Theoretical Perspectives and Lifespan Development: Abraham Maslow

Developmental Perspective

Abraham Maslow is a famous psychologist who was born during the year of 1908 in New York. He studied psychology at University of Wisconsin and the City College of New York. After college Maslow began teaching and spent most of his teaching at Brandeis University (“Maslow, Abraham Harold,” 2018). He was influenced by his studies of other psychologists to create his own theory of how people as an individual functioned. His idea of individualism came from psychoanalysis which is the theory of the conscious and unconscious mind that controls how an individual works. He contributed to the idea of humanistic perspective and his work has been used for further research and throughout history. The humanistic perspective in psychology is the idea of looking into the humans or individuals instead of looking at the big picture or at all of the people in society. An individual will not progress if a community is looked at as a whole because not every person in that community is the same. One of his most famous publishing’s was A Theory of Human Motivation. This paper was published in 1943 and it was his idea that every person has a hierarchy of needs that need to be satisfied (Maslow, 1943). The hierarchy of needs are basic needs that every person uses in their own ways. After developing his theory, he became a co-author of the Journal of Humanistic Psychology in 1961.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs was when the theory of an individual’s unconscious and conscious mind was discovered. Through his idea of human motivation, the person must complete or satisfy their basic needs before they reach their full potential. Motivation can range anywhere from small to large but is important to that person no matter the size. Before reaching fulfillment everyone must go through the basic needs, although, everyone’s list may have different meanings, each list has the same core ideas of physiological needs, safety needs, love, esteem, and self-actualization (Maslow, 1943). This theory begins as an infant but is used for the rest of that person’s life because growth may stop physically but it never stops mentally. Usually the needs are put on a pyramid because as a visual you start from the bottom at physiological needs in order to get to the top at self-actualization where then the individual has full motivation. The full potential leading to motivation is defined differently for different people because self-actualization depends on the person and is not the same for every individual. Self-actualization is literally being about to realize oneself. Some examples are finding a talent, finding potential, and truly becoming there “best” and fullest self. Maslow emphasized the importance of unconscious and conscious goals.

Lifespan development is the psychological study of the common development and growth of an individual’s life. Maslow is an important part of lifespan because his idea of depending on basic needs to be fulfilled, helped develop the humanistic perspective. This is important because it brought about individualism which is what lifespan development is driven by. The psychology of lifespan studies the cognitive, emotional, and social changes that a person goes through. Lifespan development and Maslow are similar in what they study because they focus a lot on the brain. Maslow focused his studies on a cognitive and behavioral approach because he believed the conscious and unconscious mind worked together to get through his theory of basic needs. Maslow explains through his hierarchy of needs that development begins as an infant and does not stop until death. Lifespan development is influenced by this, but they track from conception to death. Lifespan psychology tracks from conception due to the different factors that pregnancy can cause to the fetus. For example, use of drugs or alcohol could affect the baby in harmful ways and may affect their physical or mental ability. Maslow does not do this because he studies from birth, how the infant was treated and depending on different situations babies will have a response and will adapt until they can complete their basic needs.

Theory Examined

Maslow believed before a person could reach their full potential, they must first satisfy their basic needs. Maslow’s findings where one of the first times that the term self-actualization was used. The starting point of the stages that Maslow created is physiological need, it is the idea that there needs to be an understanding of homeostasis (Maslow, 1943). Homeostasis is the stability of the body, if one thing does not function correctly then the rest of the body will not be equalized. Physiological needs start out as an infant and are things that people need for the rest of their life. This includes, food, water, shelter, clothes, etc. This need is the first point and at the bottom of the pyramid because without these things’ motivation will be at its ultimate lowest. Through an Aristotle point of view the needs of physiological and safety are driven by “useful” goods because they are things we need consistently need and make use of (Guillén, 2018). Once physiological needs are met then the mind can go onto the next set which is the safety needs. Safety needs also start as an infant because they depend on their caregiver for safety. As children get older the definition of safety changes but the same principles apply. Safety needs for an adult are health, property safety, employment, personal security, and resource security. These are important in lifespan development because children need safety for their development.

Maslow’s next basic need is love, every person has a longing for love and belongingness. Love is explained as having relationships, anywhere from friendship, family, intimacy, or connections. When love is discussed it is usually in terms of romance, but love can also be a belonging. As love may come with sex, Maslow notes that it does not have to, but love does have a need of affection of giving and receiving and this can be many different forms and does not have to be sexual (Maslow, 1943). An Aristotle studied Maslow’s hierarchy and he views it as love, esteem, and self-actualization are from a “pleasant” good (Guillén, 2018). He believes they are primarily for enjoyment, but Maslow argues they are a need to be who you are. The second to last, or second to the top need is esteem. Some examples of esteem are respect, self-esteem, confidence, recognition, strength, and freedom. Many argue that esteem and love could be switched because they believe in order to be able to love someone, they must first have esteem (Heylighen, 1992). Maslow does not directly address this but he does transition from esteem to self-actualization by stating people need an “appreciation of their central importance” to reach their full potential (Maslow, 1943). Once someone has gotten through all of their basic needs, they achieve their point of motivation which is their self-actualization. At this point they should desire to get to their fullest potential.

