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Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs as a Guide for Living

Eugene W. Mathes Journal of Humanistic Psychology 1981 21: 69 DOI: 10.1177/002216788102100406 The online version of this article can be found at: http://jhp.sagepub.com/content/21/4/69

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MASLOWS HIERARCHY OF NEEDS AS A GUIDE FOR LIVING

EUGENE W. MATHES

Maslows (1970) theory of motivation suggests that there are five classes of needs and that they are hierarchically organized. Physiological needs are on the bottom of the hierarchy followed by security, belongingness, esteem, and self-actualization needs. Each level is prepotent to the next higher level. Thus physiological needs must receive sufficient satisfaction before security needs emerge, security needs must receive sufficient satisfaction before belongingness needs emerge, and so forth. One of the values of this theory, if true, is that it can act as a guide for living. It suggests that early in life one should establish a basis for physiological survival and safety, and once these are accomplished one should seek friends, followed by achievements, and finally, self-actualization. Indeed, if Maslows theory is an accurate reflection of human development, it should already exist in some form in the norms and folkways of every culture-the distillation of the experience of centuries. To some extent this appears to be the case. In Candide, Voltaire suggests that tending a garden is a prerequisite to saving the world through philosophizing. The Hindu is a householder before becoming a forest-dweller or renunciate seeking union with God. And the Sufi often is expected to perform menial tasks on the path to self-realization. The purpose of this research was to test the hypothesis that people unwittingly use Maslows hierarchy as a guide for living. To accomplish this end student subjects (50 men and 50 women) who were not familiar with Maslows theory of motivation filled out a questionnaire which asked for their priorities in need satisfaction. Essentially the questionnaire involved a series of forced choice comparisons in which a higher need satisfier was paired with a lower need satisfier. Subjects were asked which one they would rather do without &dquo;from now on.&dquo; If Maslows hierarchy is an accurate reflection of human motivational development and thus found in the norms and folkways of our culture, subjects should choose to do without the higher need satisfier. The first step in creating the paired comparisons questionnaire involved selecting five satisfiers for each of the five need levels. For the physiological level the satisfiers included food, sleep, elimination of wastes (urine, feces), water, and air (to breathe). For security the satisfiers included security against dying from disease; security against dying of starvation; 69

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70 attack or murder; security against death as a result of extreme heat, cold, or natural disaster; and security against mutilation or death as a result of foreign invasion. For belongingness the satisfiers involved spouse or lover, work companions, female friends, children, and male friends. For esteem needs the satisfiers included accomplishments which will &dquo;live on&dquo; after your death, high status within your community and country, high self-esteem, awards and honors, and respect from your peers (friends and associates). For self-actualization needs the satisfiers involved opportunities to fulfill metavalues: seeking after truth, giving unselfish love to others, seeking to be a good human being, being just and promoting justice, and being honest and maintaining

security against physical

your

integrity.

The second step involved forming five different Maslowian hierarchies out of the satisfiers. Which satisfiers formed which hierarchies was determined by a random procedure, with the limitation that five Maslowian hierarchies eventually be found. Then, for each hierarchy, each level was paired with every other level to form 10 pairs or a total of 50 pairs for all five hierarchies. The third step involved forming items out of the pairs. This was accomplished by fitting pairs into the following question: &dquo;If from now on you had to do without or which would you choose&dquo;? Order of pair presentation was balanced so that for half of the items the lower need was presented first and for the other half the higher need was presented first. The final step involved putting the 50 items together into a questionnaire. Order of presentation was determined by a table of random numbers. Responses were scored by counting the number of satisfiers of a given level that were selected. Scores for any level could range from zero to 20. A sex by need level (2 x 5) analysis of variance was carried out on the data. As predicted a main effect for need level was found (F 50.84, < stated were that most df 4/392, p .0001). Subjects they willing to do without esteem satisfiers (X 13.92) followed by security (X = 11.47), self-actualization ~X 10.35), belongingness (X 9.40), and least willto 5.66). A Newman-Keuls ing forgo physiological satisfaction (X demonstrated all that the means were analysis significantly different from each other. Since esteem and security need satisfiers were out of order, only partial support was found for the hypothesis that people unwittingly use Maslows hierarchy as a guide for living. No sex differences or interactions were found.
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71

Failure to find full support for the hypothesis may be due to one or more of three causes: (a) Maslows theory is inaccurate; (b) our norms and folkways are inaccurate; or (c) the methodology used in testing the hypothesis was inadequate. Although this research cannot determine the cause of the failure, other research suggests that it may be found in Maslows theorizing. After reviewing over 25 empirical tests of Maslows theory, Wahb and Bridwell (1976) state: &dquo;This literature review shows that Maslows Need Hierarchy Theory has received little clear or consistent support from the available research findings. Some of Maslows propositions are totally rejected, while others receive mixed and questionable support at best.&dquo; (p. 233) The results of this study suggest a revision of Maslows hierarchy to contain only three levels-physiological, belongingness, and self-actualization-with security and esteem as superfluous. Such a revision would also make it consistent with a number of other psychological theories. William James (1892/1962) proposed a hierarchical theory of motivation involving material, social, and spiritual (moral) needs. He stated: &dquo;Its own body, then first of all, its friends next, and finally its spiritual dispositions, MUST be the supremely interesting objects of each human mind.&dquo; (p. 250) Alderfers (1972) hierarchical ERG theory of motivation postulates three levels of motivation: existence, relatedness, and growth needs. The existential psychologist Binswanger (1958) postulates three kinds of existence: Umwelt or biological existence, Mitwelt or social existence, and Eigenwelt or personal philosophical existence. And finally Kohlberg (1969) postulates three stages of moral development: the preconventional, conventional, and postconventional stages. During the preconventional stage the child has no morality but is solely concerned with his or her own survival. During the conventional stage the child becomes concerned with other people, his or her family, friends, and community. During the postconventional stage the individual transcends friends and culture and is guided by universal values such as justice and respect for the individual.

REFERENCES

ALDERFER, F. P. Existence, relatedness, and growth. New York: The Free Press,
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case of Ellen West. In P. May, E. Angel, and H. F. berger (Eds.), Existence. New York: Basic Books, 1958. JAMES, W. Psychology: Briefer course. New York: Collier, 1892/1962.

BINSWANGER, L. The

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72

KOHLBERG, L. Stage and sequence: The cognitive-developmental approach

socialization. In Goslin

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(Ed.),
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MASLOW, A. H. Motivation . and personality (Rev. Ed.), New York: Harper and Row, 1970. WAHB, M. A., & BRIDWELL, L. G. Maslow reconsidered: A review of research on
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