Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs:
A Guide to Understanding What Motivates
Human Behavior
Scott Jeffrey
What drives you? What motivates you to get out of bed and do what you do each
day?
If you’re working on a big creative project, why are you doing it?
If you work out, what are the reasons you tell yourself? To stay fit? To look good?
If you’re an entrepreneur, why are you investing so much time building your
business?
Yes, money is one answer, but unless you don’t have enough food to eat and a roof
over your head, it’s not the main one.
In today's guide, we'll explore some of the profound insights from master
psychologist Abraham Maslow. Our goal is to understand the hidden drivers behind
our behavior. This knowledge is instructive and insightful for personal
development. (And if you're an entrepreneur, it will help you better understand,
attract, and serve your customers too.)
The Truth Behind Motivation
We would like to believe we know the “why” behind our actions. In fact, if asked, we
can provide reasons for every action, ​purchase​, or statement we make.
Study after study, however, reveals a different truth: most of the time we don't know
why we do what we do. We're ​unconscious to our real motivations​.
Discovering our real motivations can be a sobering experience because doing so
challenges the identity we hold about ourselves.
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For example, you may think you purchased a sweater because you liked the color or
fit. But in reality, you probably bought the item because it reminded of something:
maybe someone you secretly envy (like a celebrity) or someone you subconsciously
compete with each day, wore a similar sweater.
We buy particular brands because they make us feel a certain way and the source or
trigger of these feelings are mostly unknown to us.
Upon reading this, an internal voice may arise, “No, I’m not shallow or superficial
like that.” (I have this voice too.)
We often deny these primary motivations because they are inconsistent with how
we perceive ourselves. This denial makes it difficult to see what forces "below the
surface" influence us. Savvy marketers and advertisers, however, understand these
hidden motivations and exploit them to get us to purchase their products.
Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
You may already be familiar with Maslow’s human needs. He identified the needs as
follows:
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Physiological (air, water, food, homeostasis, sex)
Safety (shelter, clothes, routine, familiarity)
Belonging and love (affection; connection to family, friends, and colleagues)
Esteem (self-respect and respect from others, high evaluation of oneself,
achievement, reputation/prestige)
● Self-actualization​ (self-growth, actualizing one's innate potential)
Now, what I’d like to do is explore these needs more closely. These needs appear
“academic” until we relate them to our daily experiences.
Most sources illustrate Maslow's hierarchy of needs in a triangle (even though
Maslow didn't present it this way). Let's go through each level of the hierarchy from
the bottom up.
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Maslow’s Basic Needs
All of the needs below self-actualization are basic needs. Maslow called these basic
needs ​neurotic needs ​or​ deficient needs​ because if you’re focused on meeting these
needs, you have a lot of fear. You don’t feel yourself. You can’t operate from a ​calm,
quiet center​.
Any unmet basic need causes problems and tensions that we seek to resolve.
Physiological Needs
Physiological needs are the requirements of all biological creatures. Without air,
water, and food, biological organisms perish.
When you need food, you eat. If you don't have food, you get anxious. When you
have a cheap burrito before your flight, and there are six people in front of you
waiting in line to use the lavatory, your physiological needs are threatened.
In many parts of the world, many individuals can't meet their physiological needs.
Over a billion humans don't have sufficient food to eat or clean water to drink.
But physiological needs can remain unmet even in individuals who aren’t in an
environment of lack. If as a child, for example, meals were withheld as a form of
punishment, a part of you (a child part) might always be seeking food (even when
your body isn’t hungry).
Safety Needs
At its most fundamental level, to meet our safety needs, we need a shelter from the
elements, clothes to cover our bodies, and some semblance of the familiar.
If you don’t have enough money to pay for rent (or your mortgage), clothes (for
protection, not fashion), and transportation (to get food and make money), your
safety needs aren’t being met. Here again, many people in the world do not have
these basic needs met. And here too, there are psychological components.
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If a part of you felt physically or psychologically unsafe as a child (which is sadly
true for many of us), then that part is continually seeking security. Even as an adult
living in your own home, an insecure part can make you feel like something terrible
is about to happen. For this reason, many adults leave lights on in their homes after
dark or why people keep television, radio, or music running in the background at all
times.
Also, when you’re in a period of transition, your security needs easily get triggered.
