Maslow's+Hierarchy+of+Needs

= ** Maslow's ** = = ** Hierarchy ** = = ** of Needs  ** = = = = = By: Jamie Phillips, Carly Scorziello and Laura Baker

Abraham Maslow was a psychologist who had a theory that all people have needs. When one need is reached, a person is then able to focus on acquiring more difficult needs. The lowest needs are the easiest to achieve. In the hierarchy, there are five different levels of needs that all human beings strive for. However, most people never reach the highest level. The level you achieve is based upon the environment, and a person's interaction with other human beings. There is no skipping around with the levels. People MUST go in the order of the hierarchy.



**Physiological Needs** - Easiest of all the needs to achieve. Without these, a human will not survive therefore they are the most important ones. If someone was to have all their needs taken away, the physiological ones would be the ones that the person would look to obtain first.

//Examples of Physiological Needs in the book:// • “It was either take the chance and eat this fruit that might poison me or die of hunger.” – pg. 51 In this part of the book, Ishmael is desperate for any type of food or water; therefore, he eats the fruit that could potentially harm him. Ishmael actually sided on the fact that maybe the food he ate would kill him, but at least he was helping his hungry body in some way.

• “One afternoon while we were searching for food in a deserted village, a crow fell out of the sky. It wasn’t dead, but it was unable to fly. We knew this was unusual, but we needed food and anything at that point would do.” -pg. 80-81 Performing this act entails very high risks of disease and sickness, but since the boys were so hungry they needed any form of food to satisfy their hunger.

**Safety and Security** - After all the bare necessities are achieved, a person's next basic needs are safety and security. Safety and security are most prominentally seen in children because they show their need to be safe. Adults tend to show less of a need for safety and security unless it's a time of emergency or there is chaos in a person's life.

 //Examples of Safety and Security in the book://  • “I found a long strong stick to protect myself [against the snake].” –pg. 50  Ishmael was able to defend himself by using a weapon, such as the stick to prevent the snake from attacking him.

 • "I climbed a tree to be safe." - pg. 53 Ishmael was able to remove himself from a dangerous situation by climbing a tree when the wild pigs ran through the forest. He met the needs of his safety when he discovered he could potentially be in danger with a wild animal.

**Love and Belonging** - After a person achieves safety, they will try to gain a feeling of acceptance and belonging to overcome any sense of loneliness they have. To achieve this, a person must not only receive affection and belonging, but they must also give it.

//Examples of Love and Belonging in the book:// • "Being in a group of six boys was not to our advantage. But we needed to stay together because we had a better chance of escaping the day-to-day troubles we faced." -pg. 37  Ishmael and the five other boys created a brother-like group in order to eliminate loneliness.

•“I knew this was going to be a problem, but I didn't want to be by myself anymore.” – pg. 55 Although Ishmael knew that being in a large group would create long term issues, he did not care because he was satisfied and comfortable with these five other boys. These boys provided a sense of "love" and "belonging", just like a brotherhood.

**Esteem** - After the above levels have been reached, the need for esteem is the most dominant. Esteem is reached by having both self-esteem and esteem from other people. Esteem goes along with respect. If a person gets respect from themselves and other people, they can then move on to the next and highest level.

//Examples of Esteem in the book:// • "Most of us who had been chosen were trembling and that meant we were sissies" - pg. 34 The rebels often took self-esteem away which mentally and physically hurt the young boys. It is very easy for someone to break down an individual by ruining their well-being, such as how someone portrays themselves. The rebels easily broke down how these young boys felt about themselves.

• "I was a little glad that he had called us boys and refrained from the word 'devil.'" - pg. 66 Each of the boys were referred to as devils because of how cowardly they appeared. This name calling lowered their self esteem as human beings.

**Self-Actualization** - This level has been suggested to be the hardest level to reach and understand. Self-actualization is realizing what someone is born to do and actually doing it. This level also relates to human beings being at peace with themselves. An example of this is a musician realizing their life will only be complete as long as they are making music. Without this, people feel incomplete and do not know why. Unlike the other levels, which are easy to know when a person is lacking a need, self-actualization is much more difficult to recognize.

• Unfortunately, self-actualization for Ishmael was not reached because he is still continuously struggling with meeting each of the other four tiers of the pyramid.

Maslow believed that the only reason that a person would not be able to progress to a higher level in the pyramid was cause by conflicts in society, including education. Because he believed that education could potentially stop a person from progressing, educators should stress the following ten points:

- Teach people to be themselves and listen to their inner-feelings. - Teach people to go beyond their beliefs and become world citizens - Help people find their niche, focusing mostly on the right career and life partner. - Be accepting of people and not try to change them. - Do what you can to make sure another persons more basic needs are satisfied - Make sure people can find good things in nature and in people - Control is necessary to improve the quality of life - Teach people to rise above and not worry about small problems, but only focus attention on large problems (i.e death, suffering). - Help people learn to make good and wholesome choices.
 * - Stress how precious life is and that life is truly worth living once you can find the joy and happiness in it.**

=Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Compared to Buddhism= Maslow's beliefs have been compared to Buddhism for many years. They both share the common belief that self-actualization is the final and most important stage in a persons life. To Buddhist self-actualization means that we are all one and that there is no separation between two people. The only separation is the illusion of our bodies, but they believe that our souls are all connected. When a person reaches the ultimate goal of self-actualization they would do the same unselfish act for someone else that they would do for themselves.

** Needs and the Army ** In Things Fall Apart, the army seems to be providing their soldiers with all of their needs. They give them food, a feeling of security and a sense of belonging, self-esteem (when the sergeant makes everyone in the town cheer for the soldiers) and they make them believe that they are fulfilling their life purpose. They make them believe that they escaped the rebel army for a reason, to fight back. However, everything besides the security and necessities are just an illusion. The army can not allow their soldiers to gain any needs higher then security. If the soldiers were to get any sort of esteem from themselves or from others, the soldiers would have opinions and criticism. With opinions and criticism, the people in charge would not be able to have complete control over their soldiers which could lead to chaos. The soldiers were given cocaine to gain a sense of false security and to help morph them into the soldiers that they need to be.

Sources: http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/maslow.htm