Maslow seemed to sense, that aside from the people with emotional limitations and problems, there were times when man was at his best. Although Maslow avoided the word "spiritual", he did introduce psychology to truth, goodness, beauty, unity, transcendence, aliveness, uniqueness, perfection, justice, order and simplicity.
Before Abraham Maslow, the psychological world was awash in behaviorism and psychoanalysis. Maslow changed this focus on broken brains, by popularizing psychological humanism. Famous people like Abraham Lincoln were subjects of study instead of people with broken brains. One of Maslow's most important contributions to psychology was his theory of human needs, developed in the late 1960's. This theory explained that human needs where hierarchical in nature.
He believed that people are not merely controlled by mechanical forces (the stimuli and reinforcement forces of behaviorism) or unconscious instinctual impulses of psychoanalysis, but should be understood in terms of human potential. He believed that humans strive to reach the highest levels of their capabilities. People seek the frontiers of creativity, and strive to reach the highest levels of consciousness and wisdom. People at this level and below were labeled by other psychologists as "fully functioning" or possessing a "healthy personality". Maslow called the people who were at the top "self-actualizing" persons.
Maslow believed that each person has five categories of needs
Physiological needs - Basic needs for the body, such as food shelter drink rest etc.
Safety needs - Where the basic needs are reasonably satisfied we turn to thinking about protection from danger, security and order so that we feel safe. These safety needs can be a concern for physical safety but also covers psychological safety needs such as job security etc.
Social needs - Once the first two needs are reasonably satisfied, social needs such as needing acceptance, giving and receiving affection and "belonging" become things that people want
Ego needs - Next comes people's need for achievement, self esteem, self confidence, respect and status
Self Actualisation needs - finally at the top of the hierarchy once all of the other levels have been reasonably satisfied is the need to become the person that we feel that we are capable of becoming. This means that we have achieved what we consider to be our very best.
Maslow believed that the lower needs (physiology and safety etc) needed to be at least partially covered before the higher needs (such as ego and self actualisation) could be activated (In fact Maslow believed that these two higher needs are very rarely satisfied in anyone). He believed that once one set of needs was at least partly satisfied people would begin to be motivated by needs from the next category. An example which might be used here is a shift in the emphasis of the union movement in Australia from wages and working hours to now emphasising issues such as job security, industrial health and other security issues. There is also a move away from unsatisfying specialisation to a team or group work system which gives workers more responsibility and hence more satisfaction. Informal groups such as sporting or friendship groups are also often encouraged in the work environment. Can you see what needs this is addressing?
Maslow also believed that people were often motivated by more than one set of needs at a time and that they place varying importance on different needs. This means that someone could be motivated by their basic need for food, shelter and comfort but may override these needs by refusing to do a job which contradicts their personal values. Their self-esteem (which is an ego need) was the dominant one. As our circumstances change the needs that we consider to be the most important to us can change too. If the physiological needs are neglected for too long we may starve or become ill. These needs may then become the dominant ones and the job taken even though it conflicts with a person's values.
Maslow believes that the only reason that people would not move through the needs to self-actualization is because of the hindrances placed in their way by society. For example, education is often a hindrance with imposed ideas of the culture. On the other hand respectful teaching promotes personal growth. Maslow indicated that educational process could take some of the steps listed below to promote personal growth: