PKU4 HUMAN NATURE Abraham Maslow
Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Motivations
Introduction:
Freud gave psychology credibility as a therapeutic and medicalized discourse, but as
the 20th century proceeded, psychology developed influential branches that applied to
normal people under ordinary circumstances [link: psychology as a discipline]. Psychological
concepts have shaped much of recent Western thinking about human nature.
Abraham Maslow (1908-1970), who synthesized a large body of social-science
research related to human motivation, theorized individual human nature as progressive
rather than fixed. Prior to Maslow, researchers in social psychology generally explained
what energizes and sustains human behavior as based on biological drives or on
ambition. Maslow also differed from earlier psychologists in the Freudian tradition by not
studying neurotic or troubled people but rather individuals he considered to be
exemplary such as Albert Einstein (1879-1955), Jane Addams (1860-1935), Eleanor
Roosevelt (1884-1962), and Frederick Douglass (1817?-1895).
Drawing on these individuals as models, Maslow posited a hierarchy of human
needs based on two levels of priority: first deficiency needs had to be met and then
growth needs. Within the deficiency needs, he believed that lower needs had to be met
before one could move on toward satisfying the next higher level. Once these needs
have been satisfied, future problems on a lower level (for example, the outbreak of a war)
would understandably prompt the individual to drop “higher” concerns in order to
respond to the crisis.
Note that the central concept presumed in all his categories is self.
[Source: http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~renglish/473/notes/chapt14/maslow.gif, 081022]
Deficiency Needs
Maslow described these as (lowest portions of the triangle):
1) Physiological: needs to eat, drink, sleep, excrete wastes, regulate body
temperature.
2) Safety/security: needs to feel out of danger from aggressions, including diseases,
need for security for employment and income, health, for family as well as oneself.
3) Belongingness and love: needs to feel loved (sexually and non-sexually) by others,
and to be accepted by them. People have a constant desire to feel needed to be
accepted by and affiliated with others, in groups as diverse as work units, clubs,
clans, even gangs. In the absence of these elements, people become
increasingly susceptible to loneliness, social anxiety and depression.
4) Esteem: needs to gain approval and recognition, to be respected, to respect
oneself and to respect others. People need activities that give a sense of
contribution and self-value. Failures at this level may result in a low self-esteem
and inferiority complexes, or, on the other hand, an inflated sense of self and
snobbishness.
Growth Needs
Maslow describes these as (middle and upper segments of the triangle):
5) Cognitive: needs to know, to understand, and explore. These are recognizable
expressions of curiosity, which may apply in any area of human concern.
6) Aesthetic: needs to appreciate or create symmetry, order, and beauty. These
needs are clearly optional in the sense that many humans have lived all their lives
without feeling open to such concerns, but, on the other hand, even the most
deprived human has the potential for responding to a situation in this way.
7) Self-actualization: needs to find self-fulfilment and realize one's potential. This
term, originated by Kurt Goldstein, refers to the instinctual need of a human to
make the most of one’s unique abilities. Maslow wrote in 1954: “What a man can
be, he must [at least try to] be.”
8) Transcendence: needs to help others find self-fulfilment and realize their
potential.
This highest need in Maslow’s hierarchy has also proved the most controversial.
Secular psychologists criticize it for belonging to the domain of religious belief.
Maslow himself believed that science and religion were both too narrowly
conceived, too dichotomized, and too separated from each other.
[Source: adapted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchy_of_needs, 060210.]
Maslow published his first version of this theory in 1943, though it evolved as time
went on. [For a discussion of its several stages of evolution, see
http://www.businessballs.com/images/maslow%27s_hierarchy_businessballs.jpg, 081022.]
Maslow’s triangle has become over the years one of the West’s most often cited
theories of human motivation, particularly among social psychologists concerned with
management of human resources and personnel. Maslow’s theory has the advantage of
making sense of different perceptions of life on the part of individuals from the same
culture who may live in quite different social and economic circumstances. It also helps
explain how a person’s felt needs may change over the course of a lifetime, particularly
when their social and economic circumstances change, either moving up or moving
down. Also it presumes that individuals have a natural desire to move to higher and
higher levels of needs, an expectation that fits well with the Western faith in progress
that has been widespread since 18th century [link: progress].
In the agonistic world of Western civilization, every theory has its supporters and its
detractors. For example, some critics find little evidence for the ranking of needs that
Maslow described, or even for the existence of a definite hierarchy at all. In particular,
the concept of self-actualization has been attacked as vague “psychobabble” by some
materialist psychologists who see humans as just a special sort of animal [link:
Behaviorism]. They dismiss the concept as based on an Aristotelian notion of human
nature that assumes we humans have an essential nature or an optimum purpose.
Even for researchers sympathetic to Maslow’s approach, self-actualization has proved
to be difficult to test, and this in turn makes it difficult to evaluate Maslow's theory as a
whole. Even if self-actualization proves to be a useful concept, there is no proof that
every individual has this capacity or sees it as a goal to strive for.
Maslow’s theory needs to be evaluated in each new generation to test its applicability
to evolving human circumstances. There exists an on-line survey inviting individuals to
place themselves in relation to Maslow’s scheme: http://www.accelteam.com/maslow_/index.html, 081001.
[Further reading: http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Maslow/motivation.htm, 070607].
Commentary:
Maslow’s scheme is optimistic, as befits a country whose ideology includes “the
American dream” of rags to riches. It has the additional appeal of placing a high value
on spiritual transcendence, long important in the religious traditions of the West. But at
any moment, a financial crisis like that of 2008 or any disruption of fulfilling basic needs
underlines the fragility of anyone’s quest to satisfy higher needs. People are then
revealed to be more dependent and interdependent than his scheme acknowledges.
Hence an inclusive understanding of human life requires taking additional factors into
account, some of which may already have prominence in traditional Chinese views of
life.
Study questions:
1. Compare and contrast Maslow’s idea of self-cultivation with that of Kongzi [link:
Analects 2.4, E1.1]. What are the primary differences and similarities?
2. How would Maslow’s theory make sense of a Buddhist monk who in the name of
what Maslow calls Transcendence only eats when others fill his begging bowl? In
other words, how Western-specific does this theory seem to be?
Excerpt from Western Civilization with Chinese Comparisons, 3rd ed.
(Shanghai: Fudan University Press, 2010), pp 254-57.