by Jesse Card

Created on: February 24, 2010

The Hierarchy of Needs, postulated by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper “A Theory of Human Motivation”, is easily one of the most prominent models in Western literature regarding factors which motivate human behavior.  It is ascribed to by many sectors; to include marketing, management, and public relations.  As a tool for evaluating motivations it can be useful, but it has certain limitations.

The Basics

Abraham Maslow, a prominent WWII era psychologist, developed the Hierarchy from research on people he considered to be of higher status in life.  He proposed that, because most psychological data of his time was obtained as a result of studying mentally sick people, a complete model must have an ideal form as its foundation.  This Platonic view created some inconsistencies in the bulk of his theory, but it allowed him to gather data regarding the make-up of people psychiatrists would normally consider being well-balanced and successful.

From the data Maslow collected, he determined there exists a specific set of motivating needs.  He then decided the set of needs exist in a hierarchical fashion.  There are many models which include anywhere from three to eight categories of needs, but the standard model presented in the aforementioned paper includes five categories which fall into two groups, existence or growth needs, and often displayed graphically as a pyramid.

The Hierarchy

Existence needs make up the bottom three hierarchies of the pyramid and include all things which a human requires just to survive.  In the standard model, they are, from the base, physiological needs, safety needs, and social (belonging) needs. 

Physiological needs are all of the basic necessities to live: food, water, air, shelter, reproductive activity, and homeostasis (stability of an organism’s internal environment).  Maslow viewed these needs as the base requirement: a primal level which only people of some mental inadequacy or subject to dire situations live in. 

Safety needs are those which provide a person with some sort of stability in the external environment.  It can include basic physical security measures such as defense and locked doors, but also refers to less tangible considerations like financial security, insurance, justice, and good health. 

Social needs, also referred to interchangeably as love or belonging needs, encompass the desire of a person to be a part of some social group. 

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next Page >>