Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

The most famous classification of needs is the one formulated by Maslow (1954). He suggested that there are five major need categories which apply to people in general, starting from the fundamental physiological needs and leading through a hierarchy of safety, social and esteem needs to the need for self-fulfilment, the highest need of all. Maslow‘s hierarchy is as follows:

1. Physiological – the need for oxygen, food, water and sex.

2. Safety – the need for protection against danger and the deprivation of physiological needs. 

3. Social – the need for love, affection and acceptance as belonging to a group. 

4. Esteem – the need to have a stable, firmly based, high evaluation of oneself (selfesteem) and to have the respect of others (prestige). These needs may be classified into two subsidiary sets: first, the desire for achievement, for adequacy, for confidence in the face of the world, and for independence and freedom, and, second, the desire for reputation or status defined as respect or esteem from other people, and manifested by recognition, attention, importance, or appreciation. 

5. Self-fulfilment (self-actualization) – the need to develop potentialities and skills, to become what one believes one is capable of becoming.

Maslow’s theory of motivation states that when a lower need is satisfied, the next highest becomes dominant and the individual’s attention is turned to satisfying this higher need. The need for self-fulfilment, however, can never be satisfied. He said that ‘man is a wanting animal’; only an unsatisfied need can motivate behaviour and the dominant need is the prime motivator of behaviour. Psychological development takes place as people move up the hierarchy of needs, but this is not necessarily a straightforward progression. The lower needs still exist, even if temporarily dormant as motivators, and individuals constantly return to previously satisfied needs. 

One of the implications of Maslow’s theory is that the higher-order needs for esteem and self-fulfilment provide the greatest impetus to motivation – they grow in strength when they are satisfied, while the lower needs decline in strength on satisfaction. But the jobs people do will not necessarily satisfy their needs, especially when they are routine or deskilled. 

Maslow’s needs hierarchy has an intuitive appeal and has been very influential. But it has not been verified by empirical research and it has been criticized for its apparent rigidity – different people may have different priorities and it is difficult to accept that people’s needs progress steadily up the hierarchy. In fact, Maslow himself expressed doubts about the validity of a strictly ordered hierarchy.