Maslow Updated:Self-Actualization?

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A whole area of coaching is built around bad science.  Maslow was partially correct, but self actualization is not at the top of humans’ hierarchy of needs.  But like many myths perpetuated, it will probably take a long time to eradicate this myth.  

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Published in the 1940s

 

In the 1940′s Abraham Maslow proposed his hierarchy of needs.  If we think back to how information was transmitted at that time and we take a timeline for the books and articles to circulate around to the next generation, it is probably not surprising that most of us who had an introduction to psychology class in college came across Maslow’s chart.  

Movements would pick up on Maslow and use it as a basis for their agendas.  It did not matter whether the agenda was in business, politics or social agendas Maslow would prop up the agenda.  

Recently Chip Conley published a book Peak: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow.  It may be a great book but what if Maslow was wrong?  

Maslow suggested his chart based upon some very basic ideas.  He was looking at the question of what motivates us and realized that certain things had to be taken care of first.  Maslow observed that  if you are starving and craving food, this need will push everything else out of the way and be the primary motivation until it is satiated.  When these basic needs are satisfied you move to the next. Once you are well fed, you worry about safety. Once you are safe, you worry about affection and esteem and so forth. Perhaps most famously, at the top of Maslow’s pyramid, sat the need for self-actualization — the desire to fulfill one’s own unique creative potential.  

Self-actualization – the desire to fulfill one’s own unique creative potential was put at the top, and boy has it screwed up a lot of people.  It has also been used and abused to manipulate people into doing some very crazy things like build a piece of real estate to express themselves.  How many times have we heard people say that this or that building reflects the owner or designer as if that is a high glorification of “self-actualization.”  

Maslow provided a great service in pointing out and starting the conversation about how we have varying needs throughout our lives and what needs are prominent at certain times.  But Maslow’s hierarchy has not been supported by recent studies, and so it has remained an interesting iconic image that is still revered outside of research.  

So Douglas Kenrick, an Arizona State University professor of psychology and Steven Neuberg, an ASU Foundation professor, coauthored a paper, “Renovating the pyramid of needs: Contemporary extensions built upon ancient foundations,” recasting the pyramid. In doing so, they have taken on one of psychology’s iconic symbols and have generated some controversy along the way.  

Kenrick and Neuberg’s revamp of Maslow’s pyramid reflects new findings and theories from fields like neuroscience, developmental psychology and evolutionary psychology.   The paper was published in the March issue of Perspectives on Psychological Sciences.  

“Within the psychological sciences, the pyramid was increasingly viewed as quaint and old-fashioned, and badly in need of updating,” Neuberg stated.  

“It was based on some great ideas, several of which are worth preserving,” Kenrick added. “But it missed out on some very basic facts about human nature, facts which weren’t well understood in Maslow’s time, but were established by later research and theory at the interface of psychology, biology and anthropology.”  

Maslow developed the pyramid of needs to represent a hierarchy of human motives, with those at the bottom taking precedence over those higher up. At the base of Maslow’s pyramid are physiological needs — hunger, thirst and sexual desire.  

The bottom four levels of the new pyramid are highly compatible with Maslow’s, but big changes are at the top. Perhaps the most controversial modification is that self-actualization no longer appears on the pyramid at all. At the top of the new pyramid are three evolutionarily critical motives that Maslow overlooked — mate acquisition, mate retention and parenting.  

The researchers state in the article that while self-actualization is interesting and important, it isn’t an evolutionarily fundamental need. Instead, many of the activities that Maslow labeled as self-actualizing (artistic creativity, for example) reflect more biologically basic drives to gain status, which in turn serves the goal of attracting mates.  

“Among human aspirations that are most biologically fundamental are those that ultimately facilitate reproduction of our genes in our children’s children,” Kenrick explained. “For that reason, parenting is paramount.”  

The researchers are not saying that artists or poets are consciously thinking about increasing their reproductive success when they feel the inspiration to paint or write.  

“Reproductive goals are ultimate causes,” Kenrick added, “like the desire of birds to migrate because it helps them survive and reproduce. But at a proximate (or immediate psychological) level, the bird migrates because its brain registers that the length of day is changing. In our minds, we humans create simply because it feels good to us; we’re not aware of its ultimate function.”  

“You could argue that a peacock’s display is as beautiful as anything any human artist has ever produced,” Kenrick said. “Yet it has a clear biological function — to attract a mate. We suspect that self-actualization is also simply an expression of the more evolutionarily fundamental need to reproduce.”  

But for humans, Kenrick adds, reproduction is not just about sex and producing children. It’s also about raising those children to the age at which they can reproduce as well. Consequently, parenting sits atop the revamped pyramid.  

There are other distinctions as well. For Maslow, once a need was met, it disappeared as the individual moved on to the next level. In the reworked pyramid, needs overlap one another and coexist, instead of completely replacing each other. For example, certain environmental cues can make them come back. If you are walking down the street thinking about love, art or the meaning of life, you will revert quickly to the self-protection level if you see an ominous-looking gang of young men headed your way.  

The new pyramid already has generated some controversy within the field. The published article was accompanied by four commentaries. While the commentaries agreed with the basic evolutionary premise of the new pyramid, they take issue with some of the specific details, including the removal of self-actualization and the prominence of parenting in the new pyramid.  

“The pyramid of needs is a wonderful idea of Maslow’s,” Kenrick said. “He just got some of it wrong. Now people are talking about it again, which will help us get it right.”  

Getting it right in the scientific community is important, but getting it right in business and real estate is critical at a time where these issues are causing a great deal of pain throughout our country and the world.  What revolutionary thinking will happen when architects, real estate professionals, board rooms, middle management teams, economists and all business people realize that their self-expression, or self-actualization was a rabbit’s hole that did not bring them to the top of the pyramid?  If the recent scientific research is correct, the myth of self-actualization and all it justified will burst.  That will be one bubble whose popping will be more powerful than the housing bubble built on the myth that somehow your piece of real estate helped you to reach a higher level of existence.  

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