When I read Maslow, it was in the context of exploring different models of childhood development. In that dynamic, the minimum conditions for an experience was related to theories of Vygotsky, Piaget, and such. The first problem was how the matter could be pursued as a movement from incapacity to assured ability. A hierarchy militates against a model of behavior without any.

So, how to look for something without presuming one has found it already.

The main problem I have with it is that it is upside down. — unenlightened

That made me laugh. For years I used an inverted version of Bloom's taxonomy for much the same reason:

:ok:

I suspect Maslow's schema is hedonic in character. The bottom levels are about pain (negative utilitarian) and the top levels are about pleasure (positive utilitarian).

↪Bitter Crank Well said BC. What's the conversion rate between pesos and pfennigs? — _db

I have no idea. I was surprised to see "pfennig" in my post -- its a word I don't think I've used more than twice or thrice. That was 6 years ago. I am quite sure I haven't used the word since.

It isn't clear to me why you think the "deficiency needs" at the bottom of the pyramid are "negative". DB (Darth Barracuda) said the same thing.

Good question Bitter Crank.

You're too hungry to understand. — some dude

Overheard: I'm too tired to care.

Of course one can aggravate the situation by rubbing salt on someone's wound, adding insult to injury, opening old wounds and so on.

Does that answer your question?

I think that they can be both negative (in the sense that they are needs that require to be fulfilled) and positive (since they can lead to satisfaction). They are quite important, but I have seen people who have managed to ignore the "lower" needs for the sake of a higher goal, such as a soldier forgoing food for a while to focus on training. Of course, a balanced approach is still necessary.

How accurate is the idea of a hierarchy of needs to the human condition? Is it fluff, baseless, and too folksy to be a sound theory, or is there a correlation with a hierarchy of needs to human "happiness", "eudaimonia", or otherwise? — schopenhauer1

Maslow's pyramid represents what I call human engineering. It uses rational methods to label and characterize human feelings and behavior. Another such method that comes to mind is the Myers-Briggs personality test. IQ testing probably falls into that category too. These sorts of methods wash out any human variability and treat people like standardized parts. As you can tell from what I've said, I don't like them and I think they can be misleading. Many people disagree with me.

As for the Maslow pyramid itself, sure, there's some truth in it, at least at lower levels. As you move higher it gets a bit new agey for me. Mostly, I think it's trivial. I don't think it has much use. Human reality is more complicated than that.

I left this out - It's a method for use managing personnel, employees, human resources, human capital. It's for HR managers. It's not psychology.

They have an app for that: Industrial Psychology.

Maslow's hierarchy is bollocks.

Life is the sickness unto death. Desire is the root of suffering. Self-abnegation is the path to enlightenment.

So say a hell of lot more people than Maslow.

Random article by way of amusement not recommendation.

If you don't agree with Maslow's hierarchy, is it
a) trying to make a hierarchy that is the problem
b) trying to make a list of basic and more complex needs that is a problem
c) the attempt to do either is the problem
d) the human condition is too complex for anything this basic and unscientific — schopenhauer1

e) It's been made into a normative to live up to and a means for judging people severely if they fail.

They have an app for that: Industrial Psychology. — Paine

Just another way for the Man to subjugate the slack-jawed troglodytes.

Does that answer your question? — Agent Smith

They are quite important — DA671

The physiological needs (food, water, oxygen, clothing, shelter, sleep) are non-negotiable demands. Yes, they can be put off (in the case of oxygen, maybe a minute or two), but not for too long. Starvation, dehydration, exposure (to either high or low temps) will kill you. Physiological satisfaction is the sine qua non for the "higher" needs.

Anyway, I just don't get why they are "negative". Fulfilling the physiological needs tends to be highly satisfying. Eating, drinking, breathing...

As you move higher it gets a bit new agey for me — T Clark

Maslow published his book on motivation in 1943, so he, at least, wasn't being too new agey.

Shirley, you don't deny that there are higher needs for love, esteem, and self-actualization?

Harry Harlow, UW-Madison, was Maslow's PhD advisor. Harlow experimented with rhesus monkeys to show that maternal warmth (or even a crude substitute) was critical for primate development. Without it, the infant monkeys failed to thrive. Human infants have similar (but more complex, extensive) requirements. A tragic demonstration of this principle were neglected infants in Romanian orphanages who had received the minimum necessary care but were otherwise untouched, uncared for. Their development was very poor, if they survived at all.



