What Can Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Offer Millennials?

What can Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs offer Millennials?

Abraham Maslow was one of the first psychologists to focus on the positive elements of the human experience rather than on what can go wrong.  His most famous contribution to the field is his Hierarchy of Needs.  This tool was designed to understand what needs people should meet in order to maximize their potential and reach self-actualization.  To Maslow, self-actualization meant a stable, realistic view of life combined with a sense of awe, gratitude, and happiness.  A self-actualized person is happy to know who they are and what their place in the world is.

The traditional reading of Maslow’s theory is that we cannot leap straight to self-actualization.  He believed that there was a hierarchy of needs (with self-actualization at the top), and that the higher needs could be addressed only if the lower needs had already been met.  His original conception included five needs, but he later expanded the model to eight.

Physiological Needs:  Before anything else, people will seek out air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep, and excretion.

Safety Needs:  This includes not only physical safety, but economic, social, and psychological security.

Love and Belonging Needs:  These social needs include friendship and intimacy, acceptance, the feeling of being a part of a group, and community involvement.

Esteem Needs:  This need has two parts to it.  Maslow believed we needed both esteem for ourselves as well as feeling the esteem and respect of others.

Cognitive Needs:  Added to the expanded model, this acknowledges our mental needs for curiosity, understanding, and meaning.

Aesthetic Needs:  Also added to later models, this addresses our need for beauty and balance in life.

Self-Actualization Needs:  This need is met when someone realizes their personal potential, pursuing growth and happiness.

Transcendence Needs:  Added later, this lesser-known final need recognizes that some people pursue values beyond themselves such as mystical experiences that are often hard to define or pin down.

Psychologists, including Maslow himself, have long asserted that the needs listed do not HAVE to be met in this specific order.  Although there are some obvious priorities (you’re not likely to care about whether you’re mentally stimulated on a regular basis if your asthma attack is making it hard to breathe), there is a huge amount of variety in the order in which we attempt to meet our needs.

For instance, being a member of a gang provides such an enormous amount of Love and Belonging that members actively dismiss their need for Safety, although this is the opposite order of Maslow’s hierarchy.  In addition, many religious followers pursue Transcendence by ignoring or minimizing their Physiological Needs.  This can be a huge encouragement for us!

Many young adults today are living with their parents and working a job they can barely stand to pay off student loans.  Although their Physiological needs are met, their Safety (economic) needs are not, nor are their Esteem needs.  Very often young adults who move to a new city for work have the added stressor of finding it very difficult to make friends outside of a school context, meaning their Love and Belonging needs are also lacking.  Does this mean they are hopeless?  Is there no chance of them experiencing cognitive, aesthetic, or self-actualized needs until the ones lower on the hierarchy are addressed?

Yes and no.  It is important to continue working to meet those unfulfilled needs.  Sometimes this can be helped by practicing gratitude for what you do have.  For instance, although a lack of financial security is a very real concern, overall mental health can increase when you take the time to consider that other forms of safety (physical, societal, etc) are met.  If nothing else, gratitude for what you have can give you the energy to focus on what you do not.

Although meeting foundational needs will generally always be a consideration, allowing yourself the privilege to pursue higher needs when possible can offer fulfillment despite being “out of order.”  Take on a new hobby that will challenge you mentally or offer greater creative opportunities.  The satisfaction from meeting your Cognitive and Aesthetic needs can, at worst, distract you from the absence of lower needs, and at best, give you the motivation to continue working toward meeting them.

It’s also worth remembering those who find Self-actualization and Transcendence without meeting their lower needs.  After all, Maslow himself identified several qualities of self-actualizers, and many of them can be realized without fully attaining all the preceding needs.  Some of these qualities include people who:  Perceive reality efficiently and can tolerate uncertainty; Accept themselves and others for what they are; Problem-centered, not self-centered; Unusual sense of humor.

With those in mind, it is clear that one can reach some level of self-actualization through means other than ensuring our Physiological, Safety, Love and Belonging, and Esteem needs are fully met.  For instance, practicing acceptance of oneself and one’s situation can go a long way toward increasing the mental health of struggling young adults as well as increase their experience of self-actualization.  Often this includes another of Maslow’s characteristics of self-actualized people: holding a realistic view of life. 

Acceptance and realistic views of life mean having a full acknowledgement of the bad and of the good.  Take the time to write out all of the things about your life that are not going well.  Now write another list with an equal number of things that are going well, even if you feel you have to really stretch things to find them.  Do the same for yourself personally.  Write down all of the things that you see as flaws in yourself.  Now write a list with an equal number of strengths that you see in yourself.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is a useful tool to help make us aware of what our needs are.  Sometimes we downplay our need for friendship, and it can be useful to point at a psychologist’s theory and say, “See!  Right there, the need for Belonging is real!”  But it is just a tool, and nothing more.  If you find yourself becoming discouraged just looking at his pyramid of needs, it might be a good idea to take a mental step back.  While full of useful information, this hierarchy is flexible, and there are ways to feel self-actualized even if foundational needs are not fully met.

So don’t despair.  Let Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs inspire you to greater things rather than be dragged down by the thought of what you don’t have.

Recommended Book: Meet Maslow: How Understanding the Priorities of Those Around Us Can Lead To Harmony And Improvement https://amzn.to/3codct8


For more information, check out these websites:

https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-maslows-hierarchy-of-needs-4136760

https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html

The Pros and Cons of Personality Tests

The Pros and Cons of Personality Tests

First Step in a Meaningful Life: Logo Therapy

First Step in a Meaningful Life: Logotherapy