MOTIVATION

Maslow's and McGregor's perspectives on motivation

Maslow's and McGregor's perspectives on motivation

Abraham Maslow's Theory

One of the many interesting things Maslow noticed while he worked with monkeys early in his career was; some needs take precedence over others. For example, if you are hungry and thirsty, you will tend to try to take care of the thirst first. After all, you can do without food for weeks, but you can only do without water for a couple of days! Thirst is a “stronger” need than hunger. Likewise, if you are very thirsty, but someone has put a chokehold on you and you can't breath, which is more important? The need to breathe, of course. On the other hand, sex is less powerful than any of these. Let's face it; you won't die if you don't get it!

Those who work with the sick have made many great discoveries for healthy people. Special education has opened many doors for regular education, and physicians to the sick have discovered preventive medicine for the healthy. In the field of psychology, Maslow and others working with brain damaged and mentally disturbed persons began to draw certain conclusions about mental health. The tone of Maslow's philosophy is extremely positive; he saw people's needs and drives as good rather than evil. He felt that every person has a natural drive toward health, happiness, and accomplishment rather than a pessimistic, negative desire for failure and self-destruction. Whether Maslow's humanistic philosophy is right or not, it certainly is a much happier way of characterizing people.

“Maslow took this idea and created his now famous hierarchy of needs. Beyond the details of air, water, food, and sex, he laid out five broader layers: the physiological needs, the needs for safety and security, the needs for love and belonging, the needs for esteem, and the need to actualize the self, in that order. Maslow has been a very inspirational figure in personality theories. In the 1960's in particular, people were tired of the reductionistic, mechanistic messages of the behaviorists and physiological psychologists. They were looking for meaning and purpose in their lives, even a higher, more mystical meaning. Maslow was one of the pioneers in that movement to bring the human being back into psychology and the person back into personality!”

Maslow outlined the following needs for people. As you read, check to see how far up Maslow's ladder you have progressed.

Physiological Needs

The fist step on the ladder to self-actualization is the satisfaction of the basic physiological needs of food, air, shelter and so on. If you were lost on a deserted island, you would be more concerned with finding food and shelter than finding the closest opera house or bookstore. In addition, you would give even your food and shelter to maintain your air supply. There is obviously a priority order to the things we need. According to Maslow, the physiological needs come first.

Safety And Security Needs

In some societies the human needs for security and safety is never ...