Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (and similar theories)
How accurate is the idea of a hierarchy of needs to the human condition? Is it fluff, baseless, and too folksy to be a sound theory, or is there a correlation with a hierarchy of needs to human "happiness", "eudaimonia", or otherwise? For those who don't know the theory- here is a brief synopsis from the great Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs
Here is the usual graphical pyramid:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs#/media/File:MaslowsHierarchyOfNeeds.svg
If you don't agree with Maslow's hierarchy, is it
a) trying to make a hierarchy that is the problem
b) trying to make a list of basic and more complex needs that is a problem
c) the attempt to do either is the problem
d) the human condition is too complex for anything this basic and unscientific
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs
Here is the usual graphical pyramid:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs#/media/File:MaslowsHierarchyOfNeeds.svg
If you don't agree with Maslow's hierarchy, is it
a) trying to make a hierarchy that is the problem
b) trying to make a list of basic and more complex needs that is a problem
c) the attempt to do either is the problem
d) the human condition is too complex for anything this basic and unscientific
Comments (66)
My criticism would be that some of the stacks might be arbitrary. For example, someone could be a hermit up in the mountains and not need love. They might be totally okay with this not being a part of their life, and still have high esteem and self-actualization. I'm not sure if we can divide these feelings like this.
But I do think we can divide negative and positive experiences, and I do think that the positive experiences are contingent upon the control over negative experiences.
That's my two pesos.
If what Maslow was saying is that we tend to strive towards fulfillment, most people would probably agree with him. I know a few people who seem to prefer self destruction, but they are outliers. If he was saying we have many needs, few would disagree with him. The Hierarchy is an illustration -- it isn't a school of thought.
That's my two pfennigs.
Also, Schop, I'd like to add, the human condition is not a scientific concept. It's a philosophical one, and psychology has a history of being a bridge between strict science and strict philosophy.
Spot on! Maslow's "therapy" attempts to walk man on a ladder, from obtaining the "lower" needs to obtaining the "higher" needs, which he sees as progressing naturally from the lower ones. However - Maslow fails to realise that obtaining the lower needs presupposes higher needs which are already fulfilled. For example, it's very hard to obtain "love/belonging" if one suffers from anxiety and cannot exit the house. But on the other hand - if one had the higher needs fulfilled - then by default, even if circumstances were such that one couldn't obtain love/belonging, one wouldn't despair.
The needs are vague and ill-defined so it has remarkable applicability. The hierarchy becomes a bit fuzzy especially when the fulfillment of needs intersect (e.g., the care of a mother for a child). I would guess that there is evidence that the fulfillment of these needs in the order offered by Maslow leads to greater well-being for individuals in a society (e.g., mouse-models). It probably also has some applicability in policy-making by governments.
Wiki seems to argue that when surveyed people in different cultures identify two sorts of need, but the sorting varies according to the culture. That seems an odd idea, but I think I tend to assume two sorts of need: some kind of Cartesian division in me, whatever my theories :)
An interesting case-study for this would be in cases where meeting needs becomes a challenge (e.g., after natural disasters). The hierarchy of needs might be played out in such cases as you see people begin to rebuild.
According to Wikipedia, Maslow didn't create the pyramid - or any other graphic representation of needs. An illustrator at a textbook publishing company is most likely responsible. "Maslow described human needs as ordered in a prepotent hierarchy—a pressing need would need to be mostly satisfied before someone would give their attention to the next highest need." The pyramid "may give the impression that the Hierarchy of Needs is a fixed and rigid sequence of progression. Yet, starting with the first publication of his theory in 1943, Maslow described human needs as being relatively fluid—with many needs being present in a person simultaneously."
The 'hierarchy of need" was but one of several profession topics in psychology which Abraham Maslow pursued.
Anyone here want to fess up to being fully self-actualized?
Nah. Slugs and snails and puppy-dog tails; that's what little philosophers are made of. Even when all our basic needs are all met we're still assholes.
Imagine one day walking across the road to your Rolls Royce to go to lunch at a fancy restaurant . Someone come up behind you and holds a gun to your head and asks for your wallet, watch and phone. What do you do? Continue to think about lunch or worry about your car getting scratched? You do neither, you give him what he wants because survival is the first thing on the list of needs.
You would also stop being generous with handouts if you lost your job and lose your pride if you had to beg to eat.
Of course we see examples of people doing the exact opposite of what would be sensible according to Maslow, but there are several other theories that can explain them.
