Team Building Workshop

Nada AbiSamra
Nov. 2, 2001

MASLOW'S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS



5- Self-Actualization

4- Esteem- Need to feel worthy

3- Need to love and to be loved
Need for belonging and friendship

2- Need to feel safe and secure

1- Need for food, water, and shelter - Physiological Needs


In the late 1960's Abraham Maslow developed a hierarchical theory of human needs. Maslow
was a humanistic psychologist who believed that people are not controlled by mechanical forces
(the stimuli and reinforcement forces of behaviorism) or unconscious instinctual impulses of
psychoanalysis alone.

Maslow focused on human potential, believing that humans strive to reach the highest levels
of their capabilities.

Some people reach higher levels of creativity, of consciousness and wisdom. People at this level
were labeled by other psychologists as "fully functioning" or possessing a "healthy personality".
Maslow had a more appropriate term for these people "self-actualizing".

Maslow set up a hierarchical theory of needs in which all the basic needs are at the bottom,
and the needs concerned with man's highest potential are at the top. The hierarchic theory is
often represented as a pyramid or a Christmas tree, with the lower levels representing the lower 
needs, and the upper point representing the need for self-actualization. Each level of the pyramid 
is dependent on the previous level. For example, a person does not feel the second need until the

demands of the first have been satisfied.