4- Esteem- Need to feel worthy
3- Need to love and to be loved
Need for belonging and friendship
2- Need to feel safe and secure
1- Need for food, water, and
shelter - Physiological Needs
In the late 1960's Abraham Maslow
developed a hierarchical theory of human needs. Maslow
was a humanistic psychologist who
believed that people are not controlled by mechanical forces
(the stimuli and reinforcement forces
of behaviorism) or unconscious instinctual impulses of
psychoanalysis alone.
Maslow focused on human potential,
believing that humans strive to reach the highest levels
of their capabilities.
Some people reach higher levels of
creativity, of consciousness and wisdom. People at this level
were labeled by other psychologists
as "fully functioning" or possessing a "healthy personality".
Maslow had a more appropriate term
for these people "self-actualizing".
Maslow set up a hierarchical theory
of needs in which all the basic needs are at the bottom,
and the needs concerned with man's
highest
potential are at the top. The hierarchic theory is
often represented as a pyramid or
a Christmas tree, with the lower levels representing the lower
needs, and the upper point representing the need for self-actualization.
Each level of the pyramid
is dependent on the previous level. For example, a person does not feel
the second need until the
demands of the first have been satisfied.