1) Schopenhauer- for the pessimistic inclining crowd and those who tend to want to abolish the need for need
2) Nietzsche/Camus for the take it like a man crowd and who want to incorporate suffering or that which one usually finds bad as a "good" (overcoming suffering)
But I am sure that an existential therapist or humanist therapist would try to work with a patient in therapy to achieve goals relating to unmet needs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existential_therapy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanistic_psychology
I also wonder if this hierarchy is only applicable in a Westernized context or is cross-cultural. Would one say a Bushman can be self-actualized? Do traditional societies try to meet these needs in different ways or does this hierarchy not apply to non-Western societies?
The needs of each society are different so that it would be the same for the individuals that make up that society. If you check out the list above, I believe you will find that it applies to bushmen, samurai, Cossacks London taxi drivers.
Popper argued that a government should operate under the negative utilitarian approach, that is, an anti-frustrationist, prioritarian method. Smart later argued that if this was adopted worldwide, this would lead to the extermination of all life. But realize that this was only meant to apply to the government's modus operandi, not the rest of life.
No, not remotely. That sounds like a god, not a real human. Are there such people? That sounds positively transcendent. I mean, we can all be some of those things some of the time. And some people more than others. But all of that all of the time?
*Grudgingly raises hand*
The idea that people do actually reach these levels is kind of funny. But you have to remember that these are ideals that people are supposed to strive for not automatic step ups from lower levels.
No one could really think of being honest or truthful when their family is dying of hunger and it is very rare to find people living in the street that are making plans to start a family.
Interesting - but I would disagree with Maslow that all those have to be treated as "needs", even if they may be perceived as being needs at first.
Hey I like Maslow. I used to edit the Australian Transpersonal Psychology Association newsletter, decades ago (a very modest affair, I hasten to add). Maslow was one of the poster boys of that movement. It got hijacked by Ken Wilber into 'integral theory' and also by the Positive Psychology movement, but I really liked 'transpersonal psychology' back in the day.
If a human became god, they would only strive to become mortal again
I've heard of cases like that. Maybe transcendence loops back to (basic) physiological needs. Torus universe.
What I have found on psychology courses is that they focus often on the lower scale of needs. Maslow was saying that the basis for moving on to the higher needs is on the lower ones are fulfilled. However, if you read his writings he is emphasising the importance of peak experiences. When I mentioned this on in a class related to once the tutor seemed puzzled and I think that she probably had not read Maslow's writings at all.
In particular, Roper developed a model of nursing care and activities of living linking it to the basis Maslow's hierarchy. That may have influenced the way many have understood Maslow's hierarchy, although I am sure that the philosophical consideration of his ideas involves a holistic approach in emphasising the full spectrum of human needs.
When I read Maslow, it was in the context of exploring different models of childhood development. In that dynamic, the minimum conditions for an experience was related to theories of Vygotsky, Piaget, and such. The first problem was how the matter could be pursued as a movement from incapacity to assured ability. A hierarchy militates against a model of behavior without any.
So, how to look for something without presuming one has found it already.
That made me laugh. For years I used an inverted version of Bloom's taxonomy for much the same reason:
I have no idea. I was surprised to see "pfennig" in my post -- its a word I don't think I've used more than twice or thrice. That was 6 years ago. I am quite sure I haven't used the word since.
[quote=some dude]You're too hungry to understand.[/quote]
Overheard: I'm too tired to care.
Of course one can aggravate the situation by rubbing salt on someone's wound, adding insult to injury, opening old wounds and so on.
Does that answer your question?
Maslow's pyramid represents what I call human engineering. It uses rational methods to label and characterize human feelings and behavior. Another such method that comes to mind is the Myers-Briggs personality test. IQ testing probably falls into that category too. These sorts of methods wash out any human variability and treat people like standardized parts. As you can tell from what I've said, I don't like them and I think they can be misleading. Many people disagree with me.
As for the Maslow pyramid itself, sure, there's some truth in it, at least at lower levels. As you move higher it gets a bit new agey for me. Mostly, I think it's trivial. I don't think it has much use. Human reality is more complicated than that.
I left this out - It's a method for use managing personnel, employees, human resources, human capital. It's for HR managers. It's not psychology.
They have an app for that: Industrial Psychology.
Life is the sickness unto death. Desire is the root of suffering. Self-abnegation is the path to enlightenment.
So say a hell of lot more people than Maslow.
Random article by way of amusement not recommendation.
e) It's been made into a normative to live up to and a means for judging people severely if they fail.
Just another way for the Man to subjugate the slack-jawed troglodytes.
Quoting DA671
The physiological needs (food, water, oxygen, clothing, shelter, sleep) are non-negotiable demands. Yes, they can be put off (in the case of oxygen, maybe a minute or two), but not for too long. Starvation, dehydration, exposure (to either high or low temps) will kill you. Physiological satisfaction is the sine qua non for the "higher" needs.
