Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)

American psychologist Abraham Maslow invented the idea of a hierarchy of needs.

According to Dr. Abraham Maslow, ”there are general types of needs( physiological, survival, safety, love and esteem) that must be satisfied before a person can act unselfishly”.

Having attempted to apply the Y theory of Douglas McGregor (according to which human beings want to work, take on responsibilities and obtain greater autonomy), he concluded that humans also needed to be supervised and made to feel secure (X theory).

The hierarchy of needs theory postulates that once basic physiological needs have been satisfied (food, warmth and rest), other needs come to the fore: feeling of security and belonging, then love and belonging, self-esteem, personal fulfilment and development. Later, Maslow added the needs of knowing and understanding, followed by aesthetic needs. The whole of the human being is geared towards self-realisation. None of these desires is absolute. Once one need is satisfied, it ceases to be important. In reality, Herzberg showed that the need continues to be important even if it has lost its ability to motivate. No longer satisfy that need would have a very high de-motivating effect. Furthermore, Maslow showed that the scale of these needs varies according to the individual, which does nothing to facilitate the design of motivation management within an organisation. There is also the question of knowing whether it is possible to go from the general human being (generic man), or a neurotic human being studied in a clinic, to a human being at work. It is also unclear whether self-realisation and the satisfaction of other needs are channelled through the world of work. The satisfaction of a need can also take on different forms depending on the individual: for one person, self-realisation may come from holding a prestigious job while, for another, it may come from the importance that person gives to an extra-professional commitment. On the other hand, the same object, such as a salary, can satisfy highly diverse needs: it can be a means of satisfying physiological needs, a sign of recognition and a symbol of social status, or a measure of one's own exception.

Fig. 6. A. Maslow’s theory presented as pyramid of needs

The model, moreover, does not seem to have been validated empirically. A. Maslow himself claimed he was not at all convinced of the grounds upon which he based his work. He was surprised by the fact that smaller needs prevailed over greater needs for many individuals. Nevertheless, his model arrived just at the right time; the school of human relations lacked content with respect to the issue of motivation at work. Consultants in industrial psychology, Organisational development and Management theory therefore took Maslow up and transformed him into a reference; with him a new theory was bom to serve their cause (Villette, 2003). Moreover, the pyramid of needs was used less for research into individual satisfaction than for studying individuals' involvement and commitment to the needs of the organisation.

Date: 2016-03-03; view: 850