Motivational Theorist: Abraham Maslow

Maslow's foundation tier, the one upon which all others are built upon, is the physiological need. Air to breathe, food and water, and adequate sleep are all basic biological needs that the individual must have met. Not only to be motivated by the next level of need in the hierarchy, but to survive. The body's biological drives to fulfill these needs will predominate all other activities, as the very life of the organism is at stake. ( Boeree 1998, 2006)

4. Esteem which results from being held in high regard by peers, through respect, prestige, and recognition

Doyal, L. & Gough, I., 1991 suggested in ‘A Theory of Human Need’ that further to Maslow’s hierarchy, all humans have eleven needs beyond Kerr’s “survival needs”. They referred to these as “intermediate needs” and cited that they would include things such as appropriate healthcare and economic

Abraham Maslow was born on April 1st, 1908 in Brooklyn, New York. He also grew in Brooklyn. He was the first of seven children born to a jewish family. His parents had emigrated from Russia. Maslow usually describes his childhood as quite unhappy and miserable, being one of seven children he was not paid attention to as much as the others and was forced to be on his own. He and his father were constantly fighting with each other. His father was constantly pushing him to excel in areas that were of absolute no interest to him. His father loved things, but not him. He liked drinking and women, but he regarded his son as stupid and ugly. His mother did not treat her son any differently, in fact, she most likely was worse than her husband. Abraham despised his mother most of all because she kept a lock on the refrigerator door and only unlocked it when she felt like it. One instance of his mother’s hatred is shown when Maslow decided to bring home two kittens that were dying in the streets. She found Maslow feeding them milk and decided to smash the kittens heads against the basement wall right in front of Maslow. All in all, Maslow does not get along with his parents very well. He did not even attend the funeral of his mother because the hatred for her continued until the end of his life for he never forgave her, for she never exhibited any signs of love for him or his family. At the end of his life he died in California on June 8th, 1970 due to a heart attack.

In the world we live everyone possess different perspective of something to motivate them. Maslow’s Hierarchy describe motivation in a pyramid that detailed the levels of such things. The first level of this pyramid is the physiological aspect which it states that human beings need breathe normally in order to survive, be able to eat every day, have access to water, as well as being capable to have sexual relationships, and finally being able to have a comfortable sleep. In illustration of this level we could look at our own behavior as we feel the need to eat and sleep, also we all go through the circle of life which is homeostasis. The second level is safety this level covers security of: body, employment, resources, morality, family, health, and property. As an example the way we seek employment as a way to gain economic safety and the necessary of wealth to keep moving every day.

Jessica Grogan concludes that Maslow and the human potential thinkers alike began to formulate the notion that, “a healthy individual must stand apart from her culture. That she must transcend social expectations, and forge a path through the wilderness.” Maslow was optimistic with the culture commenting, “Perhaps we shall soon be able to use as our guide and model the fully growing and self-fulfilling human being.” The new guide is a person tapping into her capabilities, expressing her inner nature freely, rather than it being “warped, suppressed, or denied,” writes Maslow.

In order to understand a person motivation you have to understand individuals basic needs and whether are not they are being met. A good manager has to know how those need interact with a person’s motivation and Maslow Theory is the good example. Maslow’s theory is that needs are arranged in a hierarchy, the lowest level needs physiological needs to the highest levels or self-actualization needs (Ivancevich et al., 2011). Physiological is the lowest level and it is the need for food and shelter (Ivancevich et al., 2011). The next level in Maslow’s theory is safety. This is when a person feels they are free from threating events or from their surroundings (Ivancevich et al., 2011). Belongingness is the need for friendships and

