not everybody will proceed up the Hierarchy
in exactly the same way.
Maslow did not adopt a rigorous, scientific approach to developing his concepts but
built his ideas from studying his mentor, Max Wertheimer, as the epitome of Self-Actualisation
and then finding others - such as Albert Einstein - who seemed to possess similar
qualities to Wertheimer. He also studied historical figures such as Abraham Lincoln
and Ludwig van Beethoven. He then considered the forces (D-needs) which would prevent
Self-Actualisation.
In their extensive review of research related Maslow's theory, A Wahba & L Bridgewell
(1976) found little evidence for the ranking of needs Maslow described, or even for
the existence of a definite hierarchy at all. However, Graves’ model, which has similar
levels to Maslow and very much supports the idea of a hierarchy, was grounded in
nearly 30 years of near-continuous research. A number of other developmentalists
– most notably Jane Loevinger (1976)- have also come up with similar hierarchies
of levels. (See Comparison Map.)
The Hierarchy of Needs has also been attacked as having cultural bias, representing
white, middle class North American values.
Chilean economist and philosopher Manfred Max Neef (1992) has argued fundamental
human needs are non-hierarchical, and are ontologically universal and invariant in
nature - part of the condition of being human; poverty, he argues, is the result
of any one of these needs being frustrated, denied or unfulfilled.
Maslow has also been criticised for concentrating on healthy people and not taking
into account those with psychological disorders.
Graves himself, by the time of his aborted book in 1978 - the book was completed
by Chris Cowan & Natasha Todorovic and published in 2005 - had developed a number
of criticisms of Maslow’s Hierarchy. Those criticisms are first and foremost reflected
in simple fact of the differences in stages between the 2 models. Then there is the
fact that Maslow simply identifies needs and the motivation to meet those needs,
not the psychological means - vMEMES - to change and act so the needs can be met.
Nor did Maslow capture the cyclical nature of the Spiral, cycling between self-expression
and sacrifice self to conform. Since Graves did conduct extensive scientific research,
where there are differences between Graves and Maslow, it is much more likely that
Graves is correct.
Don Beck (2009) has been at pains to stress the criticality of the Life Conditions
(internal or external) to the level of complexity of thinking activated or dominating.
In other words, the context will influence the vMEMES (or levels of thinking) at
work. So different levels will be prominent in different contexts. This concept at
least partly negates the criticisms around hierarchy put forward by the likes of
Neef and Wahba & Bridgewell.
The Hierarchy of Needs was very much Graves’ starting point and Maslow established
many of the principles which are recognised in the Graves Model and
Spiral Dynamics. Maslow’s needs can be looked up on as driving vMEMES, relative to
what the Life Conditions are.
