Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

By Khan

Key word; Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Needs vs. Wants, Maslow's and Alderfer's Hierarchies, Self-actualization:

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Abraham Maslow (1954) presented his theory hierarchy of human needs based on two factors: first deficiency needs and second growth needs.  In deficiency needs, one must lower the need before moving to the next higher level.  When these needs of an individual satisfied, if in future at some point a deficiency is detected, the individual will remove the deficiency easily.  The first four levels of attribution are:

Physiological: hunger, thirst, and comforts etc.

Security: need of Safety and Security (out of danger)

Belongingness: Love and Belongingness, affiliation with others, acceptance by others

Esteem: Get approval and recognition from others for his achievement, and competency

Self-actualization:

It is the most important need. It means self-awareness, to know one’s own skills and weaknesses. The individual focus on fulfilling his dreams on his own potential and he no longer worry about what others think. At this stage, the individual is concerned with his own personal growth.

According to Maslow, an individual is ready to act upon the growth needs if the deficiency needs are met. 

 Needs vs. Wants

What is need? And what is difference between needs and wants? Needs are those things which necessary for one’s life while wants are those for which people desire to have it but it is not necessary for life. For examples water, food, shelter, breathing, care, health and basic clothing, etc. are the basic needs for survival of life. 

The examples of wants include television, fashion clothing, computers, Internet, movies, vacations, makeup, outing, mobile, new cars, etc. these are the things that bring comfort in life and it will improve the standard of life, but these things are not necessary for survival of life.

Psychologists believe that needs impact the personality of an individual, for example without food, water, shelter, and basic clothing, it would drastically impact the personality of an individual; he would suffer from low self-esteem, and he may not survive. On the other hand if all these basic things are being met, he will feel more comfortable in life, which wills make him more secure and confident in life.

But, What if all the wants were achieved, as is often happened, people get over-confident or arrogant, acts like superior to others, and children, act like spoiled brats in this case. So the completion of wants may also affect their personality badly.

Maslow considers needs and wants the stages of development of personality; he think, that people gradually goes through these stages of need and development. Starting from the bottom, when one need is met at first level, he goes on to the next need, as a result it bring improvement in personality but, if something threaten the needs, such as not having food or safety, etc., then an individual go back down the hierarchy. If the needs are not fulfill, it will have a bad impact on the personality development. If all the needs are fulfill, the individual will progress and continue to grow having a good personality. Maslow believed that an individual do not advance to the next level of needs until the needs of each level have first been met. For example, if someone is at the safety level, then he cannot advance to love and belonging level until the safety and security needs have been met.

Maslow admitted that not all personalities develop as he proposed in hierarchy.  While some of personality dimensions might be due to motivational needs, for example introversion and extroversion.  Considering the introversion/extraversion dimension of personality, which suggests there may be two side of each level that differentiate how people relate to each set of needs. Some personalities might relate more to one dimension than the other. 

A Reorganization of Maslow's and Alderfer's Hierarchies  

Maslow's work on Hierarchy of Needs lead to additional attempts to develop a grand theory of motivation, a theory that would added all the factors influencing motivation into one model of motivation.  The example provided by Leonard, Beauvais, and Scholl (1999).  They proposed five additional factors for the sources of motivation:

1.    Instrumental Motivation (rewards and punishment)

2.     Intrinsic Process Motivation (enjoyment and fun)

3.    Goal Internalization (self-determined values and goals)

4.    Internal Self Concept-based Motivation (matching behavior with internally-developed ideal self)

5.    External Self Concept-based Motivation (matching behavior with externally-developed ideal self) 

Individuals are influenced by all these five factors; the effect of change could be different by degrees in different individual and specific situations. 

Factors one and five are both very motivational. The main difference between the two factors are that the individuals who are instrumentally motivated, they are influenced more by immediate actions or change in the environment (e.g. operant conditioning) whereas self-concept motivated individuals are  influenced more by their constructions of external demands and ideals.

Factors number two, three, and four are more internally-oriented.  In the intrinsic process, the specific tasks are interesting, funny and provide more immediate internal reinforcement for motivation. The person with a goal internalization is more task oriented (e.g., humanistic theory) in this theory the person with an internal self-concept orientation is more influenced by the individual constructions of an ideal self.

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