Maslow's Expanded Hierarchy Of Needs

[Gaze]

Maslow created a theory of human motivation based on a hierarchy of levels of needs. Some needs must be fulfilled before other needs can be addressed.

The original theory had five levels. Do you think the theory behind the hierarchy still holds true for today? Are there any needs on the original model you think should no longer be included or should be replaced with more modern conceptions of need?

There are three new levels. Do you think these new levels are true needs and healthy additions to the hierarchy?

Are there other needs not on the hierarchy that should be included as a separate level?

Original hierarchy:

Expanded hierarchy:

 

[AJ_]

Hi Gist,
Thank you for sharing this. I think that in both the original and the expanded hierarchy, the factor of love/belongingness is the absolute foundation, at least in warm-blooded animals. There was an experiment performed by Harry Harlow in the 1950s on rhesus monkeys that demonstrates how important just "cuddling" is, even more than food/water:

http://pages.uoregon.edu/adoption/studies/HarlowMLE.htm

"The famous experiments that psychologist Harry Harlow conducted in the 1950s on maternal deprivation in rhesus monkeys were landmarks not only in primatology, but in the evolving science of attachment and loss. Harlow himself repeatedly compared his experimental subjects to children and press reports universally treated his findings as major statements about love and development in human beings. These monkey love experiments had powerful implications for any and all separations of mothers and infants, including adoption, as well as childrearing in general.

In his University of Wisconsin laboratory, Harlow probed the nature of love, aiming to illuminate its first causes and mechanisms in the relationships formed between infants and mothers. First, he showed that mother love was emotional rather than physiological, substantiating the adoption-friendly theory that continuity of care—“nurture”—was a far more determining factor in healthy psychological development than “nature.” Second, he showed that capacity for attachment was closely associated with critical periods in early life, after which it was difficult or impossible to compensate for the loss of initial emotional security. The critical period thesis confirmed the wisdom of placing infants with adoptive parents as shortly after birth as possible. Harlow’s work provided experimental evidence for prioritizing psychological over biological parenthood while underlining the developmental risks of adopting children beyond infancy. It normalized and pathologized adoption at the same time.

How did Harlow go about constructing his science of love? He separated infant monkeys from their mothers a few hours after birth, then arranged for the young animals to be “raised” by two kinds of surrogate monkey mother machines, both equipped to dispense milk. One mother was made out of bare wire mesh. The other was a wire mother covered with soft terry cloth. Harlow’s first observation was that monkeys who had a choice of mothers spent far more time clinging to the terry cloth surrogates, even when their physical nourishment came from bottles mounted on the bare wire mothers. This suggested that infant love was no simple response to the satisfaction of physiological needs. Attachment was not primarily about hunger or thirst. It could not be reduced to nursing.

Then Harlow modified his experiment and made a second important observation. When he separated the infants into two groups and gave them no choice between the two types of mothers, all the monkeys drank equal amounts and grew physically at the same rate. But the similarities ended there. Monkeys who had soft, tactile contact with their terry cloth mothers behaved quite differently than monkeys whose mothers were made out of cold, hard wire. Harlow hypothesized that members of the first group benefitted from a psychological resource—emotional attachment—unavailable to members of the second. By providing reassurance and security to infants, cuddling kept normal development on track.

What exactly did Harlow see that convinced him emotional attachment made a decisive developmental difference? When the experimental subjects were frightened by strange, loud objects, such as teddy bears beating drums, monkeys raised by terry cloth surrogates made bodily contact with their mothers, rubbed against them, and eventually calmed down. Harlow theorized that they used their mothers as a “psychological base of operations,” allowing them to remain playful and inquisitive after the initial fright had subsided. In contrast, monkeys raised by wire mesh surrogates did not retreat to their mothers when scared. Instead, they threw themselves on the floor, clutched themselves, rocked back and forth, and screamed in terror. These activities closely resembled the behaviors of autistic and deprived children frequently observed in institutions as well as the pathological behavior of adults confined to mental institutions, Harlow noted. The awesome power of attachment and loss over mental health and illness could hardly have been performed more dramatically.

