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Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory

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Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory In 1943, Abraham Maslow proposed Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory in his paper “A Theory of Human Motivation” in Psychological Review. Maslow wanted to understand what motivates people. He believed that people possess a set of motivation systems unrelated to rewards or unconscious desires. There is a pyramid with five levels of needs which is used to represent Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory. Starting from the bottom of the pyramid, the term of ‘physiological’, ‘safety’, ‘belongingness’, ‘esteem’, and ‘self-actualization’ are used by Maslow to describe the pattern of human motivations generally moving through.

• Physiological needs – A person’s needs for basic life needs such as air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep and other physical requirements. • Safety needs – A person’s needs for protection and security from physical and emotional harm, order, law, limits and stability in order to assure that physical needs will continue to be met. • Belongingness and love needs – A person’s needs for family, affection, relationship and group work.

• Esteem needs – A person’s needs for internal esteem factors such as self-respect, autonomy and achievement and external esteem such as status, recognition and attention.

• Self-actualization needs – A person’s needs for growth, achieving one’s potential and self-fulfillment; the drive to become what one is capable of becoming.

Maslow argued that each level in the needs hierarchy must be substantially satisfied before the next need become dominant. In order to motivate someone, understanding what need level of that person is on in the hierarchy and focus on satisfying needs or above that level.

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