Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy Of Needs: Mapping Out Motivation

Daryl J. Burton

Hon 394- Midterm Paper

2-3-14

Mapping out Motivation

Motivation is a fascinatingly unique experience, varying between each individual and contingent on his or her situation. Given its pertinence in human existence, the idea of motivation has been both highly researched and contested. Intellectual disagreement has resulted in a variety of motivation theories aimed at explaining the internal phenomenon. Throughout the study of motivation, three widely accepted theories have risen as the most prominent: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Alderfer’s Existence Relatedness Growth (ERG) Model, and Doug Kendrick’s Renovated Pyramid. Common foundations bolster these motivational theories: logic, repeatability, and flexibility. This review aims to compare and contrast each theory of motivation and analyze their description of how the individual interprets their situation to generate motivational forces.

Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, the oldest motivation theory covered, bases its constituents of developmental stages of life and the corresponding needs to reach and transcend each stage. Maslow, a psychologist, first coined his idea in 1940’s. The hierarchy, commonly visualized as a pyramid, consists of five stages; the bottom is the earliest fulfilled and the top the latest. The ordering of the stages from bottom to top follows as such: Physiological Needs, Safety Needs, Love & Belonging Needs, Esteem Needs, and Self-Actualization Needs. Speaking to the rigidity of Maslow’s hierarchy, the ability to move from one stage to the next is contingent on completion of the previous state. The stages also seem to become more complex as they ascend the pyramid; the lowest rung, Physiological Needs, are brought to fruition with the fu...

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...s supplanted with three of evolutionary psychology’s most prominent subjects: Mate Acquisition, Mate Retention, and Parenting. Alongside Kendrick’s additional focus on reproduction comes the structural change his research fashioned into Maslow’s original model. Kendrick postulates that the higher stages of the hierarchy do not necessarily entirely replace the lower stages when they are satisfied, but rather the motivations may coexist. For example, an individual may have fulfilled his or her need for status and esteem enough to transfer focus to the fulfillment of higher level motivational factors, yet still consider his status and esteem needs in a more passive light; actively triggered in pertinent contexts. Kendrick’s modifications parallel Alderfer’s work in the ERG model, persisting that the stages of motivation exist on a continuum rather than a rigid series.