Preview

Hierarchy of Needs

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
733 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Hierarchy of Needs
Maslow's Hierchy of Needs

Abraham Maslow projected a general overview of human motivation. His theory strikes a distinctive sense of balance between biological and social needs that integrates many motivational concepts. According to Maslow individual needs are set in a hierarchy, and everyone must satisfy their basic needs before they can satisfy their higher needs. The hierarchy is portrayed as a pyramid beginning with physiological needs at the bottom and self-actualization at the top.
The 'Hierarchy of Needs' theory has four different levels before one can come to full self-actualizing. Beginning with the most basic, the needs are physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem and lastly, self-actualization.
Physiological needs refer to the literal requirements for human survival, such as breathing, food, water, sleep, and metabolic activities. Safety needs are all things providing humans with a sense of security, such as protection from the elements, financial stability and personal health. Furthermore, love and belonging refers to the interpersonal relationship, in which relationships with family, friends, lovers, and others are drawn; providing humans with a sense of acceptance and attachments. Esteem refers to the need to be respected and accepted and, most importantly, the need of self-respect. People develop their esteem as they are recognized by others, gaining a certain level of social status and thus build their own self-respect. The last is about the self-actualization, in which an individual realizes his or her potentials.
Because the human brain is driven by a basic instinct to survive, this need trumps all others, thus it’s easy to see how obvious biological and physiological needs, such as food, drink, shelter, warmth, and sex, formed the basis of Maslow’s pyramid. But as Maslow’s hierarchy continues, each need is separated into very distinct and self supporting categories that – according to him – we ourselves must fill; when truth is that

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    Abraham Maslow was an American psychologist whom first introduced his concept of the Hierarchy of Needs in his paper “A Theory of Human Motivation” in 1943 followed by his book “Motivation and personality”. It is understood that all humans have certain needs, Maslow’s concept suggest that when these needs are not being met it will motivate us and put us into action towards fulfilling those needs. His concept is most notably represented in a stage pyramid. Each of these levels displays different needs in which to be satisfied in order to be self-actualized, the highest most sought after level of satisfaction. Maslow noted that roughly only one in one hundred people accomplish self actualization due to the many obstacles in life. The lower levels needs represent those that are more basic and easily able to satisfy, given the circumstances, while the higher more complex level needs are more challenging to satisfy. In order to satisfy these top needs one must accomplish the satisfaction of the lower level needs in order to move up the pyramid.…

    • 1966 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs describes what a theoretical person would need in their life. Abraham Maslow supposes, “the fundamental desires of human beings are similar despite the multitude of conscious desires” (Zalenski 1121). This theory crosses all boundaries such as race, religion, ethnic, and geography. Maslow also believes the needs of human beings are hierarchical; lesser needs must be achieved before the greater needs can be explored (Zalenski 1121).…

    • 362 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Ap Psychology Chapter 12

    • 1821 Words
    • 8 Pages

    • The hierarchy of needs is Maslow’s pyramid of human needs, beginning at the base with physiological needs that must be first be satisfied before higher level safety needs and then psychological needs become active.…

    • 1821 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Abraham Maslow was a very important modern psychologist. He is most known for his hierarchy of human needs. A simple, yet complex scheme of five categories that arrange human needs within a hierarchy was created as a structure of human motivation. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs includes: physiological needs, safety needs, belongingness and love needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization. Maslow theorized that each of these needs be met before the individual is able to move up to the next level within the hierarchy. Although, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs has been adapted, substantiated and criticized it is still being used as a tool in various research programs to test motivational theories (Brown & Cullen, 2006).…

    • 113 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Maslow believed that the basic needs must be met first before one could reach the next level of the pyramid. After this need is met, going up the pyramid in order there is security, love and belonging, esteem, experience and purpose, and the need for self actualization. Beyond these needs, higher levels of needs exist. These include needs for understanding, esthetic appreciation and purely spiritual needs. In the levels of the five basic needs, the person does not feel the second need until the demands of the first have been satisfied or the third until the second has…