Anyway, I just don't get why they are "negative". Fulfilling the physiological needs tends to be highly satisfying. Eating, drinking, breathing...
Maslow published his book on motivation in 1943, so he, at least, wasn't being too new agey.
Shirley, you don't deny that there are higher needs for love, esteem, and self-actualization?
Harry Harlow, UW-Madison, was Maslow's PhD advisor. Harlow experimented with rhesus monkeys to show that maternal warmth (or even a crude substitute) was critical for primate development. Without it, the infant monkeys failed to thrive. Human infants have similar (but more complex, extensive) requirements. A tragic demonstration of this principle were neglected infants in Romanian orphanages who had received the minimum necessary care but were otherwise untouched, uncared for. Their development was very poor, if they survived at all.
Point is, the higher needs are developmental requirements too, not just features of adult human motivation.
Love, belonging, esteem, and self-actualization are highly motivating.
Quoting T Clark
It's "engineering" because humans are more alike than we are different. We can generalize about people, expect certain behaviors and reactions, see patterns, etc. because we are members of the same species and have the same machinery. We are not all fundamentally different and unique. (We are not fragile "snowflakes".)
Good inclusion to the mater.
In opposition to the theories of motivation, there was the view of Behaviorism, of the Pavlovion sort, that focused upon producing experiences through control of conditions rather than finding the structure of an individual's desire.
As you note in your post, children need to learn early that the world is something they can trust. That it can provide security. That they are welcome in the world. I think that once that's set, people have the resources they need to make their own lives what they want. And no, I'm not going to take a swing at your ham-handed set up shot.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I have used this study here in the forum as an illustration of what is called "good enough parenting." You don't have to be John or Olivia Walton, just do the best you can.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I call it "engineering" because it's used as part of a standardized system used to get people to do what you want without necessarily having to know or understand them.
Maslow's Hierarchy of needs does all that? Maslow's aim was to demonstrate that people are motivated to achieve certain needs and that some needs take precedence over others.
Just guessing, but I'm sure Maslow wasn't the first person to think that we had needs that needed to be met, and that intellectual fulfillment was a bit more complicated than sexual satisfaction. But, as you say, psychologists can be some sort of industrial engineer.
I generally loathe personnel, human resources, human capital, or HR managers and their corporate function. The acquisition and enjoyment of love, esteem, belonging, and self-actualization has nothing to do with Human Resources Departments. They are there to feed the machine.
Of course, these loathsome lizards (apologies to actual lizards) would be trained as psychologists. Their utilization of this or that piece of psychology doesn't "retroactively contaminate" the field.
I haven't read any Maslow since I was a psych major 50 years ago. All that anyone remembers is the pyramid, which is a cartoon. It's the kind of thing that leads to everyone getting a trophy at the soccer tournament. "Esteem." Just the sound of it sends shivers up my spine.
Pavlov, Skinner, et al.
B. F. Skinner put the best possible face on behaviorism in his novel, Walden Two.
"Psychology" can be very annoying. Students thereof fail to integrate multiple theories. People learn, and learning can be studied. Classical conditioning and operant conditioning are the two main schools of thought. Then there are personality theories, like Maslow, and a two dozen others. Clinical psychology studies abnormal states, like OCD.
Bits and pieces of these various theories contain "truth". Even some of Freud's laborious flights of fancy. All sorts of mechanisms are operating at the same time -- motivation, operant learning, striving for self-actualization, egos and unconscious urges, and (usually at least some) just plain craziness.
)Quoting T Clark
Full disclosure: I didn't read any Maslow 50 years ago. I read a little of him more recently. I don't really like reading any of the major psychologists. Maybe I never did. I've liked some sociologists better. And people like Oliver Sacks.
There have been unsightly squabbles by religious conservatives and school districts over schools promoting "self-esteem" in students, as if that were tantamount to teaching students to be transgendered communists or unusually perverted homosexual atheists.
The trouble is that "esteem" isn't something that can be taught as part of the curriculum. On this matter, the schools are well intentioned and the conservatives are hung up.
People do not (and should not) need to be bubbling over with high self esteem all the time. Once in a while, after some actual achievement, is often enough. Real opportunities to feel good about one's self normally happen in real life. They don't need to be engineered. (Well, maybe in therapeutic settings; something that 99.9% of schools are not.
It's much easier to construct environments (home, community, school) that offer few if any opportunities to feel good about one's self. People don't (usually) set out to create these negative environments. They develop because some people can be hard-hearted sons of bitches, hateful bastards, and depraved, dysfunctional people. Most people aren't, but some are. Some of them are religious conservatives, and some of them run schools, governments, churches (!), and other institutions.
