The ideas and research of Abraham Maslow, a 20th century American psychologist, still have huge weight in psychology, pedagogy, management, economics and its branches.
He is best known as the creator of the famous needs pyramid, each level of which represents a specific group of human needs.
In the extended version of Maslow's pyramid - 7 levelsand in the base 5 levels. There are also developments by other specialists based on Maslow’s ideas, such as the Henderson model, which includes 14 needs. Decoding levels will be presented below.
Maslow's theory - briefly
What is the pyramid in Maslow's theorem?
Psychologists and psychotherapists of the early and mid-20th century were aimed primarily at study of deviations from the norm, and the areas related to the study of mentally healthy people, their needs, difficulties, developmental features, were not studied so actively.
Abraham Maslow (pictured) was one of those researchers who worked in the field of the study of the mental norm and everything connected with it.
Abraham was born into a family of Jewish immigrants in 1908, and his childhood was hard: he was an outcast among his peers because of the pronounced Jewish features in appearance and spent most of his free time reading books.
Traction to knowledge largely helped Abraham: He became one of the most outstanding students in the school, and after that entered the law college. But he was not destined to become a lawyer: he, realizing his love of psychology, changed his school.
Abraham was initially attracted to the ideas of behaviorism, but he later became interested in other approaches and founded humanistic psychology.
The first concept of human needs was outlined by Abraham Maslow in the early 40s of the 20th century, but later he several times I came back to her and worked.
Initially, describing human needs, the American sociologist Maslou identified a number of the most significant and sorted them into levels (see picture), depending on the degree of importance for comfortable living.
If a person does not adequately satisfy the “lower” needs, he will not be able to fully satisfy the “high” ones and, in principle, may not feel that this needs to be done. It is difficult to have the need to enjoy beautiful pictures, if you constantly starve.
Later, as it was finalized, the concept became more advanced and received two additional levels of higher needs.
Needs classification
Table with Maslow needs classification (7 levels):
| Levels | Description | Examples of needs pertaining to each level. |
| The first | Physiological (vital) needs: those that must be satisfied for the continuation of life. |
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| Second | Need for security, material needs. |
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| Third | Social needs, the desire to feel the community. |
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| Fourth | Need for respect, in recognizing one's own accomplishments, striving for prestige. |
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| Fifth | The need for self-development, in knowledge. First stage spiritual needs. |
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| Sixth | Aesthetic needs. Second stage spiritual needs. |
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| Seventh | The need for self-actualization. The highest need also applies to spiritual. |
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These levels represent the very ladder or needs diagram with which most people associate Abraham Maslow. Initially there were only five first levels, but after revision there were seven.
At the same time, the five-level pyramid is still actively used, since not so many people get to the sixth and seventh levels.
The figure shows the hierarchy of Maslow's needs scale - 7 levels:
In medicine and in the field of care for people, the following model, created by Virginia Henderson based on Maslow’s needs and having 14 needs to be met in everyday life:
- The ability to fully breathe.
- Eat and drink in sufficient quantities.
- Defecate.
- Need to move, change position.
- Enough to sleep and relax regularly.
- Put on and take off clothes, be able to pick it up.
- Maintain body temperature.
- Care for cleanliness of the body.
- Maintain your own safety and not be a threat to others.
- Communicate comfortably.
- Concerns religious people: to observe the canons of religion, to perform the necessary rites.
- Have a favorite thing and devote time to it regularly.
- Have fun.
- Satisfy cognitive needs.
This model is taken into account when working with patients, especially those that require care and support.
Primary and secondary
Primary needs - a group of innate needs, the need to satisfy which in one form or another is already present from the moment of birth.
The main support, a kind of foundation for all other needs are physiological needs: those thanks to which a person has the ability to continue to live. If you stop to satisfy them, the person will be killed.
And their lack of satisfaction leads to the emergence of somatic and mental abnormalities that can significantly reduce life expectancy and degrade its quality.
Physiological needs - the category of needs, which is laid down in man at the instinctive level, unlike the others. They refer to primary needs.
Also primary are the needs that are at the second step of Maslow's pyramid: the need for security, the desire to be sure that nothing bad will happen in the future. This group of needs is also called existential.
At the base secondary needs There are those needs that arise in a person under the influence of external factors. They are not innate.
The formation of secondary needs is affected by:
- immediate environment (parents, close relatives, friends);
- other microsocials (classmates, classmates, colleagues, circle of friends);
- society as a whole (established norms, rules, stereotypes);
- education (much depends on its availability and quality, on the opinions of teachers and the methods they use);
- gender (in society there is still a strong desire to distinguish between the roles of men and women, so an average woman can have completely different attitudes and values than a man);
- individual characteristics (state of physical and mental health, character, interests, temperament);
- financial security, place of residence.
Secondary needs include:
- Social: the desire to be accepted by society, to have close social ties, to love and be loved, to feel community, participation in a common cause.
- Prestigious: the desire to succeed, to feel the respect of others, to earn more and so on.
- Spiritual: the desire to know yourself and the world around you, to develop intellectually, physically, morally, to enjoy the beautiful and create it, to achieve all your goals and fully unleash your inner potential.
As a person develops, new secondary needs may arise.
Broken
Broken needs - needs that a person is unable to meet for any reason.
Prolonged dissatisfaction can lead to serious mental health problems.
And if vital needs are not met, then in physical, down to death.
Most closely, the topic of impaired needs is considered in the context of helping people with serious somatic diseases who, due to their state of health, cannot provide care.
This topic is included in the programs of medical and some pedagogical educational institutions, courses on training nurses.
The task of the person who cares for the sick is to identify what needs he is unable to meet and help him: for example, to keep his body clean, talk, read books aloud, help change his posture, feed, give medicines.
If the patient cannot properly explain what he needs, to the person who will take care of him, it's important to ask his relatives, get acquainted with the recommendations of the attending physicians and with a medical card, assess the situation in the house and the general condition of the patient.
Even relatively mobile old people can not always fully meet their needs due to health problems.
Therefore, it is important that relatives are interested in their condition and helped whenever possible: installed handrails and non-slip coatings in the bathroom, brought purchases, talked, went out with them for a walk.
In some cases, the violation of the needs is observed in people who do not have serious somatic diseases.
Often this indicates the presence of a person mental illness, for example depression, in which the forces to perform elementary actions may not be.
In such cases, it is important to contact a psychotherapist as soon as possible.
Timely satisfaction of needs will enable a person feel comfortable and enjoy lifetherefore, it is important to take care of yourself and other people who find it difficult to meet their own needs more often.
About Abraham Maslow's needs pyramid in this video:
