Abraham Maslow
Abraham Maslow was a prominent psychologist known for his theory of human motivation and the hierarchy of needs. He proposed that individuals are motivated to achieve certain needs, which form a hierarchy ranging from basic physiological requirements to self-actualization. Maslow's work has had a significant impact on the field of psychology, particularly in understanding human behavior and motivation.
8 Key excerpts on "Abraham Maslow"
eBook - ePubEmployee Motivation in Saudi Arabia
An Investigation into the Higher Education Sector
- Rodwan Hashim Mohammed Fallatah, Jawad Syed(Authors)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Palgrave Macmillan(Publisher)
...The open-ended questions were analysed thematically to supplement the quantitative findings. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Abraham Maslow (1908–1970) was an American psychologist who conducted extensive academic research on motivation, with several notable publications including Motivation and Personality (1954) and Toward a Psychology of Being (1964) (Maslow 2011 ; Kermally 2005). In academic and practitioner circles, he is held in high regard particularly for his Hierarchy of Needs model (Valiunas 2011 ; Whitlock 2011), which has been hailed as a pioneering concept for exploring and understanding human motivational needs (Goud 2008 ; Kermally 2005). As such, and given its wide popularity, it was logical to choose Maslow’s theory for this research as the basis for a critical exploration of motivational needs in a Saudi context. Maslow adopted a theoretical approach dividing motivation into five needs and arranging these in a hierarchical order of importance to employees (Keleş 2012). These needs are as follows: physiological (survival needs such as food, water, and breathing), security (safety needs such as financial safety and safety against redundancy and harm), social (the need for love, friendship, acceptance, and belonging), esteem and autonomy (the need for respect, appreciation, empowerment, and being given a voice and rights) and self-actualisation (the highest needs which entail doing and achieving one’s best potential) (Adina and Medet 2012). Many disciplines today frequently use this theory to gain an understanding of and explanation for workplace motivation. Consequently, Maslow’s has become the most popular theory of motivation for its considered usefulness and effectiveness in conceptualising human needs (Jackson et al. 2004). Although a significant body of literature has the impression that Maslow’s theory is universally applicable (Ofori-Dankwa and Ricks 2000 ; Yang 2002), it is still criticised...
eBook - ePub- Frank Adams(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Abraham Harold Maslow (1908–1970) Theory of Motivation DOI: 10.4324/9781315054261-61 Hierarchy of Needs The lowest/most basic needs must be satisfied to some extent before the higher level of needs can be considered. If an individual loses the lowest level of needs, the hierarchy of needs reverts to that most basic level of needs before progressing to the higher level. Basic Theory Physiological Needs : Food, drink, sex, shelter Safety Needs : Order, security, protection, and family stability Love Needs : Affection, group affiliation, and personal acceptance Esteem Needs : Self-efficacy, self-esteem, prestige, reputation, and social status Self-Actualization Needs : Self-fulfillment and achievement of personal goals, ambitions, and talent Concepts Hierarchy of Needs : The lowest/most basic needs must be satisfied to some extent before the higher-level needs can be considered. Self-Actualization : Becoming the very best that one can become; fulfillment of one’s anticipated potential/capacity Inner Nature : Consideration of one’s most basal biological abilities that guide the development and growth Deficiency of Needs : Lower four levels of needs focus individual on the fulfillment, which would lead to completion, to a stronger desire for fulfillment. Growth Needs : Self-actualizing needs in which the individual has a desire/need to know/to understand him- or herself; the direction to understand the environment and the individual’s relationship to that environment; a desire for esthetic experiences/feelings of completion within the universe Adapted from Maslow, A. (1970). Motivation and personality. New York: Harper & Row....
eBook - ePubPsychology for Actors
Theories and Practices for the Acting Process
- Kevin Page(Author)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Instead of concentrating on the mentally ill, as most psychologists previous to him had done, Maslow became interested in studying the psychological traits of the most highly developed and mentally healthy people he could find. This led him to develop a theory of human motivation that extended from feelings of deprivation and struggle with basic needs, such as food and shelter, through the entire spectrum of human endeavor to include those rare individuals who might change whole societies by their actions, such as great historical leaders or sainted religious figures. Effectively, his theory of motivation integrated the findings of behaviorism and Freudian psychoanalysis (and its extensions), along with the holism of Gestalt psychology and the functionalism of William James and John Dewey, to create a model that Maslow considered both holistic and dynamic (Maslow & Frager, 1987, p. 15). Following are some of the contributions Maslow made to Western psychology, many of which became foundational to the humanistic psychology movement, and later the transpersonal psychology movement, described in Chapter 1. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Maslow postulated that human motivation is a multi-tiered affair, where one level of need must be satisfactorily fulfilled in order for the next higher level to emerge, creating a hierarchy, or predictable order of emergence, that is developmentally driven across the life span (Maslow, 1943a, 1943b). At the bottom of this hierarchy are what Maslow termed “physiological needs,” such as food, water, and oxygen, followed by sleep and the need for sex...
eBook - ePub50 Self-Help Classics
50 Inspirational Books to Transform Your Life from Timeless Sages to Contemporary Gurus
- Tom Butler Butler Bowdon(Author)
- 2010(Publication Date)
- Nicholas Brealey Publishing(Publisher)
...As an academic psychologist his work was essentially a reaction against behaviorism, which broke people down to mechanistic parts, and Freudian psychoanalysis, which imagined us controlled by subterranean urges. Still working within the boundaries of the scientific method, Motivation and Personality instead sought to form a holistic view of people, one not dissimilar to how artists and poets have always imagined us. Rather than being simply the sum of our needs and impulses, Maslow saw us as whole people with limitless room for growth. It was this clear belief in human possibility and the organizations and cultures we could build that has made his work so influential. The key concepts: Hierarchy of needs and self-actualization Maslow’s “hierarchy of needs” is a famous concept in psychology. He organized human needs into three broad levels: the physiological—air, food and water—the psychological—safety, love, self-esteem—and, finally, self-actualization. His insight was that the higher needs were as much a part of our nature as the lower, indeed were instinctive and biological. Most civilizations had mistakenly put the higher and lower needs at odds with each other, seeing the animalistic basic drives as conflicting with the finer things to which we aspire like truth, love, and beauty. In contrast, Maslow saw needs as a continuum, in which the satisfaction of the lower needs came before a person’s higher mental and moral development. Having met the basic bodily requirements, and reached a state where we feel we are loved, respected, and enjoy a sense of belonging, including philosophical or religious identity, we seek selfactualization. Self-actualizing people have attained “the full use and exploitation of talents, capacities, potentialities and the like.” These are the people who are successful as a person, aside from any obvious external success; by no means perfect, but seemingly without major flaws...
eBook - ePubPeople Management In A Week
Managing People In Seven Simple Steps
- Norma Barry(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Teach Yourself(Publisher)
...It is based on the idea that it is the responsibility of employers to provide a workplace environment that encourages and enables staff members to fulfil their potential, which is referred to as self-actualization. He developed a hierarchy of needs based on five motivational stages, which are frequently presented as a pyramid diagram: Maslow recognized that we are all motivated by needs, the most basic of which deals with our survival needs and is termed in the model as physiological (or biological) needs. He maintained that people’s needs have to be satisfied according to the order given in the model. Maslow was of the view that only when the lower-order needs are satisfied do we move on to the higher-order needs. In order to meet our physiological needs, we seek the basic living requirements of food, water, air, shelter and sleep. Once this first need has been satisfied, people move on to satisfy their higher safety needs of keeping themselves and their families protected, secure and stable. The next stage in the hierarchy is social needs, which relate to belongingness and love within the family, other relationships and from the workplace. Once these needs are met we move on to meet our esteem needs, which are about our achievements, status, responsibilities and reputations. Finally, we seek self-actualization through personal growth and fulfilment. The criticisms of Maslow’s theory are that: • individuals’ behaviours respond to more than one need • people may employ different behaviours in response to the same need • it is not easy to decide when a need has been satisfied • people’s behaviours are far more complex than this model allows for and are affected by life experiences and events, and their frame of mind in certain situations. A failure of someone to have their needs satisfied usually leads to stress and a decline in their work performance...
- (Author)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- Wiley(Publisher)
...Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Bernardo J. Carducci Indiana University Southeast Abraham H. Maslow proposed a viewpoint of the individual that has become known as the third force in psychology, with the psychodynamic emphasis on unconscious processes and behaviorist emphasis on environmental controls on behavior being the two other forces. The emphasis of this third force has been to enhance the dignity of people by studying the internal processes contributing to their self‐directed self‐enhancement. The Motivational Nature of Personality For Maslow, the driving force behind personality was that individuals were constantly being motivated to meet a variety of biological and psychological needs. The meeting of these needs was assumed to operate in a dynamic process rather than in isolation (Maddi, 1996 ; Reis & Patrick, 1996). The principal objective of these needs is the motivation of the individual to reach a state of self‐actualization. For Maslow, the state of self‐actualization involves attempts by individuals to reach their full potential by using their talents and abilities to the fullest extent while trying to achieve personal growth, satisfaction, and fulfillment. Maslow organized human needs in a manner designed to promote the achievement of this state of self‐actualization by grouping them into deficiency needs and being needs (Maslow, 1970): Deficiency needs are the lower, more basic needs necessary for the survival of the individual, including hunger, thirst, safety, and social connectedness. The deficiency needs motivate the individual to engage in behavior designed to bring about the satisfaction of these needs. Being needs are the higher needs necessary for the achievement of a state of self‐actualization, including those needs reflecting a desire for wisdom, aspirational development, and a sense of aesthetics. The being needs motivate the individual to engage in behavior designed to bring about their fulfillment (e.g. going to college or an art museum)...
- Edward S. Neukrug(Author)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications, Inc(Publisher)
...Hannah B. Bayne Hannah B. Bayne Bayne, Hannah B. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Maslow’s hierarchy of needs 631 634 Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs identifies a range of core needs and desires that can have a motivating effect on an individual’s behavior and sense of self. This concept of human motivation can then provide a map for understanding a person’s current state, as well as determining what else may be needed or desired for future growth. Needs progress from the most basic and instinctual impulses to a sense of personal integration and even spiritual transcendence. This hierarchical view of motivation takes a holistic and dynamic approach to understanding human nature in that it incorporates the body, the mind, and social influences. Historical Context Maslow first published his concept of human motivation in 1943 to fill what he felt was a significant gap in the current theoretical approaches to psychology. Through his own clinical practice, he discovered that although the conceptualizations of human nature of the leading theorists of the day (Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Alfred Adler, etc.) all had value, the efficacy of each approach varied by individual or condition. Maslow reasoned that the one thing that seemed to be lacking in all of them was the idea that each person has an essence, or higher self, and that achieving this higher sense of self is among our instinctual needs. He also believed that rather than reducing a person to symptoms or analyzing the minutiae of a person’s life, individuals could be viewed holistically, or as a sum of many parts that could all be significant to understanding the problem...
eBook - ePubPersonality Theories
Development, Growth, and Diversity
- Bem P. Allen(Author)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Psychology Press(Publisher)
...During childhood, Maslow’s first love were the books of the Brooklyn Library, access to which was perilous due to neighboring anti-Semitic gangs. After undistinguished performance in high school, Maslow enrolled in City College, law school, Cornell, and finally the University of Wisconsin. There he became a “monkey psychologist.” 2. Maslow used a research position under Edward L. Thorndike as a return ticket to New York City where he fell under the influence of Adler, existentialism, and the Gestalt psychologists. Armed with Gestalt holism, Maslow turned his attention to motivation, the process by which people are propelled toward goals. These goals can be cast as “needs” for certain satisfactions that are sought by all humans, regardless of culture, environment, or generation. 3. While needs are universal, methods of satisfying them can be culturally or environmentally determined. Maslow believed that needs are formed into a hierarchy, with more primitive, lower-order needs demanding satisfaction before more complex and uniquely human needs are addressed. Physiological (D) needs demand satisfaction first; second, safety needs; third, belongingness and love needs; and fourth, esteem needs. 4. “Self-actualization” is “the tendency for [one] to become actualized in what [one] is potentially.” D-needs are prepotent: stronger and demanding prior satisfaction before other needs can be addressed. Needs are not met in all-or-none fashion, but higher-order needs cannot be met until lower-order needs are largely satisfied. In exceptional cases, people may deny lower-order needs and still pursue higher-order needs, as Gandhi did. 5. Human nature is inborn, not made. Thus, even self-actualization needs are instinctoid, because of their biological, genetic, and universal characteristics. The rare self-actualizers show the rest of us what is good for us. They are people who fulfill themselves by making complete use of their potentialities...
