There is a further problem with Maslow’s work. Margie Lachman, a psychologist who works in the same office as Maslow at his old university, Brandeis in Massachusetts, admits that her predecessor offered no empirical evidence for his theory. “He wanted to have the grand theory, the grand ideas—and he wanted someone else to put it to the hardcore scientific test,” she says. “It never quite materialised.”
However, after Maslow’s death in 1970, researchers did undertake a more detailed investigation, with attitude-based surveys and field studies testing out the Hierarchy of Needs.
”When you analyse them, the five needs just don’t drop out,” says Hodgkinson. “The actual structure of motivation doesn’t fit the theory. And that led to a lot of discussion and debate, and new theories evolved as a consequence.”
In 1972, Clayton Alderfer whittled Maslow’s five groups of needs down to three, labelled Existence, Relatedness and Growth. Although elements of a hierarchy remain, “ERG theory” held that human beings need to be satisfied in all three areas—if that’s not possible then their energies are redoubled in a lower category. So for example, if it is impossible to get a promotion, an employee might talk more to colleagues and get more out of the social side of work.
More sophisticated theories followed. Maslow’s triangle was chopped up, flipped on its head and pulled apart into flow diagrams.
Of course, this doesn’t really contradict your point of there being separable, factorable goals. AFAIK, the current mainstream model of human motivation and basic needs is self-determination theory, which explicitly holds that there exist three separate basic needs:
Autonomy: people have a need to feel that they are the masters of their own destiny and that they have at least some control over their lives; most importantly, people have a need to feel that they are in control of their own behavior.
Competence: another need concerns our achievements, knowledge, and skills; people have a need to build their competence and develop mastery over tasks that are important to them.
Relatedness (also called Connection): people need to have a sense of belonging and connectedness with others; each of us needs other people to some degree
Although for the purposes of this discussion it seems that Maslow’s specific factorization of goals is questionable, but not the general idea of a hierarchy of needs. Does that sound reasonable?
This BBC article discusses it a bit:
Of course, this doesn’t really contradict your point of there being separable, factorable goals. AFAIK, the current mainstream model of human motivation and basic needs is self-determination theory, which explicitly holds that there exist three separate basic needs:
Thanks, I learned something.
Although for the purposes of this discussion it seems that Maslow’s specific factorization of goals is questionable, but not the general idea of a hierarchy of needs. Does that sound reasonable?
Well, it sounds to me like it’s more of a heterarchy than a hierarchy, but yeah.