In subsequent experiments, Harlow’s monkeys proved that “better late than never” was not a slogan applicable to attachment. When Harlow placed his subjects in total isolation for the first eights months of life, denying them contact with other infants or with either type of surrogate mother, they were permanently damaged. Harlow and his colleagues repeated these experiments, subjecting infant monkeys to varied periods of motherlessness. They concluded that the impact of early maternal deprivation could be reversed in monkeys only if it had lasted less than 90 days, and estimated that the equivalent for humans was six months. After these critical periods, no amount of exposure to mothers or peers could alter the monkeys’ abnormal behaviors and make up for the emotional damage that had already occurred. When emotional bonds were first established was the key to whether they could be established at all."

I think it's awful that they had to subject innocent animals to this to figure out how important love is. Love drives the universe - don't really need an elaborate experiment to understand what intuition and experience both tell you.

 

[Gaze]

@James

That's an interesting study. Never would have thought research using monkeys would be the basis for discovering a pretty significant truth about basic human need.

 

[Sandie33]

Have not seen the pyramid in a while For my two-cent opinion...lol

In The 1990 new model I'm not understanding Aesthetic Needs? Seems Self-serving to me. Can It be explained better? (Gives me something to look up lol)

The order seems off to me too. It would make more sense as (in desending order) if it is true that the other needs are built/fulfilled based on the previous:

Transendence
Esteem
Self-actualization
Cognitive
Belongingness & love
Safety
Biological & Pysiological

 

[ZcM4xzkjgzCjytBc]

That's what they want you to believe.

 

[Gaze]

That's what they want you to believe.

 

[ZcM4xzkjgzCjytBc]

Why do you always ruin my boner?

 

[Gaze]

Why do you always ruin my boner?

 

[James]

@James

That's an interesting study. Never would have thought research using monkeys would be the basis for discovering a pretty significant truth about basic human need.

@Gist whilst I am a fiend who would happily take credit for someone else's ideas, I think I should say that the post was from @Aj not me.

I only have to hear the words "animal experiments" to tense up. Often it's very lazy and cruel research imho, though I would acknowledge it's necessity for crucial medical work etc. Certainly it has given us greater understanding of things.I'd be especially concerned about experiments on animals as sophisticated and intelligent as apes.

I think we can often learn things in more humane ways. Have you heard of Robert Sapolsky? He is a lecturer at Stanford and has many lectures on YouTube. He is especially interested in social dynamics in chimpanzee groups. It's very revealing of possibly human dynamics.

He studied one group for some years, then tragedy struck and nearly a third of the group died, after eating infected meat from a human settlement that was not properly disposed of. He said he was initially very upset, thinking the group may not survive, the main dominant males had all died.

Then he noticed changes in the group. The senior females took over the leadership. The dominant males had died as they kept the meat for themselves and had refused to share it. Previously they had been very aggressive and beaten the females etc. Very harsh. Seemingly this is common in chimpanzee groups. As the females were excluded they all survived along with the smaller, younger males.

They ran the group well, and survived. The behaviors radically changed, the females dominated, and grouped together to confront and tackle new males who joined them. The young males accepted the changes and they became a more successful, gentler, maternal hierarchy. New males usually tried to dominate when they joined, but also quickly accepted their structure.

Makes you think huh ?

 

[aeon]

I like both the old and the new, but I don’t think a hierarchy in a pyramid best describes things. I think the all-quadrants/all-levels approach of integral theory serves the purpose much better.

Cheers,
Ian

 

[Milktoast Bandit]

I lost this thread the other day...surprisingly, I found it right where it should be!

I'm with @aeon in that I like both. I appreciate the additions of the newer model or rather, that it breaks self actualization down into more detailed, easier to speak about parts. I think it's important to remember that, like most models of human being-ness, it is not static. There can be fluctuation between the levels and some can be bypassed all together only to fall into place later. If that makes sense.

Through various forms of asceticism, people deny themselves many of the needs listened in the pyramid in order to achieve permanent transcendence. Likewise, a person struggling to meet some of the lower needs can have a spontaneous transcendent experience that allows them to psychologically detach from them and put them in proper perspective, ie we need just enough food and water. We want a stack of big macs, a tub of butter and a gallon chocolate milk.

