Ladder theory: is Maslow’s pyramid of motivation still relevant?

Maslow's pyramid

Maslow’s theory is based on the pyramid of needs, which is essentially a reflection of the hierarchy of things a person needs. Another name is Maslow’s ladder, which is no coincidence. According to the author, stated in the first edition of the theory, a person realizes his desires gradually - rising from one step to another. Until the “lower” range of needs is satisfied, it is not possible to move to a higher level. An important point: Abraham Maslow himself more than once drew attention to the fact that his theory reflects the development of the needs of people as a whole, as a society. But each person is individual, which means that there are simply no single rigid schemes that could be “applied” to all people without exception.

What's in practice?

According to many modern psychologists, despite the fact that Maslow’s pyramid is a clearly structured model, it is quite difficult to apply it in practice, and the scheme itself can lead to completely incorrect generalizations. If we put all the statistics aside, a number of questions immediately arise. For example, how dark is the existence of a person who is not recognized in society? Or, should a person who is systematically malnourished be considered absolutely hopeless? After all, in history you can find hundreds of examples of how people achieved enormous results in life precisely because their needs remained unsatisfied. Take, for example, poverty or unrequited love.

The aspirations of individuals do not undergo transformation. The only thing that may be different is the ways to satisfy them. How to apply a scientist's theory in real life? Having considered the levels of Maslow's pyramid, a personnel manager can build the most effective motivational ladder in a particular situation. When it comes to finding a job, it’s important to first outline your own goals. Answer yourself the question of what you want to get from a certain position. What factors are important? By understanding your personal motives, you can avoid mistakes in choosing a company or even a profession.

Maslow's pyramid of needs (its levels were briefly discussed above) is often used in marketing. Some experienced marketers claim that, guided by the presented hierarchy of human aspirations, it is possible to identify what level of needs is served by a particular company. It is no secret that the activities of a particular company are directly dependent on the dynamics and state of the needs markets being satisfied. For example, when the economy is in crisis, consumer needs quickly fall to the lower levels of the well-known pyramid. As for food needs, they are eternal. The same can be said about medical services.

But the desire to follow fashion trends fades as income declines. The basic principle of strategic planning for any type of activity is the need to keep abreast of market needs. If there is a tendency for one of the needs to develop, it makes sense to tune in to service it. As John Sheildrek noted, the levels of Maslow's pyramid of needs are only relevant to humans. It makes no sense to apply the postulates of this theory to large companies, since the behavior of organizations is particularly complex, and to analyze it one should be armed with other theoretical tools.

American psychologists have proposed their own version of the pyramid in question. As the researchers noted, although realization is undoubtedly a significant motive, it cannot be considered leading from the point of view of evolutionary theory. The vast majority of the actions listed by Maslow in his theory reflect basic biological needs based on obtaining status in order to attract a partner and subsequently continue one's own race. As one of the participants in the experiments, Douglas Kenrick, noted, among the fundamental aspirations of people, the main one is the desire to have offspring. That is why raising children can be considered the basic level in the modern pyramid of needs.

Hierarchical essence

If you pay attention to the content of Maslow’s theory, it becomes obvious that it seems to reflect the hierarchical system of building society in the modern world. Therefore, “Maslow’s ladder” is clearly associated with a pyramid of power based on the presence of a particular amount of material values ​​in a particular person. The more values, the more power.

This feature explains why Maslow's theory is very popular among those who have hierarchical thinking. It appeals to people who are convinced that human success is built on competition. The more actively and successfully he competes with other people, the higher he will be at the top of the pyramid. Accordingly, the happier you should feel. Most of our contemporaries live like this: checking off boxes on their list of achievements. The boxes are generally accepted, banal: home, work, family, child, money... Alas, few can call themselves happy, despite material well-being and a complete “list” of stereotypical things required for happiness. Many modern theories of human and social development have outgrown this approach, believing that competition is an unproductive path. Society can develop much more effectively if it abandons competition and puts the uniqueness of each person, his ability to demonstrate his talents - the ability to create, at the forefront.