Safety implies a certain degree of control. When you’re survival is threatened, you
feel out of control. Naturally, you’ll want to get a grip on things. Routines help you
do that. But when you’re moving, out of work, or getting a divorce, for example, you
may feel unsafe.
Love and Belonging Needs
Belonging is a psychological need predominant in adolescence (so-called ​identity
crisis​), and this need often remains unmet in adulthood. Love/belonging is a feeling
of connection with and approval from others. It starts with our immediate family,
then bridges out to religious groups, friends, and other social groups (like sports
teams or chess clubs). And these needs later extend into professional relationships
and marriage partners.
When you’re born into an unconditionally loving and accepting family and grow up
surrounded by mature, mentally healthy adults who can support, guide, and defend
you when needed, a feeling of love and belonging can grow in your heart. You
become that guiding light for those around you in adulthood and can bless others in
need. You also no longer need to be around others to feel okay or complete.
But most of us—I day say, virtually all—didn't have such an experience in childhood
(even though we sometimes delude ourselves into believing we did). Our parents
may have done the best they can, but they were also immature, unconscious to the
majority of their behaviors, thoughts, feelings, and impulses.
As a consequence, most of us have a longing to belong that stems from a fear of
being alone (which we subconsciously experienced as children). And this unmet
need to belong drives us to identify with social groups, religious institutions, and
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special-interest groups. It also fuels a lot of people's impulse to invest time in social
media like Facebook.
Esteem Needs
Self-esteem, the last of Maslow's neurotic needs, dominates most of our behaviors in
public. Our image-driven culture pushes us to be more concerned with what other
people think than with how we feel. We seek approval from others instead of
self-acceptance. This unmet need also stems from being rejected and disapproved of
during childhood (in explicit or subconscious ways).
Unmet esteem needs influence the majority of
Facebook and Instagram usage. Most users are posting things they are doing with a
subconscious message of "look how great I am." And each person is continually
comparing and envying each other. Numerous ​research studies​ link Facebook usage
to increased depression and jealousy. These negative emotions get triggered
because of an unrecognized need for self-esteem.
And if that wasn't challenging enough, there's another dimension to our esteem
need: internal esteem, or how we see ourselves. All of the judgment, criticism, and
rejection we experienced from our parents and teachers as children get internalized
as the voice of an "inner parent."
Some individuals have inner parents who are nurturing, accepting, and
understanding, who guide their behavior not with shame and guilt, but with
self-compassion. These, however, are a small minority. Most of us have harsher
inner parents that scold, berate, and judge us. We often call this part our inner critic,
judge, or saboteur.
A Quick Assessment of Your Basic Needs
How do you know if you have unmet basic needs?
Here’s a simple test: If you can’t just sit down and “be”—if you feel like you need to
constantly be “doing something” or consuming something (food, media, drugs, work,
etc.)—your basic needs aren’t being met.
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We all share the same needs. They are our birthright as human beings. But when
something blocks or challenges these inalienable rights, we begin to exhibit strange
behavior. Driven by fear because we don't feel accepted, loved, respected, etc., we
often behave irrationally and impulsively in our attempt to resolve an unmet need.
And, generally speaking, the motivation behind our irrational behavior exists
outside of our awareness. That is, when something threatens our physiological,
safety, social, or esteem needs, we don't see why we're behaving as we do.
How Unmet Needs Rule Our Behavior
All of these neurotic needs hold us back. They keep us from actualizing our potential
and being ourselves. These neurotic needs force us into set patterns of behavior that
reflect specific ​archetypes​.
When we're concerned with how people perceive us, we act in a manner we think
will meet their approval. Different archetypes have different patterns of behavior.
If, for example, you have an unmet esteem needs, you’re going to seek status and
approval from other. If someone in your environment is playing the “cool guy” (or
cool girl) archetype, you might copy their behaviors and mannerisms to appear
“cool” too.
Or, if someone behaves like an aristocrat (smug, arrogant, elitist, “high society”) and
looks down on you, you’ll react in a specific way if you’re unconscious to this esteem
need. You might feel small in comparison to this person, but then you’ll seek out
someone else you can dominate to feel better about yourself (in an attempt to raise
your internal esteem).
Keep in mind that these ​archetypal patterns of behavior​ operate outside of our
conscious awareness. We might think we are behaving one way, but in fact, we are
presenting ourselves in an entirely different manner.