I read an article the other day about how self actualization is rubbish because the whole process is selfish love of self. (Me, me, me) and is contrary to the Christian perspective with is selflessness. This cannot be further from the truth as evidenced by the updated model and anyone that understands the similarities between self-actualization (a quality of which is selflessness and love) and any religious perspective that has an element of surrender, submission, not-self, union with isness it God. I want to give the author a hug so I can lovingly whisper how wrong he is in his ear. Here is a link to that article if anyone wants to read it...

http://faithactually.blogspot.com/2013/12/dont-tell-me-what-to-do-self.html?m=1

I could run my virtual mouth at length on this subject, then wonder whether I made any sense, or i could just copy and paste some of Maslows own words on the subject...

In contrast to the above article, here is what I found on another site...

The following on Maslow’s work sums up his contribution to human motivation;

The empirical fact, according to Maslow, is that human life is beyond itself to the cosmos. Except in sickness, no opposition, gap, or difference is found to exist between ego and world (1979, p. 117). A search for the actualization of this our fundamental identity with the cosmos, human motivation, at its highest and deepest, is a reaching out for the ultimates of truth, beauty, goodness, justice, and the like. Such Being-values are said to form the heart of true religion: the human being is naturally religious. Maslow's “naturalism” is thus an invitation to savor the splendor of all things, to bear witness to the extraordinary in the ordinary (unitive consciousness), including in this mortal flesh of ours. Maslow's psychology, addressing the ultimately spiritual or cosmic character of human life, is a courageous and bold undertaking.

(Fuller, 1994, p. 179)

The five types of human motivational needs espoused by Maslow, are universally found in all people. The more fulfilled humans are, Maslow claims, the healthier they will be. The higher the need, the less selfish it is found to be. In the hierarchy of needs, the higher spiritual needs are at the top (Maslow, 1971). The higher, less selfish nature is said to build and rest on the foundation of the lower, more self-centered nature (Maslow, 1968). The former, it is noted, would collapse without the latter. Maslow also claims to have discovered a hierarchy of higher and lower values intrinsic to human nature corresponding to the hierarchy of higher and lower basic needs.

Maslow has given the human need of self-actualisation special attention. He selected 48 extraordinary human beings for his study on self-actualisation and then described the patterns common to all. The highest human values are said to be associated with self-actualisation. It is, according to Maslow, is the striving for health, the search for identity and autonomy, and the yearning for excellence. It is the need for the development of the essential human nature; a pressure toward a unified personality, toward “spontaneous expressiveness”, toward identity and full individuality, “toward seeing the truth rather than being blind”, toward being good rather than bad, and toward creativeness (Maslow, 1970a); the need for the attainment of “full humanness” (Maslow, 1971). According to Maslow, psychological sickness, by contrast, is any falling away from this humanness.

Maslow on spiritual life says that it is the basic component of “our biological life” (Maslow, 1971). Spiritual life constitutes the most essential humanity. Since spiritual life is instinct like, it can be heard through the “impulse voices” arising from within. Maslow finds “two sets of forces pulling at the individual, not just one”; pressures towards health and self-actualisation and regressive pressure backwards in the direction of weaknesses and sickness (Maslow, 1970c). As for neurosis, Maslow considers it in its relation to “spiritual disorders”; to the loss of meaning, to anger and grief over lost love, to the loss of hope and courage, to despair over the future, to awareness that one’s life is being wasted, to the impossibility of joy or love and the like (Maslow, 1971). These are failures to measure up to full humanness. Any failure to achieve full humanness (self-actualisation), issues in psychopathology. According to Maslow, the religious or spiritual values are not the exclusive property of any one religion or group. Self-actualizers show themselves to be religious in their character, attitudes, and behavior. Reality is discovered, under the aspect of being, as wondrous, beautiful, awe-inspiring, and a privilege to behold (Maslow, 1979). Maslow eventually came to distinguish two kinds of healthy human beings, two degrees of self-actualizing people: the "transcenders" and “merely” healthy. "Transcenders" are those who "transcend," who live more at the level of being, who are meta-motivated, who are more inclined to have had peak experiences, which are experiences of ecstasy, rapture, bliss, the greatest joy, awe, mystery, humility, surrender and the happiest moments in life. Maslow’s characterisation of transcenders is captured in the following:


