Abraham Maslow - Founder of Humanistic and Transpersonal Psychology
Abraham Maslow, (1980-1970) most known for his ‘hierarchy of needs’, is a key influencer on the field of coaching. Maslow, and other humanistic psychologists, believed that people were free, creative individuals with an enormous capacity for growth and self-realization. He believed that all have a natural drive to healthiness and self-fulfillment, which he called the quest for authenticity.
Maslow, along with Carl Rogers, Lao Tse, and Zen Buddhism, assumed that every person has an actualizing tendency that promotes growth, direction, and productivity; that individuals are involved in caring and responsible interpersonal relationships is seen as a universal principle.
According to Maslow, the hierarchy of needs contains four levels that are deficiency levels: physiological, safety, love/belonging, and esteem. It is only when these deficiency needs are fulfilled that one can experience self-actualization, a desire to realize potential for being an effective, creative, mature human being.
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Comment by Leonardo Ravier on 22 March 2008:
“A Theory of Human Motivation” (Maslow, 1943) is more GRANDIOSE and HUMBLE than the simple pyramidal representation of needs.
Many people ignore that Maslow did not illustrate the hierarchy of needs with a pyramid. In fact, Maslow did not illustrated his theory, because when he talks about “hierarchy” he does not refer to a rigid concept (like a pyramid), rather as something dynamic and flexible. Therefore, the pyramid, does not correctly represent correctly his theory.
Maslow wrote this theory in “A Theory of Human Motivation (1943), originally Published in Psychological Review, 50, 370-396.
http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Maslow/motivation.htm
This is how he understands the “hierarchy” (More complex than a simple pyramid):
“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” p.375
“We have spoken so far as if this hierarchy were a fixed order but actually it is not nearly as rigid as we may have implied. It is true that most of the people with whom we have worked have seemed to have these basic needs in about the order that has been indicated. However, there have been a number of exceptions” p.386
“So far, our theoretical discussion may have given the impression that these five sets of needs are somehow in a step-wise, all-or-none relationships to each other. We have spoken in such terms as the following: “If one need is satisfied, then another emerges.” This statement might give the false impression that a need must be satisfied 100 per cent before the next need emerges. In actual fact, most members of our society who are normal, are partially satisfied in all their basic needs and partially unsatisfied in all their basic needs at the same time. A more realistic description of the hierarchy would be in terms of decreasing percentages of satisfaction as we go up the hierarchy of prepotency, For instance, if I may assign arbitrary figures for the sake of illustration, it is as if the average citizen is satisfied perhaps 85 per cent in his physiological needs, 70 per cent in his safety needs, 50 per cent in his love needs, 40 per cent in his self-esteem needs, and 10 per cent in his self-actualization needs” p.388-389.
“As for the concept of emergence of a new need after satisfaction of the prepotent need, this emergence is not a sudden, saltatory phenomenon but rather a gradual emergence by slow degrees from nothingness. For instance, if prepotent need A is satisfied only 10 per cent: then need B may not be visible at all. However, as this need A becomes satisfied 25 per cent, need B may emerge 5 per cent, as need A becomes satisfied 75 per cent need B may emerge go per cent, and so on”. p.389
Maslow also was conscious of several problems to solve in his theory (showing the humility of his theory):
“(5) Certain other basic problems have not been dealt with because of limitations of space. Among these are (a) the problem of values in any definitive motivation theory, (b) the relation between appetites, desires, needs and what is ‘good’ for the organism, (c) the etiology of the basic needs and their possible derivation in early childhood, (d) redefinition of motivational concepts, i. e., drive, desire, wish, need, goal, (e) implication of our theory for hedonistic theory, (f) the nature of the uncompleted act, of success and failure, and of aspiration-level, (g) the role of association, habit and conditioning, (h) relation to the theory of inter-personal relations, (i) implications for psychotherapy, (j) implication for theory of society, (k) the theory of selfishness, (l) the relation between needs and cultural patterns, (m) the relation between this theory and Alport’s theory of functional autonomy. These as well as certain other less important questions must be considered as motivation theory attempts to become definitive”.
Comment by Vikki G. Brock on 14 May 2008:
WOW! What great information about Maslow. To know that he did not see needs stacked in a pyramid really shakes up the way many of us (me included) have shared his hierarchy of needs. Thanks for sharing your wisdom with us, Vikki