The first need is food and water. A hungry or thirsty person
will think about little else than finding something to eat and drink. They are
not particularly interested in philosophy, music or may be even being nice to
other people. But having satisfied the first need, people start thinking about
the second need – shelter, a cave or a roof over the head. People search for
security. Having achieved a food supply and somewhere to live, their minds turn
to third need – love and sense of belonging. Humans are social animals; they
need to be with other people. We need to feel loved, we need family and
community. The fourth need is esteem – we not only want to belong to a family
or community we want to be liked and respected. Fifth need is self-actualisation
– the need to understand the world, to create or solve the problems just for
fun of it.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs helps explain both altruistic
and barbaric behavior in some situations.
My observation is some people can not rise ever... eg. few are stuck with their first need for the entire life even if they get plenty of food they are never satisfied... few get stuck with money (could be esteem as money gets you respect in society) how much ever they earn.
However few even if they have no money no food they have need to seek knowledge about the world and curious about the things around them keep solving the puzzles... few earns money so that they can solve the puzzles about the world and help the other.
So the hierarchy explained by Maslow is common behavior of people but there are exceptions. Everyone has different needs.
Reference - Written In Blood
Reference - Written In Blood
4 comments:
Very true. I agree.
In my opinion Maslow's need hierarchy is like waterfall model of s/w development. It's not like we achieve a stage and then would never come back to it or to the previous stages.
Real life does not go like this. We need to be agile, and we should look back and evaluate based on the need of the time. For an example, a person initially runs behind physiological needs, earns lot of money, starts doing charity and contributes to growth of the humanity and then suddenly this person's business goes bust and then he/she needs to come back to physiological needs.
Another example, there have been several examples of Indian sages, who never ran after physiological (money) needs but could achieve a lot to the humanity like: Buddha, Gandhi etc.
Summary is that we need to draw lines to each stage needs and try to move on to next stage and keep re-looking/evaluating the situation from time to time.
I agree that some people are exceptions, they are stuck to only first 2-3 stages of Maslow.
I feel ppl get stuck on third need. To feel loved. They replace people with food, drug, money, etc in a futile attempt to find love which can only come from your own maturity and self confidence.
Anwesha.
Well said Ajai Varshney
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