Hierarchy of Needs

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a motivational theory in psychology comprising a five-tier model of human needs, often depicted as hierarchical levels within a pyramid.Needs lower down in the hierarchy must be satisfied before individuals can attend to needs higher up. From the bottom of the hierarchy upwards, the needs are: physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem and self-actualization.Deficiency needs vs. growth needsThis five-stage model can be divided into deficiency needs and growth needs. The first four levels are often referred to as deficiency needs (D-needs), and the top level is known as growth or being needs(B-needs).Deficiency needs arise due to deprivation and are said to motivate people when they are unmet. Also, the motivation to fulfill such needs will become stronger the longer the duration they are denied. Forexample, the longer a person goes without food, the more hungry they will become.Maslow (1943) initially stated that individuals must satisfy lower level deficit needs before progressing on to meet higher level growth needs. However, he later clarified that satisfaction of a needs is not an“all-or-none” phenomenon, admitting that his earlier statements may have given “the false impressi on that a need must be satisfied 100 percent before the next need emerges” (1987, p. 69).When a deficit need has been 'more or less' satisfied it will go away, and our activities become habitually directed towards meeting the next set of needs that we have yet to satisfy. These then become our salient needs. However, growth needs continue to be felt and may even become stronger once they have been engaged.Growth needs do not stem from a lack of something, but rather from a desire to grow as a person. Once these growth needs have been reasonably satisfied, one may be able to reach the highest level called self-actualization.Every person is capable and has the desire to move up the hierarchy toward a level of self-actualization. Unfortunately, progress is often disrupted by a failure to meet lower level needs. Life experiences, including divorce and loss of a job, may cause an individual to fluctuate between levels of the hierarchy.Therefore, not everyone will move through the hierarchy in auni-directional manner but may move back and forth between the different types of needs.The original hierarchy ofneeds five-stage model includes: Maslow (1943, 1954) stated that people are motivated to achieve certain needs and that some needs take precedence over others. Our most basic need is for physical survival, and this will be the first thing that motivates our behavior. Once that level is fulfilled the next level up is what motivates us, and so on.1. Physiological needs - these are biological requirements for human survival, e.g. air, food, drink, shelter, clothing, warmth, sex, sleep.If these needs are not satisfied the human body cannot function optimally. Maslow considered physiological needs the most important as all the other needs become secondary until these needs are met.2. Safety needs - protection from elements, security, order, law, stability, freedom from fear.3. Love and belongingness needs - after physiological and safety needs have been fulfilled, the third level of human needs is social and involves feelings of belongingness. The need for interpersonal relationships motivates behaviorExamples include friendship, intimacy, trust, and acceptance, receiving and giving affection and love. Affiliating, being part of a group (family, friends, work).4. Esteem needs - which Maslow classified into two categories: (i) esteem for oneself (dignity, achievement, mastery, independence) and (ii) the desire for reputation or respect from others (e.g., status, prestige). Maslow indicated that the need for respect or reputation is most important for children and adolescents and precedes real self-esteem or dignity.5. Self-actualization needs - realizing personal potential,self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences. A desire “to become e verything one is capable of becoming”(Maslow, 1987, p. 64).Maslow posited that human needs are arranged in a hierarchy:"It is quite true that man lives by bread alone — when there is no bread. But what happens to man’s desires when there is plenty of b read and when his belly is chronically filled?At once other (and “higher”) needs emerge and these, rather than physiological hungers, dominate the organism. And when these in turn are satisfied, again new (and still “higher”) needs emerge and so on. This is what we mean by saying that the basic human needs are organized into a hierarchy of relative prepotency" (Maslow, 1943, p. 375).Maslow continued to refine his theory based on the concept of a hierarchy of needs over several decades (Maslow, 1943, 1962, 1987). Regarding the structure of his hierarchy, Maslow (1987) proposed that the order in the hierarchy “is not nearly as rigid” (p. 68) as he may have implied in his earlier description.Maslow noted that the order of needs might be flexible based on external circumstances or individual differences. For example, he notes that for some individuals, the need for self-esteem is more important than the need for love. For others, the need for creative fulfillment may supersede even the most basic needs.Maslow (1987) also pointed out that most behavior is multi-motivated and noted that “any behavior tends to be determined by several or all of the basic needs simultaneously rather than by only one of them” (p. 71). Hierarchy of needs summary(a) human beings are motivated by a hierarchy of needs.