Maslow: Holistic-Dynamic Theory

• 5 Basic Tenets of Maslow

  • The whole organism is motivated at any one time
  • motivation is complex, and unconscious motives often underlie behavior
  • people are continually motivated by one need or another
  • people in the same culture are motivated by the same basic needs
  • basic needs can be arranged in a hierarchy
• Hierarchy of Needs - lower level needs must be satisfied of at least relatively satisfied before higher level needs become motivators.
• Conative Needs - 5 needs composing the hierarchy
• Conative Needs - striving or motivational character.
• Physiological Needs - food, water, oxygen, maintenance of body temperature, and so on.
• Physiological Needs - most prepotent of all
• Physiological Needs - air, water, food, shelter, clothing, reporduction
• Safety Needs - physical Security, stability, dependency, protection, and freedom from threatening forces.
• Safety Needs - the need for law, order, and structure
• Love and Belongingness Needs - desire for friendship, wish for a mate and children, and the need to belong to a family, a club, a neighborhood, or a nation.
• Esteem Needs - self-respect, confidence, competence, and the knowledge that others hold them in high esteem.

  • 2 levels: reputation and self-esteem
  • Reputation - perception of the prestige, recognition, or fame, a person has achieved in the eyes of others
  • Self-Esteem - is a person's own feelings of worth and confidence
• Self-Actualization Needs - self-fulfillment, realization of all of one's potential, and a desire to be creative in the full sense of the world

  • express their basic human need and do not allow them to be suppressed by culture.