The creation of the hierarchy of needs was made so that people could use it in ways they needed. Maslow emphasizes that although someone may be at their fullest or self-actualized there may be a new restlessness developing soon (Maslow, 1943). This statement shows that these stages can take place during any life span and is not confined to a specific time. The stages may be used and developed differently over time and age but the overall concept of basic needs to finding oneself will not change. Due to this theory being so broad it is still used today because although there have been advances in society, there is still a need to complete the basic needs. In lifespan development as the environment or other things change around the individual then that individual adapts. This is the same for Maslow’s theory because he knew things would change but there would need to be a set of “vague” stages that could be used for a lifetime. A professor who studied why Maslow is still important today stated, “Maslow’s theory in popular imagination… explains human nature as something that most humans immediately recognize in themselves and others” (Abulof, 2017). He explains how the theory has been integrated and used throughout individual’s life that it is used so often that almost everyone knows what it is about and how it is used. Some may have awareness of the theory and not even realize that they use it in their life because of how it forms to human nature.

Theory Applied

The study chosen is called The Motivation of Collaborators in Family Micro Companies: Cybercafe (Vargas-Hernandez, 2017). The purpose of the study was to analyze the motivation based on Maslow’s pyramid for businesses that use computer systems like Cybercafe. Internet based business have been shown to have problems with motivation between individuals and collaborating with other employees due to their not being a face to face connection. The researcher decided to go through Maslow’s steps to find the problems in the business that do not match up to the basic needs to improve employee motivation. To do this study they gave employees a questionnaire following Maslow’s pyramid and are asked from 1 (totally disagree) to 5 (totally agree) for 14 questions what they think or how they feel about each question. Half of their data was chosen as indifferent, so it was hard to make a clear analysis.

Although, some data made it hard to find a true conclusion, the data given did prove that motivation from the company was not provided and needs to be addressed. For example, one question said, “Do you receive any incentive from the cyber when you do a job well?”, the majority answered totally disagree and the rest of the answers were disagreed (Vargas-Hernandez, 2017). This shows computer companies are not acknowledging their employees which is an important part of a company. Unlike a face to face job, if a person did well on a job usually, they would be acknowledged through a monetary award or verbally during a meeting. Cyber companies need to take this research and understand that their employees although they work online, still need to have the same treatment as in person jobs. The overall findings should have companies look into theories like Maslow’s to insure their employees are reaching their fullest potential, in doing this it will improve both the company and the employees who work there.

Theory Assessed

Abraham Maslow put together an important theory to help individuals find their full potential. This theory was made broad and simple for the purpose of the theory to be unique to each person. The way Maslow wrote his book about motivation determines the reliability of the theory because he explained and gave examples for every need which proves the importance and gives the audience an understanding of the theory. Without explanations and the connection of the basic needs Maslow’s theory could be looked at as not accurate and would have had no importance but by the way other theorist have branched off from his idea proves his theory is reliable. Some advantages of Maslow’s theory being simple and broad is that it is possible to branch off and have other ideas and theories connected to it but still function as the hierarchy of needs. Another advantage to Maslow’s theory being basic, he did balance it to explain exactly what he meant which was that basic needs are important and need to be completed before a person can be there true selves

Although, Maslow made his theory to be basic so that it could pertain to everyone, a disadvantage is that the model is so simple that there is not always a clear direction. Along with this, due to each basic need being pertained to an individual, it is hard to analyze and study every person satisfied need because it is individualized. This was also shown through the theory applied in the Cybercafe research because as each individual answered a question there was not an understanding of why they answered it as agree, disagree, or indifferent making it hard to make a true conclusion. These disadvantages are small and can be worked out by doing research that is done on individuals and are able to get explanations of why they answered in certain ways or how they have satisfied their needs. Maslow’s theory accurately measures change and development because it can be used in any person at any time of their life and this is validated because every person uses the theory of the hierarchy of needs without even knowing it.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I chose this theory because I strongly believe every individual has a connection of their body to their mental health. Along with this Maslow talks about the conscious and unconscious mind affecting each other, although, I have never thought of this it makes sense that if the body is under stress in the conscious mind then the unconscious mind will not be able to heal the body causing physical and mental health problems. I find Maslow’s theory to be motivating because the needs give the assurance that you can become self-actualized through a few steps. The theory could inform institutions like schools to teach students to follow their basic needs to help students focus on themselves. As a college student it can become easy to feel stressed and like you are not able to do anything. If students in college or people in general used the hierarchy of needs, then it would make people think about their mental and physical health and would possibly help the mental health issues.