Time to Rethink Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
Abraham Maslow, a Psychologist wrote a paper titled “A Theory of Human Motivation” in 1943. In this paper and his subsequent work he describes a Hierarchy of needs in human growth and development. This has been further represented as a Pyramid, in which the most basic needs are at the bottom and as we move towards the top new ‘extra’ things are added.
‘Physiological’ needs means the availability of basic needs like air to breath, water to drink and food to eat. Second level is ‘safety’ which means personal and financial health and safety against accidents. ‘Love and belonging’ stand for love interests, sexual needs and belonging to certain groups in society. ‘Esteem’ means being respected in society, this also includes fame, status and recognition. ‘Self-actualization’ represents the feeling a person has that they have realised their potential and they have achieved what they could.
A person will first make sure that he has food, shelter, safety before he starts looking for Love or making sure that he is respectable in society.
I will compare this with what I see in society now.
The most important and basic level now is ‘self-esteem’. Having a strong self-esteem is important in life as it promotes confidence but lack of it causes stress, anxiety and depression.
The question is how do we try and boost our self-esteem? The new way is to boost it by materialism and by looking at social network comments and likes. There is a flip side to this too, any negative comments or feeling neglected by others can shatter this fragile self-esteem.
The second level is of feeling a sense of ‘belonging’. This belonging comes from being part of artificial ‘high end’ groups, which may include living in particular area, driving a particular brand of car, going for certain holidays or sending your children to a particular school, etc. This want of belonging may come at a cost of avoiding other important things like health or relationships. The person may strive much harder to achieve these and eventually will have increased stress and high chances of ‘burn out’. They also start living outside their means and eventually struggle both financially or personally.
The third level is ‘enjoyment and being connected’ and this again is very closely related to the two bottom levels. The need or desire to be able to go out and do things differently and be connected to others all the time, the need to not miss a phone call or watch the latest film or video. When we talk about adolescents and younger adults, enjoyment and alcohol have become synonymous. We can look around in popular culture — films, music, etc, all have a strong component of promoting this notion that enjoyment is equal to alcohol.
The fourth and the fifth levels are ‘safety and physiological’, but they no longer remain a personal priority. These are considered responsibilities of parents and government and we have a high level of expectation and entitlement.
The ‘self-actualisation’ level from Maslow’s original pyramid is never achieved because there is always someone with better contacts, house, car or finances. As always there will be two sides to this, the positive side is that people may actually go on to achieve more because of these incentives but the down side is, they will never be happy or satisfied with life with a frail ego and self-esteem.
Dr Martin Luther King Junior said that,”We must rapidly begin the shift from ‘Thing-Oriented’ society to a “Person-Oriented’ Society'” in 1960’s. This quote remains relevant even today and we as a society should strive for the same and on an individual basis we should introspect and get our priorities righ