Point is, the higher needs are developmental requirements too, not just features of adult human motivation.

Love, belonging, esteem, and self-actualization are highly motivating.

Maslow's pyramid represents what I call human engineering. It uses rational methods to label and characterize human feelings and behavior. — T Clark

It's "engineering" because humans are more alike than we are different. We can generalize about people, expect certain behaviors and reactions, see patterns, etc. because we are members of the same species and have the same machinery. We are not all fundamentally different and unique. (We are not fragile "snowflakes".)

Good inclusion to the mater.
In opposition to the theories of motivation, there was the view of Behaviorism, of the Pavlovion sort, that focused upon producing experiences through control of conditions rather than finding the structure of an individual's desire.

Shirley, you don't deny that there are higher needs for love, esteem, and self-actualization? — Bitter Crank

As you note in your post, children need to learn early that the world is something they can trust. That it can provide security. That they are welcome in the world. I think that once that's set, people have the resources they need to make their own lives what they want. And no, I'm not going to take a swing at your ham-handed set up shot.

Harry Harlow, UW-Madison, was Maslow's PhD advisor. Harlow experimented with rhesus monkeys to show that maternal warmth (or even a crude substitute) was critical for primate development. Without it, the infant monkeys failed to thrive. Human infants have similar (but more complex, extensive) requirements. — Bitter Crank

I have used this study here in the forum as an illustration of what is called "good enough parenting." You don't have to be John or Olivia Walton, just do the best you can.

It's "engineering" because humans are more alike than we are different. — Bitter Crank

I call it "engineering" because it's used as part of a standardized system used to get people to do what you want without necessarily having to know or understand them.

I left this out - It's a method for use managing personnel, employees, human resources, human capital. It's for HR managers. It's not psychology. — T Clark

Maslow's Hierarchy of needs does all that? Maslow's aim was to demonstrate that people are motivated to achieve certain needs and that some needs take precedence over others.

Just guessing, but I'm sure Maslow wasn't the first person to think that we had needs that needed to be met, and that intellectual fulfillment was a bit more complicated than sexual satisfaction. But, as you say, psychologists can be some sort of industrial engineer.

I generally loathe personnel, human resources, human capital, or HR managers and their corporate function. The acquisition and enjoyment of love, esteem, belonging, and self-actualization has nothing to do with Human Resources Departments. They are there to feed the machine.

Of course, these loathsome lizards (apologies to actual lizards) would be trained as psychologists. Their utilization of this or that piece of psychology doesn't "retroactively contaminate" the field.

Maslow's Hierarchy of needs does all that? Maslow's aim was to demonstrate that people are motivated to achieve certain needs and that some needs take precedence over others. — Bitter Crank

I haven't read any Maslow since I was a psych major 50 years ago. All that anyone remembers is the pyramid, which is a cartoon. It's the kind of thing that leads to everyone getting a trophy at the soccer tournament. "Esteem." Just the sound of it sends shivers up my spine.

In opposition to the theories of motivation, there was the view of Behaviorism, of the Pavlovion sort, that focused upon producing experiences through control of conditions rather than finding the structure of an individual's desire. — Paine

Pavlov, Skinner, et al.

B. F. Skinner put the best possible face on behaviorism in his novel, Walden Two.

"Psychology" can be very annoying. Students thereof fail to integrate multiple theories. People learn, and learning can be studied. Classical conditioning and operant conditioning are the two main schools of thought. Then there are personality theories, like Maslow, and a two dozen others. Clinical psychology studies abnormal states, like OCD.

Bits and pieces of these various theories contain "truth". Even some of Freud's laborious flights of fancy. All sorts of mechanisms are operating at the same time -- motivation, operant learning, striving for self-actualization, egos and unconscious urges, and (usually at least some) just plain craziness.

Esteem, especially "self-esteem" has carried a heavy workload lately.

)

I haven't read any Maslow since I was a psych major 50 years ago. — T Clark

Full disclosure: I didn't read any Maslow 50 years ago. I read a little of him more recently. I don't really like reading any of the major psychologists. Maybe I never did. I've liked some sociologists better. And people like Oliver Sacks.

There have been unsightly squabbles by religious conservatives and school districts over schools promoting "self-esteem" in students, as if that were tantamount to teaching students to be transgendered communists or unusually perverted homosexual atheists.

