This will just be a short post because midterms are coming up.
Maslow’s Hierarchy is something of a classic when it comes to introductory Psychology classes. However, it seems to me that even this simplified pyramid has a number of issues.
The two main suggestion I have to improve the pyramid
1 - Remove the “Self Actualization” part of the pyramid
2 - Add methods under “Esteem Needs” that includes “separating your self worth from your prestige and accomplishments”
The second point produces a more robust sense of self worth.
The primary issue that I have with this model is that it falls victim to overfitting—I doubt that the methods in “Esteem Needs” and the “Self-actualization” category are actually fundamentally human needs. I think that these should really be just methods that people take in order to accept and value themselves—the alternative being to reduce the degree to which your well being is contingent on your achievements or prestige.
One of the difficulties with constructing any psychological model is that it will always have the mark of its creator embedded in the model. In this case, I think it’s likely that Maslow included self-actualization and esteem needs because those were their main routes they took towards self acceptance. That is to say, self acceptance through achievement and “achieving one’s full potential”. It would make sense that such a prolific academic would no doubt believe that prestige and accomplishment were vital to their own existence.
Actually, as I’m now reading Abraham Maslow’s wikipedia article, I’m finding that skepticism towards the “self-actualization” part of the pyramid is actually widespread among most academics.
“In 2006, author and former philosophy professor Christina Hoff Sommers and practicing psychiatrist Sally Satel asserted that, due to lack of empirical support, Maslow's ideas have fallen out of fashion and are "no longer taken seriously in the world of academic psychology.”
“Maslow was criticized for noting too many exceptions to his theory. As he acknowledged these exceptions, he did not do much to account for them. Shortly prior to his death, one problem he tried to resolve was that there are people who have satisfied their deficiency needs but still do not become self-actualized. He never resolved this inconsistency within his theory.”
So to summarize, I think the pyramid would be more apply to a greater percentage of people if the “Self-actualization” needs were removed and the methods underneath Esteem needs were replaced with methods that are more conducive to the well being to the individual.