Humanistic psychology A. Maslow

Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) - American psychologist, headed the psychology department at Brandeis University for 10 years, professor. The humanistic psychology of A. Maslow is “the psychology of the third force,” as the author himself spoke of it.

Maslow viewed the concept of man as a single, unique, organized whole. Human nature is good, or at least neutral. The destructive forces in man are the result of frustration or unsatisfaction of basic needs, and are not due to the influence of the innate defects of mankind. Nature has inherent potential for positive development and self-improvement in humans. The most distinctive and universal characteristic of human beings is creativity. Creativity comes in different forms. A person’s innate ability to be creative can be lost as a result of “cultivation” or subjection of a person to the norms prevailing in society.

Maslow believed that we cannot understand mental illness until we understand mental health.

Self-improvement is the main theme of human life, and the study of self-actualizing healthy people will create a universal psychological science.

Maslow described man as a “desiring being” whose needs require constant satisfaction. Human needs are innate and organized in a hierarchical system.

At the base of this hierarchical pyramid are physiological needs (5); higher - the needs of safety and protection (4); even higher - the needs of belonging and love (3); further - the needs of self-esteem (2); and the pyramid is completed by the need for self-actualization or personal self-improvement (1).

Satisfaction of needs located at the lowest level (i.e. physiological) makes it possible to understand the needs of a higher level. The higher a person rises in this hierarchy of needs, the more individuality, human qualities and mental health he demonstrates.

Maslow recognized the possibility of realizing higher needs when lower ones are not satisfied (creative people, heroes, etc.). The degrees of satisfaction of needs vary: physiological - 85% satisfied, security and protection - 70%, love and belonging - 50%, self-esteem - 40%, self-actualization - 10%.

Self-actualizing individuals (1% of humanity) most fully embody the human essence. There are few self-actualizers because people are not aware of their creative potential or are afraid of it (Jonah complex - fear of success).

Later, Maslow identifies two global categories of human motives: deficit motives (need motives) and growth motives (development motives or meta-needs).

Metaneeds are aimed at realizing our potential, which manifests itself in achieving: integrity, perfection, activity, kindness, beauty, uniqueness, etc. Failure to satisfy metaneeds leads to metapathology, which manifests itself in alienation, depression, cynicism, etc.

These two global human motives correspond to two lifestyles.

The first is D (deficit) life or a lifestyle focused on satisfying needs (scarcity) and fulfilling the demands of society. The second is B (existential) life or a way of life aimed at the full realization of one’s capabilities.

The peak experiences of the image are great ecstasy, reverence, and delight.

The main characteristics of a self-actualizing personality according to Maslow:

• more adequate perception of reality;
• acceptance of self, others and nature;
• spontaneity, simplicity and naturalness;
• problem-centeredness (i.e. preoccupation with activity);
• independence, which manifests itself, among other things, in the need for privacy;
• autonomy, i.e. relative independence from culture and environment;
• freshness of perception of surrounding phenomena;
• summit or mystical experiences;
• public interest, manifested, among other things, in the desire to help other people;
• deep interpersonal relationships;
• democratic character;
• differentiation of goals and means of achieving them, which is based on the existing hierarchy of values;
• philosophical sense of humor;
• creativity;
• resistance to culturalization (i.e., a certain resistance to the pressure of social norms).

The self-actualizing personality, according to Maslow, is a model of mental health, although it is not without flaws. Maslow dreamed of creating the island of Eupsychia, on which 1000 healthy, self-actualizing families could be settled.

Spiritual development

Nevertheless, Abraham Maslow's theory made significant, important contributions to the development of humanistic psychology in the years after World War II. The merit of the scientist is that he was able to propose new meaningful theoretical and practical approaches that developed psychology in a different direction, different from psychoanalysis and behaviorism. The theory of needs is based on the desire of people to grow spiritually and develop their personality. His pyramid explains how different needs arise, how a person moves from one need to another. This helps to understand the motives behind a person's actions.