The trouble is that "esteem" isn't something that can be taught as part of the curriculum. On this matter, the schools are well intentioned and the conservatives are hung up.

People do not (and should not) need to be bubbling over with high self esteem all the time. Once in a while, after some actual achievement, is often enough. Real opportunities to feel good about one's self normally happen in real life. They don't need to be engineered. (Well, maybe in therapeutic settings; something that 99.9% of schools are not.

It's much easier to construct environments (home, community, school) that offer few if any opportunities to feel good about one's self. People don't (usually) set out to create these negative environments. They develop because some people can be hard-hearted sons of bitches, hateful bastards, and depraved, dysfunctional people. Most people aren't, but some are. Some of them are religious conservatives, and some of them run schools, governments, churches (!), and other institutions.

It is difficult to sort out these various models. How they get used to promote different policies makes them a player in a way that does not answer the problem of experience they are supposed to make more understandable.

For example, Maslow is a 'behaviorist' in wanting to base a model of personal development by observing behavior. That is different from relying upon reports of experience to investigate the phenomena. Vygostky is important because he discussed the limits of 'self-reporting' as a limit to empiricism rather than make the observation an element of his model.

In that sense, the difference between the 'psychoanalyst' method of interviewing people and finding some other way to investigate personal experience has been the difficulty since a certain set of medical doctors looked at their patients and wondered what the hell was going on with them.

All good insightful observations.

The trouble is that "esteem" isn't something that can be taught as part of the curriculum. On this matter, the schools are well intentioned and the conservatives are hung up.

People do not (and should not) need to be bubbling over with high self esteem all the time. — Bitter Crank

In my experience, self-esteem comes from taking responsibility for your own life and actions. There's no shortcut.

Yeah, I agree. That's why I said that they can only be put off for "a while". And yes, the satisfaction of those needs can certainly be deeply pleasant.

The physiological needs (food, water, oxygen, clothing, shelter, sleep) are non-negotiable demands. Yes, they can be put off (in the case of oxygen, maybe a minute or two), but not for too long. Starvation, dehydration, exposure (to either high or low temps) will kill you. Physiological satisfaction is the sine qua non for the "higher" needs.

Anyway, I just don't get why they are "negative". Fulfilling the physiological needs tends to be highly satisfying. Eating, drinking, breathing... — Bitter Crank

Oh, I see. A normal/optimal physiological state (breathing, drinking, and feeding, etc. well) is a need. Compare this to the fact that self-actualization (tip of the pyramid) isn't one. First order of business is to fulfill one's needs (physiological), only then can we move on to our wants (self-actualization). That's why I gave physiological normalcy a negative valence. It's kinda like a debt one owes to oneself. Once that's settled, we can think of other things.

Right.

I suppose one could say that "self-actualization" isn't a need in the same sense as oxygen or food is a need. One may be very unhappy without self-actualization, but one won't drop dead from its absence.

"You" can live without self-actualization; "for me" it's essential.

I suppose one could say that "self-actualization" isn't a need in the same sense as oxygen or food is a need. One may be very unhappy without self-actualization, but one won't drop dead from its absence.

"You" can live without self-actualization; "for me" it's essential. — Bitter Crank

You've hit the nail on the head as far as I'n concerned.

I'd like to share an analogy. Imagine you want to put a sculpture in your garden. You've picked a spot but there's a hole exactly where you want the sculpture to stand.

Your first task: Fill the hole with earth so that it's level with the rest of your garden. Physiological needs are like that hole. Negative valence (you're in the red).

Second on your to-do list: Install the sculpture (make aure you assign this to someone who knows what he's doing). Self-actualization is the sculpture. Positive valence (you're safe, well-fed, etc. and only then can you self-actualize).

Yes, generally speaking, one can self-actualize when one's basic needs have been satisfied enough. People who are starving think first, second, and third about finding food.

So, "self-actualization" isn't going to look the same for everyone, and for an individual won't be the same throughout life. I have had periods of really good self-actualization, and periods which were barren. This seems to be true for most people. A couple of big peaks were in work settings, a few minor peaks were in interpersonal relationships. The present time, particularly the last 10 years (after age 65, basically) has been an extended period of self-actualization.

Most of the time we are not experiencing peaks of self-actualization. Most of the time we are on a plateau, and while there are peaks, there also deep ditches of despair.

How about you: what are your best self-actualizing experiences?