do you find something wrong with maslow pyramid ?

Question

first we got :physiological needs:health,food, sleep
then:safety:shelter removal from danger
and here its when it gets a little weird maslow placed belonging (love,affection,being a part of groups ) before esteem:(self-esteem and steem from others
which in my opinion it should be the other way around , i mean how in the world are you going to feel that you belong , feeling love from others and for others if you dont have self-esteem first?
what do you think about this?

Answer 1

You have to realize that Maslow, like ALL the other Psychs out there, got published because he was able to express HIS ideas in the written form. There are MANY excellent Psychs who do NOT subscribe to his and others at all. They simply can't write their ideas in a cohesive fashion, without getting very technical. Psychology is NOT a hard and fast Science. It deals with the human mind, which, by definition is emotionally charged and every person IS an individual. There is NO "one size fits all" system of Psychology or Psychiatry out there. Maslow is merely the fad and he too will fall by the wayside with the NEXT person who is able to come up with a way to clearly explain HIS/HER views on things and find someone who will publish that. Then that person will join the current trend of MacPsychology for the masses, only to be replaced later on by someone else, and so forth and so on, ad-infinitum.

Brightest Blessings,
Raji the Green Witch

Answer 2

His pyramid was based on the idea that the most basic needs must be met before you can start looking to satisfying greater needs.

Food, water, shelter and clothing (First level) are vital for anyone. You cannot progress to upper levels of the pyramid unless because you simply cannot function well without any of the essential needs being met.

The next level deals with secuirty, and that has to do with having a good situation in family and in society that prevents someone from hunger and violence.

So already, you can see how things are progressing. A person can dispense with family and social security if necessary, but they cannot dispense with food, water, shelter, clothing, etc.

Since interaction weith others is a two way street, people are less likely to be able to interact unless they can do so free from worry that the basic needs are satisfied.

The need to belong is the third level and takes place once the lower needs are met. Think about how a family member might have said that people from bad homes make bad friends. When a person's need is not met on the lower level, their mind tends to focus on meeting those needs and friendships and trying to belong cannot be so easily achieved.

Esteem (the nehxt level) is actually a selfish need. It is imporant for others to see us as being a good person, but at the same time, it is not necessarily as vital as seeing the lower needs being met.

Purpose (the penultimate level) is something we can only seek out once we are free from worrying about the lower needs. If we are starving, we may wonder what our purpose is, but if we have our needs met, we can SEEK our purpose, and the journey and discovery can be quite rewarding.

Self-actualization (the highest level) means that we are doing everything we feel like we should be doing and living the life we want to be living. We are as happy as our environments will allow, and perhaps happier.

What Maslow did was look at the human condition and try to ascertain what humanity as a whole seemed to strive for. His pyramid is not something that applies to every person, and some levels of the pyramid can be more important to people than to others. But as a baseline and a general layout of principles, it works.

Answer 3

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs? Is that the pyramid you're referring to? Math doesn't really equate into Maslow's hierarchy. I would chose home ec, because that teaches basic survival skills of cooking, mending, etc. Look up Maslow's Hierarchy and figure it out for yourself.

Answer 4

One could argue that we can't have self esteem unless we do belong in groups.

It would be extremely difficult to even know about self esteem if one were completely alone.

After all Maslow does place self realisation (actualisation) at the very top of the pyramid.

Answer 5

A deeper problem with the Maslow hierarchy is the categorical ranking of needs, without any concept of marginal value.
Is one's 100th unit of food more valuable than one's first unit of shelter? Must one receive the maximum conceivable quantity of affection before acquiring even the slightest degree of self-esteem? The system as whole seems somewhat facile.

Answer 6

Maslow's pyramid was a huge contribution to psychology and the field of motivation back in its time. Social science has advanced a great deal since then.

If you want to study motivation, I suggest you look at Latham and Locke and their work on goal-setting and Bandura's work on self-efficacy.

Answer 7

Sometimes we find self-esteem when you find those like you, and than you develop self confidence from that. Once you have found that than you need a group less.