Sheila Wanite Bautz
Abraham Maslow, a Russian Jew whose parents immigrated from Europe to the United States of America to escape prosecution, is credited as being the most influential psychologist of the 20th Century. He introduced humanistic psychology to the world and published A Theory of Human Motivation in 1943, two years before the Russian Red Army would annihilate Hitler and his Nazi regime’s reign of genocide.
Originally, Maslow’s development of his infamous theory was a five-tier model before he expanded it to eight before his death. As a result, there are two categories of human needs within the model. The first four tiers consist of the lower needs, known as deficiency needs, and the top tiers are the upper needs, known as growth needs.
Although the visual model of the hierarchy presents each need with rigid categories in the shape of a pyramid, in actuality it is important to understand that the visual tiers of Maslow’s Hierarchy have fluidity amongst the 8 levels. Simply for clarification, the biological and physiological basic needs on tier one are required before a person — regardless of their culture or race — can begin to reach their highest potential and calling.
As Maslow stated in his theory, “There are usually available various cultural paths to the same goal. Therefore conscious, specific, local-cultural desires are not as fundamental in motivation theory as the more basic, unconscious goals.” Maslow also emphasized that every individual is a unique person with varying experiences.
Universally, the lower needs must be met in a person’s life, at least in part, for advancements in the human condition. The deprivation or abundance of the lower needs are motivational in various ways, and switch and shift based on external circumstances. Therefore, they are fluid. As such, Maslow’s brilliance revealed how base needs determine or direct the ambition within a person to achieve their higher needs and attain self-actualization.
Tier 1: Biological and Physiological Base Needs
The base needs must be consistent. They are biological and are the foundation of an individual’s life, which satisfy the physiological requirements that sustain life. Base needs involve oxygen, food, water, sleep and rest, clothing, shelter and warmth.
With adults of consenting age, appropriate sexual activity between adults for reproduction purposes to ensure the survival of the human race is also considered a base need, when biologically possible. The parental instinct and desire to raise and nurture the next generation morally requires the strict exclusion of child abuse. This includes child thefts in various forms, including parental alienations and unjust child apprehensions to appease a toxic agenda, whether within the family or in the dominant society, such as with Indigenous child apprehensions.
Without the base need requirements being met, a person enters and focuses on survival mode when a severe lack of food, water, shelter and other needs occur. Desperation sets in until the very basic needs that ensure a person’s physiological survival are met while all other needs become a secondary focus.
Therefore, until the basic human requirements for physical survival are met, an individual’s drive, desire and motivation to achieve what Maslow explains as a person’s higher human needs, such as self-esteem and self-actualization, will not be met.
Tier 2: Safety Needs
The second need or human requirement is security and protection. The importance of protection and personal safety creates stability in the individual’s life. This second crucial need requires safe environments and people, whether that be at home, at school, at work or in the community.
Safety needs involve economic and social stability. Economic stability applies to both personal situations and within the demographic of the society, such as with steady employment. There is also a need to experience social stability and freedom from potential harm through various public resources, such as in healthcare.
The need for safety advocates for the importance of a life free from abuse and violence. It must not be determined by the preference of toxic individuals with agendas who reinforce instability while ignoring the safety of others, including children.
Safety also involves the conduct of the individuals around the person. In a positive environment, there are various forms of structure with consistency and protection free from bias, including with agencies that provide community services to create a stable environment in all fields of employment. As a result, this tier includes healthcare consistency, government, educational institutions, security in employment and legal protections with various policies and laws.
Tier 3: Belonging & Love Needs
Maslow’s third need to achieve success in life involves Belonging and Love needs. When a person is deprived of the first two tiers of the basic needs, Maslow states an individual will sneer at love. This is particularly true if the individual is deprived of loved ones, friendships and group acceptance, due to external influences in control dynamics.
The social need of love and belongingness involves emotional connections, social acceptance and inclusion, group membership, community involvement and social affiliations. It involves intimate relationships, parent-child relationships, friendships and extended family relationships with a give and receive exchange of love.
The effects of social connections and bonds, particularly between parents and children, has adverse effects on whether the person feels isolated, rejected and lonely or a sense of belonging and love.
Tier 4: Esteem Needs
The fourth need required in an individual’s life involves two types of esteem: Self-esteem and esteem derived from society in the form of groups, communities and the public at large. This tier involves becoming the best a person can be by setting and establishing personal goals, from parenting to pursuing a talent or academic achievements.
Self-esteem involves self-respect, dignity, independence, competency and mastery. Positive Self-esteem is not based on praise from others alone, or a celebrity type status which is not a result of individual merit. Esteem needs are derived from authentic and genuine achievements and mastery in an individual’s work, education, creative endeavour and life.
Esteem from others includes respect from the public, appreciation, reputation, status and recognition. It is based on accomplishments, such as Mastery, that are authentically recognized by the person’s peers, both personal and professional.
Individuals are also able to assist each other in times when there is a deprivation of a foundational need. In this way through education, the true motives of those around the individual are revealed. Still others in positions of agency and power who observe oppression are able to intervene, if they choose to. There are appropriate resources and supports in place to dismantle an agenda that deteriorates the human condition and results in violence in homes, schools and the community at large.
As the infamous French Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu said, “I often say that sociology is a martial art, a means of self-defense. Basically, you use it to defend yourself, without having the right to use it for unfair attacks.”
An educated public is a balanced society. Through understanding the first four tier needs, known as the lower needs, and fulfilling them, a person is able to transcend to the upper needs.
Every Friday, Sheila Wanite Bautz addresses various Sociological issues in laymen’s terms. Next Friday is part two of Maslow’s Fluid Pyramid of Needs, the upper needs. Sheila has dual Honour BAs with Majors in Sociology and English through the University of Saskatchewan. In Sociology, she specialized in Indigenous history, law, addictions and criminology.