(b) needs are organized in a hierarchy of prepotency in which more basic needs must be more or less met (rather than all or none) prior to higher needs.(c) the order of needs is not rigid but instead may be flexible based on external circumstances or individual differences.(d) most behavior is multi-motivated, that is, simultaneously determined by more than one basic need.。

Good morning, everybody. Today’s lecture is about Abraham Maslov’s hierarchy of needs. This seems like a physiological topic. Actually it is something psychological. Abraham Maslov is a psychologist, and he is especially known for his theory of human needs.OK, first of all, what is the need? Here, we can simply define it as a personal requirement. Maslov believes that humans are wanting beings, who seek to fulfil a variety of needs. According to his theory, these needs can be arranged in an order according to their importance. It is this order that has become known as Maslov’s hierarchy of needs. In this hierarchy of needs, at the most basic level are physiological needs. Fundamentally, humans are just one species of animal. We need to keep ourselves alive. Physiological needs are what we require for survival. These needs include food and water, shelter and sleep. At this level for us humans, Maslov also includes the need for clothing. How are these needs usually satisfied? It is mainly through adequate wages.Then what is the next level of needs? At the next level are safety needs, the things we require for physical and emotional security. Physical security is easy to understand. Everybody needs to keep his body safe from injury, illness, etc. Then what is emotional security? Well, that may be the point in this hierarchy of needs, where humans begin to differ from other animals. We are thinking animals. We have worries, what we fear may be losing a job, or being struck down by a severe disease. Besides physical Security, we need to think we are safe from misfortunes both now and in a forseeable future. How can these needs be met then? According to Maslov, safety needs may be satisfied through job security, health insurance, pension plans and safe working conditions.After this stage come the levels of needs that are particular to human beings. The immediate following level are the social needs. Under this category, Maslov puts our requirements for love and affection and the sense of belonging. We need to be loved, we need to belong to a group not just the family in which we can share with others in common interest. In Maslov’s view, this need can be satisfied through the work environment and some informal organizations. Certainly, we also need social relationships beyond the work place, for example, with family and friends. Next, the level of esteem needs.What are esteem needs then? They include both the needs of self-esteem and the need of esteem of others. Self-esteem is a sense of our own achievements and worth. We need to believe that we are successful, we are no worse if no better than others. The esteem of people is the respect and recognition we gain from other people, by or through our work or our activities in other social groups. The ways to satisfy esteem needs include personal achievements, promotion to more resposible jobs, various honors and awards and other forms of recognition.What follows is the top level of this hierarchy of needs. These are the self-realization needs. In other words, they are the needs to grow and develop as people, the needs to become all that we are capable of being. These are the most difficult needs to satisfy. Whether one can achieve this level or not, perhaps determines whether one can be a great man or just an ordinary man. Of course, it depends on different people. The means of satisfying them tend to vary greatly with the individual. For some people, learning a new skill, starting a new career after retirement could quite well satisfy their self-realization needs. While for other people, it could be becoming the best in certain areas. It could be becoming the president of IBM, anyway, being great or ordinary is what othersthink, while self-realization is largely individual. Maslov suggested that people work to satisfy their physiological needs first, then their safety needs and so on up the needs ladder. In general, they are motivated by the needs at the lowest level that remain unsatisfied. However, needs at one level do not have to be completely satisfied before needs at the next higher level come into play. If the majority of a person’s physiological and safety needs are satisfied, that person will be motivated primarily by social needs. But any physiological and safety needs that remain Unsatisfied will keep playing an important role.OK, that’s the general picture of Maslov’s hierarchy of needs. Just to sum up, I briefly introduce to you Maslov’s theory. Maslov thinks there are five kinds of human needs with each one being more important than the preceding one. I hope that you find his ideas interesting and in our next lecture, we will mainly discuss the practical implications of his theory.