MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS

MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS

There are five levels set up in a  hierarchy of basic needs.  Higher levels of needs exist beyond these needs . The needs for understanding, aesthetic appreciation and purely spiritual needs.  The person does not feel the second need until the demands of the first have been satisfied in the levels of the five basic needs, nor the third until the second has been satisfied, and so on. Maslow’s basic needs are as follows:

Physiological Needs:These are biological needs. They consist of needs for oxygen, food, water, and a relatively constant body temperature. They are the strongest needs because if a person were deprived of all needs, the physiological ones would come first in the person’s search for satisfaction.

Safety Needs:When all physiological needs are satisfied and are no longer controlling thoughts and behaviour, the needs for security can become active. Adults have little awareness of their security needs except in times of emergency or periods of disorganisation in the social structure (such as widespread rioting). Children often display the signs of insecurity and the need to be safe.

Needs of Love, Affection and Belongingness:When the needs for safety and for physiological well-being are satisfied, the next class of needs for love, affection and belongingness can emerge. Maslow states that people seek to overcome feelings of loneliness and alienation. This involves both giving and receiving love, affection and the sense of belonging.

Needs for Esteem:When the first three classes of needs are satisfied, the needs for esteem can become dominant. These involve needs for both self-esteem and for the esteem a person gets from others. Humans have a need for a stable, firmly based, high level of self-respect, and respect from others. When these needs are satisfied, the person feels self-confident and valuable as a person in the world. When these needs are frustrated, the person feels inferior, weak, helpless and worthless.

Needs for Self-Actualisation

:When all of the foregoing needs are satisfied, then and only then are the needs for self-actualising activated. Maslow describes self-actualisation as a person’s need to be and do that which the person was “born to do.” “A musician must make music, an artist must paint, and a poet must write.” These needs make themselves felt in signs of restlessness. The person feels on edge, tense, lacking something, in short, restless. If a person is hungry, unsafe, not loved or accepted, or lacking self-esteem, it is very easy to know what the person is restless about. It is not always clear what a person wants when there is a need for self-actualisation.

The hierarchic theory is often represented as a pyramid, with the larger, lower levels representing the lower needs, and the upper point representing the need for self-actualisation. Maslow believes that the only reason that people would not move well in direction of self-actualisation is because of hindrances placed in their way by society. He states that education is one of these hindrances. He recommends ways education can switch from its usual person-stunting tactics to person-growing approaches. Maslow states that educators should respond to the potential an individual has for growing into a self-actualising person of his/her own kind.