Physiology and Spirituality

According to the theory proposed by Abraham Maslow, a person has several groups of needs: physiological and spiritual. Usually an individual moves from simpler desires to more complex, sublime ones.

At the base of the pyramid are instinctual needs: eat, drink, satisfy sexual desire, sleep.

The second level is safety (housing, clothing), order... On the third rung of the ladder is the need to love and be loved.

The fourth level involves the realization of the desire to be recognized in society, to contribute something of one’s own to the development of civilization, and to receive a reward for this. Finally, the fifth, the highest level, involves satisfying the needs for self-actualization.

Personality structure

According to Maslow, a person cannot be divided into some kind of I, Super-I and Id. He is who he makes himself, his task is to find his own meaning in the world around him .

Reality for a person is not objective, but subjective - it is the way he feels and perceives it.

This is an existential approach that places the existence of the individual at the forefront. Moreover, the scientist went further than his predecessors, who studied people with disabilities. He preferred to consider the experience of outstanding personalities.

Maslow identified several levels of needs:

• physiological (sleep, food, shelter),
• need for reliability (safety, lack of fear of failure),
• social - the need for belonging and love (to belong to a social group, to be accepted and loved by it),
• need for respect (competence, respect, recognition, approval),
• need for development (cognitive, spiritual, aesthetic needs and their peak - self-actualization).

Step by step, step by step, the personality moves towards the highest need: self-development .

However, only 2 to 5 percent of people reach this stage.

In fact, this is what he is best known for: Maslow’s pyramid of needs can be found in any textbook on psychology, marketing or personnel management, as it has become the basis of the theory of motivation.

Although he himself never presented his theory in the form of a pyramid: the first time this was done was five years after his death.

The views of the scientist himself are somewhat broader and have undergone changes in the process of development. However, now we will focus on the understanding that is most common in modern society.

Forward movement

The author of the theory believes that in most cases people move to the next step of the pyramid when they satisfy their meaningful needs on the previous one.

For example, if a person does not have enough food, he will not be able to think about self-respect and fulfillment in society. The fact is, the author believes, that in the absence of satisfaction of some need, the goal of satisfying it becomes dominant for a person. He may simply not notice his other needs; they are not interesting to him yet.

Having enough food, air, water and sex, a person begins to think about safety. This includes the desire to have clothing that protects from the cold, as well as housing where you can shelter from bad weather. The desire to earn a good income and accumulate money also belongs to the second level in Maslow’s hierarchy. In essence, all this serves to create and strengthen confidence that all first-level needs will be met stably, constantly, for as long as possible. Hence the desire for stability, some familiar routine that calms you down.

Maslow's theory of personality development

The concept of personality development, according to Maslow, is presented as climbing a “ladder” of needs - from primitive physiological (food, water, etc.) to high spiritual ones (self-actualization, knowledge, etc.). The psychologist believed that people are initially motivated to seek higher goals.

The hierarchy of human needs constitutes the personality structure according to Maslow.

It includes five levels:

1. Physiology – support of the internal environment of the body.
2. Security – implies freedom from fear and confidence. They cease to motivate with regular satisfaction.
3. Love and affection - the desire to have a place in a family, social group.
4. Respect and self-confidence - the desire to have a good reputation and recognition.
5. Self-actualization, self-realization and creativity.

Maslow argued that all human needs included in the hierarchy are innate. As the needs of the initial levels are saturated, desires for the next position in the hierarchy arise.

Love and accept love

Having moved to a new level, a person will strive to realize his desire to love and be loved. Now this goal will capture him almost entirely. A person will forget that once upon a time, until his “lower” needs were realized, he looked at love as something optional and generally non-existent.

