Written by TREY HARRIS
I recieved this interesting e-mail today from sometime correspondent and Spiral Dynamics list contributer Trey Harris…
I realize that in a lot of circles, questioning Maslow might seem like blasphemy. But I’m not in those circles, and I’d love to posit that Maslow’s model, while useful, is not complete and, in fact, is a bit misleading.
(I’m rather new to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, and came to it after my experience with Spiral Dynamics, so my understanding of it may be fundamentally flawed by viewing it through these spiral-colored glasses. Please keep this in mind as you read on!)
I have a bit of an issue with the “Self-Actualization” tier on the hierarchy. Maslow’s original intent may be different, but it seems as though most commentary on the Hierarchy considers this to be a catch-all category of all Needs that are growth-based (rather than deficit-based). While he later split out the categories of Cognitive & Aesthetic Needs, I would say there are still a couple specific sets of Needs that have at least as much impact as either of those:
1) Purpose/Meaning: It’s very common to hear that the main reason our consciousness is special among animals is that we are aware of our own death. And, as far as I’ve ever heard, this is true. And I believe this awareness of our life cycle leads directly, in a majority of cases, to questioning our purpose and the meaning of life. This category would also relate to the need for goals and direction.
2) Charity: I believe there is something fundamental about making it through the first three stages of Needs that allows someone to open up a capacity for sharing with those in need. Whether it’s medical/psychological help, monetary assistance, or simply extra attention, many people are driven by the need to give back. Gandhi and Mother Theresa might be examples of people driven by this Need.
3) Innovation: There are many people driven by the need to advance civilization, to innovate for innovation’s sake. They’re not trying to achieve because they lack self-esteem, or because of some cognitive need to understand things better, but simply because there is a desire to blaze trails. Neil Armstrong, Lewis & Clark, and The Wright Brothers all made their names because of this (complex) Need.
The other Levels can be split, as well. When we talk about Physiological needs, are we talking basic survival or better nutrition & exercise? When we discuss Safety needs, do we mean shelter or Customs Agents? Belongingness and Love can be split between Familial Love and Intimate Relationships, and Esteem can be separated into Internal and External rewards.
Most of these split levels (save maybe the Esteem segments) won’t occur at the same developmental stage (i.e., someone in need of their next meal is not thinking about getting to the gym), so the pyramid model would be incapable of maintaining these distinctions.
In fact, I think there is a flaw with the whole concept of this being a “hierarchy,” wherein one set of needs cannot be met until the others are fulfilled. For instance, I know plenty of people pursuing self-actualization (Level 5 or 7) who haven’t exercised (Level 1) in years. There are plenty of people who are driven by a need for cognitive understanding (Level 5 in the Adapted model) precisely because they did not fulfill their need for Love and Belonging (Level 3).
Thoughts? How is my understanding of this model flawed?
Washington, DC
Well, if the idea of new vMEMES of increasing complexity emerging as you progress up the Spiral makes sense, Trey, then I guess we’re stuck with the hierarchy idea. To my knowledge, neither Graves nor Beck & Cowan allow for variations in the sequence of emergence – though Beck has allowed that some people ascend the Spiral with more of a preference for one side than the other. (In my book I theorise that this may be linked to one’s natural mooring on the Introvert/Extravert and Impulse-Control/Psychoticism Dimensions of Temperament.) However, Maslow did eventually admit (1970) that not everyone always went up the Hierarchy in exactly the same way.
Certainly Evolutionary Psychology would allow that whatever strategy/capability would be adaptive would be the one which would develop. So while there might be a ‘standard’ way of ascending the Spiral/Hierarchy, theoretically, in extreme ‘Life Conditions’ it could be adaptive for vMEMES to emerge in a non-standard pattern.
The search for Purpose/Meaning, I would suggest starts in a very basic way with humans in PURPLE – the attribution of characteristics to gods and/or supernatural beings – explodes complexity wise in BLUE and is also found in GREEN and, presumably, TURQUOISE. (All the ‘cool’ colours, it seems!) Maslow did look at this in his 1968 work on spirituality and religion but I don’t know enough of his work to know how much he applied that to the Hierarchy concept. Certainly it seems to be there in the Cognitive need to know and understand and is certainly there in his late (1971) acknowledged 8th level Transcendence.
All the ‘warm’ colours seem capable of innovating – but especially one tends associate it with ORANGE. From what I know of Maslow, I would agree, innovation doesn’t seem to strongly attach as a concept to any one level.
Charity, as a driver, seems to be an output primarily of GREEN – though it can also be enshrined as BLUE duty (the Christian giving of alms; the Muslim duty of Zakiah).
The problem with Self-Actualisation, as I see it, is that both Maslow and Carl Rogers, without explicitly saying so, changed significantly what they mean by the term over time. Initially with both, it seemed to mean being all that you can be – Rogers sometimes called it ‘Full Function’. By 1956 Maslow’s 14 descriptors of Self-Actualisation read more like an abstracted, meta-way of thinking which sounds to me an awful lot like YELLOW. Graves (1971/2002, 1978/2005) certainly regarded ‘Maslow’s Self-Actualised man’ as thinking in G-T (YELLOW). I’ve attempted to address some of these issues around Self-Actualisation in http://www.integratedsociopsychology.net/self-actualisation.html
Where there are discrepancies between Maslow and Graves, I usually take Graves over Maslow every time. Maslow, like Freud, was an inspired observer and theorist but Graves did the laborious, hands-on research. Even so, I tend to find Maslow much more descriptive of the 7th and 8th levels than Graves.
Trey, does any of this help with your reservations about Maslow?
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