Throughout this essay research will be explained and discussed, in an to attempt to answer the question; is an objective need possible or desirable?. There are many debates surrounding the definition of the term ‘need’. The common belief is that it is simply describing the basic necessities to keep the body alive such as food and water along with shelter however other researchers argue that there is a much broader meaning to the word ‘Need’. This was explored in depth by Richard Titmuss (1958) who believed there were two forms of need; Absolute need and Relative need despite Titmuss believing that both are required in the functioning of society. He also argues that needs are not universal and change within different societies. An example of this would be apparent when looking at religion as many religious beliefs can be associated as a need such as the need for meat to be halal in the muslim culture. Other views such as Doyal and Gough (1984) argue that needs are universal and every one has the same needs that have to met in order for survival, they also place needs into categories these are; instrumental need and derivative need which will be explained further in this essay. Also, within this essay the reader will gain an insight into Bradshaw 's idea of need and also Maslow 's pyramid which was created by Abraham Maslow to introduce his concept of human behaviour and the motivation to fulfil

A question across every branch of psychology, regardless of what ideology one follows, is “what motivates humans?” In the year of 1943, Abram Maslow wrote his paper A Theory of Human Motivation. In this paper, Maslow described a theory in which he claimed that all people had basic needs, and these needs were fulfilled in order of their importance to the individual. Each need would need to be met prior to working towards another need, eventually achieving the ultimate goal of self-actualization. This theory is the basis of the humanistic perspective, which believes that the values of all humans are generally the same. Those who follow humanistic perspectives generally believe in the good of others.

A motive is an impulse that causes a person to act. It is a construct used to explain behavior. Motivation is an internal process that makes a person move toward a goal. Motivation, like intelligence, can’t be directly observed. Instead, motivation can only be inferred by noting a person’s behavior. It is the term used to represent the reasons for our actions, our desires, and our needs. Motivation can also be defined as our direction to our behavior or what causes us to want to repeat a behavior and vice versa. A motive is what prompts a person to act in a certain way or at least develop an inclination for specific behavior.

Every human being has needs. On the most basic level, humans are animals, all animals, and all organisms, for that matter, have needs that act as a ‘motivation’ to ascertain their survival. Henry Murray defined needs as “potentiality or readiness to respond in a certain way under certain given circumstances" (1938).One distinguishing feature between us and other organisms however, is that humans may also posses wants or ‘goals’ whereas animals do not. Wants do not occur until needs have been satisfied, animals, especially in the wild, do not know when to expect their next meal, so are in constant pursuit of food, this means their needs are never fully satisfied, so, according to Isidoro Martínez, wants cannot materialise. “Once material

Psychologist Abraham Maslow in 1943 wrote “A Theory of Human Motivation” in which he theorizes a hierarchy of human needs. It takes the shape of a pyramid split into five levels. The first level being physiological safety, followed by basic safety such as water and shelter, next love or a sense of belonging, then esteem, and at the peak of this pyramid is self-actualization. Mankind can easily accomplish the first four levels of this hierarchy but when it comes to self-actualization humans can only temporarily touch on the matter because it is theoretical. A person can never fully achieve complete knowing and understanding of themselves without becoming overwhelmed on the subject and going insane or perhaps evolving into something more than human. Something deeper and darker than human; a monster made by understanding their true self and is therefore, released from the confusion and desire for knowledge that is so innately human.

Maslow says that the basic needs include air, food, drink, shelter, warmth and sleep. Maslow sees these needs as vital to human being in order for the human to survive. Maslow sees basic needs as the most important needs that need to be met for all human beings.

Abraham Maslow was always visually examining the greater scope of human nature. Whereas most of his counterparts of his day seemed to be more concerned with a narrower scope, Maslow 's own vision was far-reaching. His lifetime of revelations in motivation and personality transcended academic psychology, and extended into the major business fields of management and marketing. Maslow additionally explored how and individual perceives their existence and beginning to display signs of future potential. Abraham Maslow is noted as the originator of such important ideas as the hierarchy of human needs, self-actualization, higher motivation, team decision-making, and business synergy.

Existence Needs: this involves all material and physiological aspiration. (e.g house, food, water, air, safety, physical affection and love). This is similar to Maslow’s first two levels.