大纲：Maslow's Hierarchy of NeedsAbraham Maslow has developed a famous theory of human needs, which can be arranged in order of importance.I.Physiological needs: the most basic ones for survival. They include such needs as food,water, etc. And there is usually one way to satisfy these needs.II.Safety needs: needs for a) physical security; b) emotional security.The former means no illness or injury, while the latter is concerned with freedom from worries, misfortunes, etc. These needs can be met through a variety of means, e.g. job security, pension plans, and safe working conditions.III. Social needs: human requirements for a) love and affection; b) a sense of belonging.There are two ways to satisfy these needs: a) formation of relationships at workplace; b) formation of relationships outside workplace.IV. Esteem needs: a) self-esteem, i.e. one's sense of achievement; b) esteem of others, i.e. others' respect as a result of one's work.These needs can be fulfilled by achievement, promotion, honors, etc.V. Self-realization needs: need to realize one's potential. Ways to realize these needs are individually variable.Features of the hierarchy of needs: a) Social, esteem and self-realization needs are exclusively human needs. b) Needs are satisfied in a fixed order from the bottom up. c) motivationfor needs comes from the lowest un-met level. d) Different levels of needs may coexist when they comes into play.。

Hierarchy of NeedsThe Five Levels of Maslow's Hierarchy of NeedsPsychologist Abraham Maslow first introduced his concept of a hierarchy of needs in his 1943 paper "A Theory of Human Motivation" and his subsequent book Motivation and Personality. This hierarchy suggests that people are motivated to fulfill basic needs before moving on to other, more advanced needs.This hierarcy is most often displayed as a pyramid. The lowest levels of the pyramid are made up of the most basic needs, while the more complex needs are located at the top of the pyramid. Needs at the bottom of the pyramid are basic physical requirements including the need for food, water, sleep, and warmth. Once these lower-level needs have been met, people can move on to the next level of needs, which are for safety and security.As people progress up the pyramid, needs become increasingly psychological and social. Soon, the need for love, friendship, and intimacy become important. Further up the pyramid, the need for personal esteem and feelings of accomplishment take priority. Like Carl Rogers, Maslow emphasized the importance of self-actualization, which is a process of growing and developing as a person in order to achieve individual potential.Types of NeedsMaslow believed that these needs are similar to instincts and play a major role in motivating behavior. Physiological, security, social, and esteem needs are deficiency needs (also known as D-needs), meaning that these needs arise due to deprivation. Satisfying these lower-level needs is important in order to avoid unpleasant feelings or consequences.Maslow termed the highest-level of the pyramid as growth needs (also known as being needs or B-needs). Growth needs do not stem from a lack of something, but rather from a desire to grow as a person.Five Levels of the Hierarchy of NeedsThere are five different levels in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs:1.Physiological NeedsThese include the most basic needs that are vital to survival, such as the need for water, air, food, and sleep. Maslow believed that these needs are the most basic and instinctive needs in the hierarchy because all needs become secondary until these physiological needs are met.2.Security NeedsThese include needs for safety and security. Security needs are important for survival, but they are not as demanding as the physiological needs. Examples of security needs include a desire for steady employment, health insurance, safe neighborhoods, and shelter from the environment.3.Social NeedsThese include needs for belonging, love, and affection. Maslow considered these needs to be less basic than physiological and security needs. Relationships such as friendships, romantic attachments, and families help fulfill this need for companionship andacceptance, as does involvement in social, community, or religious groups.4.Esteem NeedsAfter the first three needs have been satisfied, esteem needs becomes increasingly important. These include the need for things that reflect on self-esteem, personal worth, social recognition, and accomplishment.5.Self-actualizing NeedsThis is the highest level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Self-actualizing people are self-aware, concerned with personal growth, less concerned with the opinions of others, and interested fulfilling their potential.Criticisms of Maslow’s Hierarchy of NeedsWhile some research showed some support for Maslow's theories, most research has not been able to substantiate the idea of a needs hierarchy. Wahba and Bridwell reported that there was little evidence for Maslow's ranking of these needs and even less evidence that these needs are in a hierarchical order.Other criticisms of Maslow's theory note that his definition of self-actualization is difficult to test scientifically. His research on self-actualization was also based on a very limited sample of individuals, including people he knew as well as biographies of famous individuals that Maslow believed to be self-actualized, such as Albert Einstein and Eleanor Roosevelt. Regardless of these criticisms, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs represents part of an important shift in psychology. Rather than focusing on abnormal behavior and development, Maslow's humanistic psychology was focused on the development of healthy individuals.While there was relatively little research supporting the theory, hierarchy of needs iswell-known and popular both in and out of psychology. In a study published in 2011, researchers from the University of Illinois set out to put the hierarchy to the test. What they discovered is that while fulfillment of the needs was strongly correlated with happiness, people from cultures all over the reported that self-actualization and social needs were important even when many of the most basic needs were unfulfilled.What Is Self-Actualization?The Role it Plays in the Hierarchy of NeedsWhat Is Self-Actualization?What exactly is self-actualization? Located at the peak of Abraham Maslow's hierarchy, he described this high-level need in the following way:"What a man can be, he must be. This need we may call self-actualization…It refers to the desire for self-fulfillment, namely, to the tendency for him to become actualized in what he is potentially. This tendency might be phrased as the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming."While the theory is generally portrayed as a fairly rigid hierarchy, Maslow noted that the order in which these needs are fulfilled does not always follow this standard progression. For example, he notes that for some individuals, the need for self-esteem is more important than the need for love. For others, the need for creative fulfillment may supersede even the most basic needs.Characteristics of Self-Actualized PeopleIn addition to describing what is meant by self-actualization in his theory, Maslow also identified some of the key characteristics of self-actualized people:∙Acceptance and Realism: Self-actualized people have realistic perceptions of themselves, others and the world around them.∙Problem-centering: Self-actualized individuals are concerned with solving problems outside of themselves, including helping others and finding solutions to problems in theexternal world. These people are often motivated by a sense of personal responsibility and ethics.∙Spontaneity: Self-actualized people are spontaneous in their internal thoughts and outward behavior. While they can conform to rules and social expectations, they also tend to be open and unconventional.∙Autonomy and Solitude: Another characteristic of self-actualized people is the need for independence and privacy. While they enjoy the company of others, these individuals need time to focus on developing their own individual potential.∙Continued Freshness of Appreciation: Self-actualized people tend to view the world with a continual sense of appreciation, wonder and awe. Even simple experiences continue to be a source of inspiration and pleasure.∙Peak Experiences: Individuals who are self-actualized often have what Maslow termed peak experiences, or moments of intense joy, wonder, awe and ecstasy. After these experiences, people feel inspired, strengthened, renewed or transformed.。

Maslow's Hierarchy of NeedsAbraham Harold Maslow (April 1, 1908 – June 8, 1970): an American professor of psychology at Brandeis University, Brooklyn College, New School for Social Research and Columbia University who created Maslow's hierarchy of needs. He stressed the importance of focusing on the positive qualities in people, as opposed to treating them as a “bag of symptoms.”Maslow's hierarchy of needs (马斯洛需求层次理论)is a theory in psychology, proposed by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper A Theory of Human Motivation (人类激励理论). Maslow subsequently extended the idea to include his observations of humans' innate (天生的) curiosity. His theories parallel (与…平行/相当) many other theories of human developmental psychology, all of which focus on describing the stages of growth in humans. Maslow use the terms Physiological, Safety, Belongingness and Love, Esteem, and Self-Actualization needs to describe the pattern that human motivations generally move through.Physiological needsFor the most part, physiological needs are obvious – they are the literal requirements for human survival. If these requirements are not met, the human body simply cannot continue to function.Air, water, and food are metabolic (新陈代谢的) requirements for survival in all animals, including humans. Clothing and shelter provide necessary protection from the elements. Theintensity of the human sexual instinct is shaped