He begins to seek mutual understanding from other people. Maslow considers it wrong to confuse this with sexual attraction. He proposes to consider the desire to love and be loved as a need for acceptance. Here he diverges from Sigmund Freud, who derives love from sexual desire. According to Abraham Maslow, if a person has not learned to love and accept love, it is difficult for him to develop as a person. He argues that a lack of love is equivalent to a lack of vitamins or minerals. Observations of young children prove how true this is.

The author offers his view on different types of love. The first, deficit love, is guided by the desire to get something. It comes from selfish desires. The second type of love is giving love: it is based on an understanding of the value and uniqueness of each person. At the same time, there is no desire to use another to satisfy one’s needs. The substantive aspects of love in the first and second cases are radically opposite.

Hierarchy of needs

The central element of A. Maslow’s theory of personality is the hierarchy of needs. In its original version, five levels of individual needs are presented:

1. Physiological
2. Security and protection
3. Belonging and love
4. Self-esteem
5. Self-actualization

Physiological needs are expressed in satisfying the body's needs, such as food, sleep, sex, shelter, and so on. The needs of security and protection are realized through personal and social efforts to organize law, order, security from hostile and threatening circumstances and are aimed at the long-term survival of the individual and his offspring.

The level of belonging and love is realized through the inclusion of an individual in a social group, as well as interpersonal relationships. Moreover, love can be scarce, caused by a lack of something (care, emotional intimacy, security) or binary, based on recognition of the value of another.

The level of self-esteem is associated with the individual’s acceptance of oneself, as well as the acceptance of it by others as valuable, competent, possessing skills, knowledge, and authority. The highest need and level of personal development is self-actualization, as a process of permanent realization by a person of his own abilities, desires, implementation of a creative, active approach to the world and himself.

The levels in this scheme, also called “Maslow’s pyramid,” are in a relationship of strict subordination - until the underlying needs (physiological, safety) are satisfied, the personality cannot recognize and be determined by the overlying needs (self-esteem, self-actualization). However, the opposite is not true. Those. Having reached the level of self-esteem, a person’s behavior will be motivated by all underlying needs.

According to this scheme, if at some point the underlying needs are no longer satisfied, then the higher ones will be frustrated and will no longer be able to motivate the individual, and a reduction in his need sphere will occur.

Later, this typology was criticized, including by Maslow himself. A rigid hierarchy has given way to a classification of needs into two types:

• Scarce
• Existential

Deficit or D-needs are any needs associated with fulfilling any need, maintaining balance between the individual and the environment (both external and internal). The general focus of these needs is related to reducing stress levels.

Existential or B-needs are any needs related to personality development. If the subject of the D-need is usually a specific object located in the immediate life environment of the individual, then the B-needs form long-term goals, the implementation of which is associated with significant effort for the individual. The general orientation of existential or metaprobations is associated with an increase in the level of personality tension.

Adequate self-esteem

Having learned to love and accept love, people want respect. It is divided into self-esteem and approval from other people.

Self-esteem includes self-confidence, competence, mastery, adequacy, achievement, freedom. When other people respect, it means receiving recognition and acceptance, attention, reputation, status.

It is interesting that with adequate self-esteem, a person is more confident in himself - he acts in society more productively than someone who has low self-esteem. When a person has realized self-respect, he is confident and feels useful.

Top level

The top rung of Maslow's ladder is self-actualization. The author offers this definition of this concept - the desire to become who you can be. It is assumed that here all the abilities, talents, and potential of the individual are fully realized.

Maslow says that few people succeed in reaching level five simply because the vast majority simply do not see their potential. People are afraid of their talents because they are afraid of their own success.

Another factor that hinders the development of abilities is the need to have an environment where you can express your full potential. This starts in childhood: if a child grows up in a safe, friendly environment, it is easier for him to develop.

Individual approach

If the content aspects of one level are realized, a desire arises to receive something new - of a higher level. A new goal appears that motivates a person to perform certain actions.