Research suggests that ​over 95% of our behavior is unconsciously motivated​. This
statistic speaks to the importance of ​getting to know your shadow.​ The existence of
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these archetypes—driven by unmet needs and psychic wounds from
childhood—are the causes of this unconscious behavior.
Why These Basic Needs Often Plague Us
Psychologist David Richo explains in ​How To Be An Adult​:
“We are born with inalienable emotional needs for love, safety, acceptance,
freedom, attention, validation of our feelings, and physical holding. Healthy
identity is based on the fulfillment of these needs …
“These needs are felt and remembered cellularly throughout our lives, though
we may not always be intellectually aware of them. They were originally
experienced in a survival context of dependency. We may still feel, as adults,
that our very survival is based on finding someone to fulfill our basic needs.
“But early, primal needs can be fulfilled fully only in childhood (since only
then were we fully dependent). In adulthood the needs can be fulfilled only
flexibly or partially, since we are interdependent and our needs are no longer
connected to survival.”
For most of us, our “inalienable emotional needs” were not met sufficiently in
childhood. And as adults, we are still trying to meet these basic needs ​externally​. But
we can’t meet them, or rather we can, but only “flexibly or partially.”
Richo continues:
“Our problem is not that as children our needs were unmet, but that as adults
they are still unmourned! The hurt, bereft, betrayed Child is still inside of us,
wanting to cry for what he missed and wanting thereby to let go of the pain
and the stressful present neediness he feels in relationships. In fact, neediness
itself tells us nothing about how much we need from others; it tells us how
much we need to grieve the irrevocably barren past and evoke our own inner
sources of nurturance.”
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So ultimately, it’s a Child part in us that’s mainly driven by these basic needs. And
until we grieve and come to terms with the loss this child experienced, we cannot
root ourselves in our Adult part and access our full potential.
Maslow’s Self-Actualization Need
What set Abraham Maslow apart from other psychologists is that he didn't want to
study neurotic people, which was the exclusive focus of his field. Instead, Maslow set
out to understand ​positive mental health​. This task required him to seek out
individuals who weren't struggling to meet their basic needs.
Maslow looked for what he called ​self-actualizing people​. ​Self-actualization​ is the
need to become what one has the potential to be. (See ​this guide on
self-actualization​ for the thirteen characteristics Maslow identified in
self-actualizing individuals.)
Because self-actualizing individuals were focused on their ​internal growth​ instead of
meeting their external needs, Maslow classified these people as mentally healthy.
However, he found it challenging to find enough of these individuals to study. Since
Maslow, developmental psychologists have also examined these same individuals.
Generally speaking, they represent ​less than three percent​ of the population.
What Motivates Healthy Individuals
Basic needs like food, water, sex, shelter, friends, family, and reputation are all
external needs​. We cannot meet them within ourselves. We need to seek them out
through the environment and other people. As Maslow writes in ​Religions, Values,
and Peak-Experiences​, “Basic human needs can be fulfilled only by and through
other human beings, i.e., society.”
So what happens once individuals fulfill basic human needs? The individual's
attention makes a 180-degree turn: their attention shifts from what's outside to
what’s inside of them​.
Subconscious questions behind most human activity include:
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● What will other people think of me?
● Will others like/approve of me?
● How do I compare or size up to other people?
Notice how these questions focus on the external world.
Healthy human beings—​self-actualizing individuals​—are guided by different
internal questions:
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What am I really capable of?
What’s my purpose here?
How do I find meaning in my life?
How can I actualize the best version of myself?
Notice how all of these questions relate to the individual. The question of capability
or potential isn't about someone else. When individuals compare themselves to
others, external esteem needs, not self-actualization, is motivating their behavior.
The Shift Toward Self-Actualization
At first glance, this shift toward oneself appears selfish or egotistical. But it's just the
opposite. Individuals necessarily act selfishly when basic human needs drive them.
Why? Because basic needs stem from ​deficiency​, from a feeling of lack, from a fear of
not having or being enough. These needs stem from a prevailing sense of separation,
and they tend to trigger the fight-or-flight mechanism in our brains. And when this
happens, we can't assess situations from our more advanced prefrontal cortex
because the primitive brain center (the limbic system) is in control.
Once individuals meet their basic needs, the fears that drive these needs fall away.
Individuals can then ​relax into themselves​. The need to impress or get the approval
from others doesn't influence their behavior (even though they're aware that others
judge them). They no longer seek a group or idea to define their identity.