It is difficult to sort out these various models. How they get used to promote different policies makes them a player in a way that does not answer the problem of experience they are supposed to make more understandable.
For example, Maslow is a 'behaviorist' in wanting to base a model of personal development by observing behavior. That is different from relying upon reports of experience to investigate the phenomena. Vygostky is important because he discussed the limits of 'self-reporting' as a limit to empiricism rather than make the observation an element of his model.
In that sense, the difference between the 'psychoanalyst' method of interviewing people and finding some other way to investigate personal experience has been the difficulty since a certain set of medical doctors looked at their patients and wondered what the hell was going on with them.
In my experience, self-esteem comes from taking responsibility for your own life and actions. There's no shortcut.
Oh, I see. A normal/optimal physiological state (breathing, drinking, and feeding, etc. well) is a need. Compare this to the fact that self-actualization (tip of the pyramid) isn't one. First order of business is to fulfill one's needs (physiological), only then can we move on to our wants (self-actualization). That's why I gave physiological normalcy a negative valence. It's kinda like a debt one owes to oneself. Once that's settled, we can think of other things.
I suppose one could say that "self-actualization" isn't a need in the same sense as oxygen or food is a need. One may be very unhappy without self-actualization, but one won't drop dead from its absence.
"You" can live without self-actualization; "for me" it's essential.
You've hit the nail on the head as far as I'n concerned.
I'd like to share an analogy. Imagine you want to put a sculpture in your garden. You've picked a spot but there's a hole exactly where you want the sculpture to stand.
Your first task: Fill the hole with earth so that it's level with the rest of your garden. Physiological needs are like that hole. Negative valence (you're in the red).
Second on your to-do list: Install the sculpture (make aure you assign this to someone who knows what he's doing). Self-actualization is the sculpture. Positive valence (you're safe, well-fed, etc. and only then can you self-actualize).
So, "self-actualization" isn't going to look the same for everyone, and for an individual won't be the same throughout life. I have had periods of really good self-actualization, and periods which were barren. This seems to be true for most people. A couple of big peaks were in work settings, a few minor peaks were in interpersonal relationships. The present time, particularly the last 10 years (after age 65, basically) has been an extended period of self-actualization.
Most of the time we are not experiencing peaks of self-actualization. Most of the time we are on a plateau, and while there are peaks, there also deep ditches of despair.
How about you: what are your best self-actualizing experiences?
The sentence "You" can live without self-actualization; "for me" it's essential." was not to be taken as specifically applicable to you. I was just observing that other people's actualization tends to be less interesting than our own.
:up: Count yourself lucky. Many are still struggling with poverty.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I'm afraid I don't know what my personal, very own, self-actualization is. I suspect Maslow used a very general term (self-actualization) as an acknowledgement of different strokes for different folks. I envy people who know exactly what they want. Below is a transcript from a TikTok video.
Question: What do you want in life?
Answer: Money.
Question: Yes, but what is the essence of your life?
Answer: Money.
Question: Ok, let's set money aside for the moment. What is the meaning of your life?
Answer:. The money that you set aside.
:smile:
Come to think of it I find it quite odd that even those for whom physiological needs are of little concern because they're affluent end up simply, what I would call, upgrading their physiological needs i.e. instead of a simple meal, they chow down on haute cuisine. instead of cheap clothes, it's Armani, instead of a hut, it's a mansion, and so on. Self-actualization then is nothing more than buying more expensive food, clothes, houses, etc. You see what I mean?
In Maslow's theory of motivation, gratification of basic needs is not isolated from the cognitive activity necessary for a healthy organism. While the aesthetic element of eating can be a source of gratification, the restless nature of the organism's intellect is key for experiencing an "actualization." In that vein, Maslow observes:
There follows a long paragraph discussing how this characteristic has psychopathological or neurotic outcomes. And then he says:
This example suggests that satisfying 'higher' needs becomes more personal and various in their expressions but the dynamic of what makes them healthy or sick is the same for all humans.
:ok: I'm watching this video series on the history of mathematics and according to it the 17[sup]th[/sup] & 18[sup]th[/sup] centuries were characterized by mathematicians seeking wealthy patrons (rich noblemen & royalty); a symbiotic relationship exemplified by the Bernouilli-L'Hôpital rule (calculus). Self-actualization vicariously achieved much like how the super-rich in present times finance research (Bill Gates Foundation for example).
So parasitism?
No, I don't think so. Both parties benefit. The poor intellectual's basic physiological needs + more are met with the help of a rich patron who, in turn, gains bragging rights for his contribution to STEM.