As Maslow characterizes them in hisJournals (1979, pp. 848-49), "transcenders" go beyond the basic needs and love the "ultimate good things, excellence, perfection, the good job"; identify with the cosmos and belong to it by right (cosmic consciousness); sacralize life, "reli-gionize" it; transcend the ego and are "impersonal-end motivated," "impersonally motivated"; have a "transcendent kind of objectivity," and thus "see reality better"; transcend deciding, choosing, planning, and being an agent; let the cosmos, from which they are no longer different, decide and the current take them; aren't preoccupied with their own uniqueness; are beyond healthy selfishness and extreme indi-vidualness; and see the "ought" with complete clarity: "right is right and wrong is wrong" (1979, p. 860).

(Fuller, 1994, p. 174)


He rejects the idea of limiting the experience of the holy to only one day of the week, when everything is miraculous. He argues that the sacred is in the ordinary, in people, in one's own backyard (Maslow, 1970b). Looking for miracles is a display of ignorance that everything is miraculous. All kinds of serious people are found to be capable of discovering the sacred anywhere and everywhere in life (Maslow, 1970b). He comments that when the organised religion splits off the sacred from the profane, the sacred, no longer belonging to everyone, becomes the property of a certain few—an elite cadre, select guardians of a private “hotline” to heaven, “the elect” (Maslow, 1970b). Maslow comments that when the holy is confined to one day of the week, people may feel free from the necessity of religious experience at any other time. All religions, according to Maslow, have originated, from experiences. The differences among them, stemming from particularities of time and locale, could thus be considered as not touching the essential. Because peak experiences are found to occur outside the context of organised religion.

To Maslow, God means pure cosmic beauty, truth, and goodness. A God that we can properly be in awe of, identify with, and serve. God, "is getting reborn, redefined" (Maslow, 1979, p. 524; quoted by Fuller, 1994). The transcendent or transhuman or godlike "is no longer dead," but alive "within human beings" (Maslow, 1979, p. 524; quoted by Fuller, 1994). Maslow states that, humans have an absolute need for something bigger and higher than themselves.

Maslow’s views on sacred in the ordinary, cosmic consciousness, finding god within humans and peak experiences are all concepts and expressions found in characterising spirituality in contemporary literature (Harlos, 2000; Mitroff and Denton, 1999; Hanson, 1998; Pellebon and Anderson, 1999; Wheat, 1991; Goddard, 1995; Beazley, 1998). Although Maslow rarely uses the word “spirituality,” a reasonable proposition would be whether he meant “spirituality,” as used in contemporary literature. Some scholarly studies have touched on the periphery of this issue. The most noteworthy, is the study of Dehoff (1998), who found that models for psychological growth could not be superimposed onto spiritual growth because of some significant differences in the way in which self-awareness, spirit, and self-transcendence are defined and used by psychology and theology. She concludes that psychotherapy and spiritual direction make unique contributions to human growth and need not be perceived as synonymous or competitive. According to her, there is a point at which psyche and spirit, psychotherapy and spiritual direction, meet: the place of healing. Rangaswami (1994), on the other hand surveyed 30 Hindu subjects, to verify the concept of an ultimate aim in life. It was found that self-actualisation and transcendence are considered to be the highest level in the hierarchy of motives in the Indian context. Beyond self-actualisation and transcendence, spiritual pursuit and union with universal self are considered to be the ultimate aim of life. Results confirmed the hypothesis that the ultimate motive in life in the Indian context is union with the universal self through spiritual pursuit. Thus, the similarity of the two concepts of psychological growth and spiritual growth has been subjected to academic research. However, it appears that no scholarly literature exists to suggest an examination of spirituality in the context of the work of Maslow. This warrants a rigours examination because of the implications on spirituality. For example, is spirituality a necessary value expression for self-actualisers? Do all self-actualisers have a high level of spirituality? Can spirituality, be experienced only by humans who have attained the level of self-actualisation? Would humans in the stage of fulfilling lower level needs have no need to experience spirituality? What are the implications of these on the role of spirituality at work?

Fin.