Maslow Flashcards
MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS
Maslow came up with a hierarchy of needs. He suggested that all the lower level needs must be satisfied for the next level to become a motivator.
HUMANISM
Humanism focuses on the potential within every individual and stresses on the importance of growth and self actualisation. The fundamental belief of humanistic psychology is that people are innately good and that mental and social problems result from people deviating from this natural tendency.
MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS STAGES
PHYSIOLOGICAL NEEDS
SAFETY NEEDS
LOVE AND BELONGINGNESS NEEDS
ESTEEM NEEDS
SELF ACTUALISATION
PHYSIOLOGICAL NEEDS
Air, water, hemostasis, food, elimination, sex
The most basic needs for survival, hungry people are only motivated to eat, they don’t see beyond food. Their primary focus is given to getting something to eat. When people do not have this stage met, they primarily live for these needs and strive constantly to satisfy them.
This stage is different from others in two aspects -
These are the only needs that can be fully satisfied or even overly satisfied.
These are recurring needs, once a person has eaten, they constantly need to replenish their food and water supply, one breath has to be followed by another. On the other hand, once a person has satisfied their need for love and self esteem, they do not need to constantly replenish it. It remains satisfied.
SAFETY NEEDS
Shelter, physical security, stability, clothing, financial security, need for law and order
After the physiological needs are partially or completely satisfied, the next level is the safety needs. In countries not at war, adults are usually able to satisfy their safety needs relatively easily.
Safety needs can not be overly satisfied because people are never truly protected from fires, floods etc.
Children find safety needs to be a motivator because they still live with fear of darkness, strangers, animals, parent punishment etc.
Some adults feel relatively unsafe because they retain irrational fears from their childhood. They act as if they fear parental punishment. They spend far more time and energy trying to satisfy their safety needs compared to healthy individuals and are unsuccessful in their attempts and suffer from what Maslow calls basic anxiety.
LOVE AND BELONGINGNESS NEEDS
Family, friends, intimacy, partners, children
People who have these needs relatively met in early years of life do not panic when they do not receive love, they are confident that people who are important and still care about them.
People who never receive love and belongingness are incapable of giving love. They tend to devalue love and take its absence for granted.
People who receive it in small doses have a stronger need for it. They are highly motivated to seek it.
Children are direct when they want these needs to be met. However, adults are cleverly disguised. Not that they don’t need love, they typically have self defeating behaviours like pretending to be aloof and independent when in reality they want it strongly.
Other adults who remain largely unsatisfied adopt more obvious ways of trying to satisfy them.
ESTEEM NEEDS
Respect, recognition, status etc.
Esteem needs are divided into two parts:
Reputation
Self esteem
REPUTATION is the prestige, recognition or fame that a person has achieved in the eyes of other people.
Whereas, SELF ESTEEM depends on confidence, competence and a person’s own feelings of worth. Self esteem is based on real competence rather than the opinions of other people.
SELF ACTUALISATION
Unlike other news where people move on automatically, many people after self esteem needs are met may not move to self actualisation. In this stage, people are engaged with being the best versions of themselves.
AESTHETIC NEEDS
Some people have a strong desire to stay in and have pleasurable beauty and aesthetic experiences. They get sick when needs are not met like people getting sick when conation needs are not satisfied.
COGNITIVE NEEDS
The constant desire to know more and to solve mysteries and gain knowledge, when this need is not met all of Maslow’s hierarchy is threatened. When you get food, you need to know the source, you need to know how to relate to people to accept love and achieve self actualisation by sully using cognitive potential.
NEUROTIC NEEDS
The dissatisfaction of other needs leads to frustration or some illness, the gap of neurotic needs leads to pathology. By definition, not productive. They have no value in striving for self actualisation. They are usually relative, so compensation for unsatisfied basic needs. For example, wanting power, hoarding money.