    • 1255 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    I have some examples of how I have used most of these levels in my daily life, and if not daily, fairly often. Personally I have lots of examples of how I show and am in the physiological needs grouping. For example, every day I am breathing the air that the earth makes for us, I also eat food that lets me survive, I also drink water that makes my body run so that I do not dehydrate and die, I also live and sleep in a house every night that keeps me warm and dry. Those are some of the basic needs that I fulfill for the physiological need category in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. In the safety group I am able to say that I fit into this well, because my family has all of the things that depict what makes up this category. For the third group, social needs, I am more in and out for this one than I am for the other two above. The reason behind this is that I occasionally am finding myself mad or having others mad at me to the point of me not being sure if I fulfill this category or not. For the last category that I find myself in is esteem needs, I often have the sense of self accomplishment in things I do, because I feel like I have done well or accomplished something of great importance in this area. For example I would feel a great sense of self accomplishment if I have the ability to complete my Eagle for the Boy Scouts of America before I turn eighteen, because this is a very long and hard task to accomplish and a very little percentage of people who actually start scouts receive this accomplishment. Lastly for self actualization, I do not feel like I have gotten to this yet, mostly because I would like to believe that I have not peaked, and have not reached my full potential yet as a human…

    • 655 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    - Needs are those things that we require in order to feel part of society and achieve optimal wellbeing. There are three different ways in which you can classify needs……

    • 3223 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is a theory that basically states the reasoning and needs that encourage the human behavior. It is usually depicted as a pyramid starting with the most basic and progressing to the more advanced needs; physiological needs, safety needs, belongingness and love needs, esteem needs, and finally self-actualization needs.…

    • 1325 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Essay On Abraham Maslow

    • 520 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Maslow is also well known for his theory on human fulfillment, in which he created and named the “hierarchy of needs”. Maslow presented this theory as a 6 tiered pyramid; listing the needs from the bottom of the pyramid as the basic needs that need to be met in order to pursue the other tier of needs, and so on. The first two tiers in the hierarchy of needs, suggests that the basics of human fulfillment first requires the physiological needs and safety needs, this includes sleep, water, food, breathing, and sex. The second and third tier are the physiological needs that need to be met, which are not to be confused with the basic physiological needs in the first tier. These needs include safety, security, financial and job stability, and belonging and love. Lastly, the top tier on the hierarchy of needs, suggests that this is the stage in which human beings can reach their fullest potential. Maslow believes that this stage is acquired once all other needs in the hierarchy have been met. Maslow believes that in the top tier, the “self-actualization tier”, justice, morality, wisdom, and truth is sought…

    • 520 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Psychology Behavior

    • 613 Words
    • 3 Pages

    9. Hierarchy of needs: Maslow’s pyramid of human needs; need to satisfy base needs before higher-level needs…

    • 613 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Physical and emotional needs are important determinants of human behavior, helping to explain why people work, why they have certain personal goals, and what they want in their relationships with others. Psychologist Abraham Maslow divides human needs into five categories, progressing from basic needs to complex needs. Discuss Maslow’s five “Hierarchy of Human Needs.” List and discuss each one.…

    • 1364 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    This Hierarchy of Needs consists of a pyramid that displays the certain levels of needs that humans strive to achieve with basic needs such as food being at the bottom (Meyers, 2011). According to Maslow, once physiological needs are met, one can move up to the next level until that need is met and then the next level, etc. One level on Maslow’s Hierarchy is, “Belongingness and love needs”, which exhibits the need for people to be loved by someone. According to Maslow once this is achieved, one can finally move to the need for esteem and respect from others and then finally to “Self Actualization” or finding the inner potential in oneself (Meyers,…

    • 1602 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    The pyramid of Maslow is a psychological theory proposed by Abraham Maslow in 1943, who formulated a hierarchy of human needs and argues that he as basic needs are met, human beings develop needs and highest desires. The hierarchy of needs Maslow is represented as a pyramid consisting of five levels whose main idea is to higher needs to occupy our attention only when our lower needs have been met. I.e., only we care of the self-realization issues if we are sure that we have a stable job, assured food and a social environment that accepts us, to clear.…

    • 1060 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Personality Theory

    • 1438 Words
    • 6 Pages

    According to Maslow’s basic needs hierarchy everyone is born with individual needs. If those needs are not met, one cannot survive and focus upward within the hierarchy. The first level consists of survival needs. One requires oxygen, sleep, water, and food to survive.…

    • 1438 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    There are 5 major levels to Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs; physiological, safety, emotional, esteem, and self-actualization (Maslow 1). The way that this system works is that in order to achieve the fifth level of fulfillment of needs, you must first meet…

    • 1646 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays

Related Topics