While the basic (those at the bottom of the pyramid) needs are not satisfied, a person has no time for “sublime” things - this is what the author of the theory believes. He devotes his energy to solving issues of providing himself and his family with food, housing, sex, and so on. According to Maslow, stated in the first versions of the theory, it is impossible to move higher without satisfying primary needs. The process of progressive realization of human needs, says the author of the theory, may be disrupted. This doesn't happen very often. Sometimes the satisfaction of higher desires begins when the lower ones have not yet been realized.

However, Maslow later noted more than once that needs can arise in parallel: for safety and love, for food and self-esteem, and so on. In the modern world, not all people have all their basic needs fully satisfied. Nevertheless, this does not prevent them from feeling the desire to love and be useful to society. They just still have desires from the first steps of the ladder.

Application of Maslow's theory

In order to motivate a particular person, a leader must enable him to satisfy his most important needs through a course of action that contributes to the achievement of the goals of the entire organization. Not so long ago, managers could motivate subordinates almost exclusively only with economic incentives, since people's behavior was determined mainly by their needs at lower levels. Today, even people at the lowest levels of an organization's hierarchy are relatively high up in Maslow's hierarchy.

A leader must carefully observe his subordinates to decide what active needs drive them. Since these needs change over time, you cannot expect that motivation that works once will work effectively all the time.

Managers need to know what an employee's preferences are in the reward system, and what makes some of your subordinates refuse to work with others. Different people like different things, and if a leader wants to effectively motivate his subordinates, he must be sensitive to their individual needs.

The main criticism of Maslow's theory was that it failed to take into account individual differences in people.

For example, many people in modern Russia were so shocked by the “default” of 1998 that after that (although they managed to “get back on their feet”) their dominant need for security remains.

Focus on the task

By the mid-1950s, Maslow's theory had evolved. He divided all needs into two large groups: needs and self-actualization (development). The scientist identified several characteristics of people who are already on the path of self-actualization:

• they perceive reality more adequately and feel more comfortable in it;
• accept themselves and others;
• act spontaneously, simply and naturally;
• focused on the task and not on oneself;
• need privacy;
• do not depend on the influence of society and culture;
• can give a fresh assessment of what is happening;
• have mysticism, have experience of being in higher states;
• feel belonging, unity with others;
• build deeper relationships;
• democrats by nature;
• distinguish between means and ends, good and evil;
• show philosophical, kind humor;
• are engaged in creativity;
• resist cultivation.

At the same time, he abandoned the rigid hierarchy of needs, which was expressed in the fact that higher desires can appear only after the realization of “lower” ones. Recognized that most people are endowed with the ability to self-actualize. He called experiences of ecstasy - in creativity, love - a manifestation of self-actualization.

Self-actualizing personality according to Maslow

Maslow's self-actualization theory is a concept that suggests that a person is naturally good and has the ability to improve himself. Maslow proposes a personality psychology in which the very essence of a person moves him in the direction of personal growth and self-sufficiency.

Features of a self-actualizing personality are as follows:

• knows and understands life, does not use psychological defense techniques;
• accepts others and allows them to have their own opinions without getting into arguments;
• passionate about what she loves, sets tasks and solves them;
• independent from the environment;
• understands other members of society and treats them kindly;

And also this personality:

• strives to learn new things;
• distinguishes between good and evil, is convinced that the end does not justify the means;
• her behavior is natural;
• demonstrates creative abilities at work and in relationships with people;
• recognizes difficulties and solves problems.

Only about 5% of people meet these characteristics.

Such a minimal figure is explained by unfavorable social conditions and psychological problems. Most people avoid risks, even if they can satisfy higher needs.

Follow your desires

The main condition for the manifestation of self-actualization is understanding oneself, one’s nature, one’s abilities.

Plus the ability to follow your desires. It's not always easy. A person who has embarked on the path of personal development often faces misunderstandings from other people and various difficulties. Society strives to fit everyone into a clear template. If someone gets out, he becomes an oppositionist. Maslow is sure that difficulties can be overcome if one learns to build effective interaction with the outside world, while at the same time maintaining some alienation within oneself.