more by sexual competition than maintaining a birth rate adequate to survival of the species.Safety needsWith their physical needs relatively satisfied, the individual's safety needs take precedence and dominate behavior. In the absence of physical safety – due to war, natural disaster, or, in cases of family violence, childhood abuse, etc. – people (re-)experience post-traumatic stress disorder (创伤后应激障碍/创伤后压力心理障碍症) and trans-generational trauma transfer (跨代外伤转移). In the absence of economic safety – due to economic crisis and lack of work opportunities – these safety needs manifest themselves in such things as a preference for job security, grievance procedures (申诉程序) for protecting the individual from unilateral authority, savings accounts, insurance policies, reasonable disability accommodations (残疾人住宿), and the like.Safety and Security needs include:•Personal security•Financial security•Health and well-being•Safety net against accidents/illness and their adverse impactsLove and belongingAfter physiological and safety needs are fulfilled, the third layer of human needs are interpersonal and involve feelings of belongingness. The need is especially strong in childhood and can override the need for safety as witnessed in children who cling to abusive parents. Deficiencies (缺乏、不足) with respect to this aspect of Maslow's hierarchy can impact individual's ability to form and maintain emotionally significant relationships in general, such as:•Friendship•Intimacy•FamilyHumans need to feel a sense of belonging and acceptance, whether it comes from a large social group, such as clubs, office culture, religious groups, professional organizations, sports teams, gangs, or small social connections (family members, intimate partners, mentors (导师、顾问), close colleagues, confidants (知己) ). They need to love and be loved (sexually and non-sexually) by others. In the absence of these elements, many people become susceptible (易受影响的) to loneliness, social anxiety, and clinical depression (临床忧郁症). This need for belonging can often overcome the physiological and security needs, depending on the strength of the peer pressure; an anorexic (厌食的), for example, may ignore the need to eat and the security of health for a feeling of control and belonging.EsteemAll humans have a need to be respected and to have self-esteem and self-respect. Esteem presents the normal human desire to be accepted and valued by others. People need to engage themselves to gain recognition and have an activity or activities that give the person a sense of contribution, to feel self-valued, be it in a profession or hobby. Imbalances at this level can result in low self-esteem or an inferiority complex (情结，夸大的情绪反应). People with low self-esteem need respect from others. They may seek fame or glory, which again depends on others. Note, however, that many people with low self-esteem will not be able to improve their view of themselves simply by receiving fame, respect, and glory externally, but must first accept themselves internally. Psychological imbalances such as depression can also prevent one from obtaining self-esteem on both levels.Most people have a need for a stable self-respect and self-esteem. Maslow noted two versions of esteem needs, a lower one and a higher one. The lower one is the need for the respect of others, the need for status, recognition, fame, prestige, and attention. The higher one is the need for self-respect, the need for strength, competence, mastery, self-confidence, independence and freedom. The latter one ranks higher because it rests more on inner competence won through experience. Deprivation (丧失) of these needs can lead to an inferiority complex, weakness and helplessness.Maslow also states that even though these are examples of how the quest for knowledge is s eparate from basic needs he warns that these “two hierarchies are interrelated rather tha n sharply separated”. This means that this level of need, as well as the next and highest level, are not strict, separate levels but closely related to others, and this is possibly the reason that these two levels of need are left out of most textbooks.Self-actualizationThis is the highest level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The self-actualization needs will appear if all of the fourth previous level of human needs has been fulfilled or satisfied well. The self-actualization needs is the way people need to understand what is their full potential is and realizing that potential. Maslow describes this desire as the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming.Unlike the other levels that can be fully satisfied, the self-actualization needs is never fully satisfied, because as a human, one grows psychologically then there are always new opportunities that always grow continually.The self-actualization needs is also including several aspects like other basic needs levels such as truth, justice, wisdom and meaning. The self-actualized persons will have lots of chance to reach peak experiences, which are encouraging moments of happiness and harmony. According to Maslow’s theory there are only a small number of the people that can reach the level of self actualization.。