Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is a theory proposed by Abraham Maslow, an American psychologist. In his book ‘The Theory of Human Motivation’, he divides human needs into physiological needs, safety needs, love and belonging, respect, and self-actualization, ranked from lower to higher levels.
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Physiological needs :
Breathing, water, food, sleep, etc. If none of these needs (other than sex) is met, the physical functioning of the individual will not function properly. Only when these most basic needs are met to the extent necessary to survive can other needs become new motivating factors.
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Security needs :
The need for security and protection from physical and mental harm, as well as ensuring that material needs continue to be satisfied. Personal safety, health security, resource ownership, property ownership, job security, etc. are relatively satisfied, will pursue a higher level of need.
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Emotional and belonging needs :
Everyone wants affection, acceptance and friendship and to be cared for.
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Respect :
The need to be respected, factors from inside such as self-esteem, sovereignty and achievements and factors of respect from the outside such as location, recognition and attention. Everyone wants a stable social status, requires that individuals’ abilities and achievements be recognized by society, and that they desire love, trust and respect from others.
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Self-realization :
The need for affirmation: promoting, achieving the possible ones and the satisfaction of themselves; And this need help them to improve themselves. The need for self-realization is the highest level of need, refers to the realization of personal ideals, aspirations, the ability to play to the maximum extent, to achieve the realm of self-realization.
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In addition, Maslow mentioned two other needs in his earlier writings: the need for knowledge and the need for aesthetics, which he believed should be between the need for respect and the need for self-realization. Maslow also proposed the need for hyper-self-fulfilling in the late stages, which is often incorporated into the need for self-realization.
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Maslow believes that the five levels of Needs are related as follows:
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1, The five needs are like a ladder from low to high, step by step, but such order is not completely fixed, can change, there are various exceptions.
2, the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theory has two basic starting points, one is that everyone has needs and one layer needs to be met, the other layer needs to appear;
3, generally speaking, a certain level of needs are relatively satisfied, and will develop to a higher level, the pursuit of a higher level of needs will become the driving force of behaviour. Accordingly, the need to obtain basic satisfaction is no longer an incentive.
4. The five needs can be divided into two levels, of which physical needs, security needs and emotional needs are low-level needs, these needs can be met through external conditions, while the need for respect and self-realization is a high-level need, they are met through internal factors, and a person’s need for respect and self-realization is endless.
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Maslow and other behavioural psychologists agree that the hierarchy of the needs of the majority of the population in a country is directly related to the level of economic development, the level of scientific and technological development, the culture and the level of education of its people. In less developed countries, physiological and security needs account for a larger proportion, while higher needs dominate.
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The Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is one of the most preliminary theories in the human psychology industry. Although it has been long ago, this doctrine is still in value and widely applied in many areas of life. It not only gives a brief and understandable explanation for human behaviour and human development, but the theory is also the explanation for countless different behaviours in humans in different circumstances such as in love, in raising young children or macro-economic situations. For example in poor countries, people are worried about solving essential fundamental problems such as food, infrastructure facilities etc..
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Limitations of Maslow’s theory
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Clearly, the theoretical model that needs to be hierarchically divided must have several basic characteristics that are truly scientific and rigorous: first, the need to divide the model to accommodate all human needs in all its aspects, without any omission;
The biggest flaw of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theory is the lack of scientific basis, it is entirely based on his own subjective speculation, empirical observation and fuzzy judgment of the conclusion and is questionable. In general, Maslow’s method of hierarchy of needs is mainly questionable as follows:
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1. the definition of essence – What is the nature of a need (or requirement)? Need as a form of subjective consciousness, what is its corresponding objective existence? What are the objective factors needed to decide? Only by everything the essence of the need can we determine the classification mode and hierarchical model of the need on this basis.
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2. the determination of basic concepts – What are security needs? What is an attribution need? What is the need for love? What is the need for respect? What is the need for self-fulfilling?
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3. the logical relationship between the required levels – What is the logical relationship between security needs and physiological needs? What is the logical relationship between attribution needs and security needs? What is the logical relationship between the need to respect and the need to belong? What is the logical relationship between self-fulfilling needs and respect needs? Why is the need for knowledge and aesthetic needs somewhere between the need for respect and the need for self-realization?
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4. objective purpose – Any subjective need must have a specific objective purpose. What is the objective purpose of physiological needs? What is the objective purpose of security needs? What is the objective purpose of the need for belonging and love? What is the objective purpose of self-fulfilling needs? Obviously, without a clear understanding of the objective purpose of the various needs, it is impossible to determine the true meaning of the various needs, nor can it determine the logical relationship between the various needs, then, it is impossible to judge whether the required classification model and hierarchical model is scientific? Is it rigorous?
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Further analysis reveals that Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory has several major flaws: first, there are many human needs that are not included, such as economic needs (including the need for material property), political needs (including the need for social power), cultural needs (including the need for religious belief), the need for freedom, the need for equality, the need for private rights, the need for good and beautiful, etc.; Aesthetic needs are basically overlapping with other needs;
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The nature of need
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In order to establish a new theory of the level of need, we must first explore in-depth what the essence of “need” is.
It is not difficult to find that “need” belongs to the scope of subjective things, it is entirely dependent on human subjective factors, mainly by human feelings, knowledge, feelings, meaning and other subjective thinking activities to form. Dialectical materialism holds that any subjective thing is a reflection of objective things by the human brain. On the other hand, an objective thing has a certain subjective thing corresponding to it. However, although the “need” of human beings belongs to the category of subjective things, but it is not unprovoked, nor will it disappear for no reason, in the “need” behind the inevitable existence of some corresponding objective things.
Obviously, the object of “need” is often necessary for the process of human existence and development, and on the whole, it must be the thing that can promote the survival and development of human beings, and it is the object of “need” (except in special cases). For example, objects of physiological need (e.g. food, water, air, etc.), objects of safety and health needs (e.g. nutrients, safe facilities, sanitary environment, etc.), objects of respect needs (social honour, social status, social power, etc.) are all things conducive to the survival and development of the individual or society. Thus. The objective counterpart of subjective “need” is “value”.
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Conclusion
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All decisions of human actions are to satisfy their own needs and interests. So the successful person in the market today must also be masters in manipulating and controlling the needs of others such as customers, their own employees and their partners.
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Ref: Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review
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