Dropping the need to compare themselves to others, they begin to ​individuate​. They
now ​create their own path​. Healthy, mature adults no longer hold external rules of
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right and wrong. Instead, they have their internal moral compass, ​personal values​,
and ethics based on what Maslow called B-values, or ​being values​. Being values
include truth, wholeness, justice, beauty, aliveness, richness, simplicity,
effortlessness, and self-sufficiency.
Only such individuals can act selflessly. Otherwise, our actions are mere posturing,
driven by some other unmet needs (usually external esteem or wanting to belong in
“civilized societies”). This shift of attention from basic needs to ​growth needs
coincides with a shift in an individual's consciousness.
The Goal of Self-Actualization
If we strip away all of our unmet basic needs and the drives of the archetypes they
represent, we arrive at ourselves: ​Extraordinary human beings with abilities and
capacities beyond our imagination​.
As Jungian author Robert Moore says, “Being an archetype is easy. Being a human
takes work.” In truth, ​a ​self-actualizing individual​ is more human​. Humans, in fact,
are remarkable creatures with potential we only glean from characters in films.
Our mission is to strip away everything we’re not. Jung called the process of
realizing this unique human ​individuation​. You separate yourself or ​individuate from
the archetypes and behavioral patterns of your culture and society to discover what
you are—your Authentic Self.
It is in this sacred space that our true humanity lies. It represents an end of fear, an
end to unconscious behavior, and an end to needless suffering that we are inflicting
on ourselves and others each day.
Self-liberation, then, is the goal of psychological work and it’s why ​“know thyself”
was an essential dictum in Ancient Greece. It brings us to ​personal freedom.​ It
liberates us to our unconscious motivations and habits of the past. And it is
everyone’s birthright.
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A Practical Approach to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
The reality is that in daily life, most of us are pursuing all of these human needs
simultaneously to varying degrees. Instead of focusing on which need you’re
attempting to meet, consider the overall direction of your life.
Instead of stacking the needs, one on top of the other, psychologist Clayton Alderfer,
illustrated them on a horizontal continuum.
Human Needs Continuum
If you’re investing an increasing effort on your growth, you probably feel more
satisfied. And this satisfaction will likely fuel your growth efforts further.
Research by psychologist ​Martin Seligman​ confirms this. Seligman, the founder of
positive psychology, finds that people feel more gratification (lasting happiness)
when they are pursuing growth while ​playing to their natural strengths​.
If, however, your emphasis is turning to unmet relatedness and existence needs,
your frustration is building. Frustration diminishes your ​motivation to grow​.
Takeaway Lessons from Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Here are four key takeaways based on Maslow’s need theory:
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1. We are all more alike than we are different. We truly are part of a human
family.
2. Most of us are feeling more insecure, unloved, and unworthy than we admit to
ourselves or others. And these unmet needs fuel our unconscious behavior.
3. True positive mental health, or mature adulthood, is reached when we
resolve these hidden tensions within ourselves. Only then can we access our
innate potential as mature adults.
4. Focus on your overall life direction. Are you moving in the direction of growth
(and feeling greater satisfaction)? Or are you regressing in an attempt to meet
your basic needs and feeling frustration?
I know there’s a lot to digest in this guide. Reviewing the descriptions of Maslow’s
needs above can help you become more conscious of how they operate in your daily
life. And this ​self-awareness​ is key to psychological development.
Where Do We Go From Here?
The process of self-actualization, of ​individuation​, of realizing our potential is
synonymous with the ​hero’s journey​. It's the developmental path from adolescence
to full adulthood, which takes heroic persistence, courage, and will.
On this journey we learn to:
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Confront our fears
Resolve our anger
Experience our grief
Accept our guilt and shame
Assertive ourselves
Integrate different ​parts of our psyche
Get to ​know our shadow
See through our self-deception (especially false nobility)
Locate ​authority within ourselves
To accomplish all of this, we must first ​cultivate self-awareness​, become honest with
ourselves, and learn to ​abide in our center​. These practices allow us to reflect back
and understand ourselves.
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And as this alchemical process unfolds, ​we walk forward on the path to our unique
destiny​.
Read Next
A Beginner’s Guide to Self-Actualization
A Comprehensive Guide to Cultivating Self-Awareness
How to Use the Hero’s Journey for Self-Development
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