Definition
Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a motivational theory proposed by Abraham Maslow in 1943, arranging human needs in a five-level pyramid. From the base upward, the levels are physiological needs (food, water, sleep), safety needs (shelter, security, stability), love and belonging (relationships, intimacy, community), esteem (respect, recognition, competence), and finally self-actualization — the realization of one's full creative and personal potential. Maslow argued that lower needs must be substantially satisfied before higher needs become motivating drivers of behavior.
The hierarchy was a landmark of the humanistic psychology movement, which rejected the deterministic frames of psychoanalysis and behaviorism in favor of a view of people as growth-oriented and capable of choice.
Why it matters
How it works
Maslow grouped the lower four tiers as deficiency needs — drives activated by the absence of something essential. Hunger, loneliness, and lack of recognition all produce tension that the organism tries to relieve. Once relieved, the drive fades; the need is not chronically motivating. The top tier, self-actualization, is a being or growth need: pursuing it does not reduce tension but expresses an ongoing creative impulse. Maslow profiled historical figures he considered self-actualized — Lincoln, Einstein, Eleanor Roosevelt — to describe traits common to people operating from that level: spontaneity, deep relationships, comfort with solitude, and frequent peak experiences.
The hierarchy is not strictly sequential in practice. A starving artist may pursue creative expression while physiologically deprived; a person in physical comfort may feel chronically unsafe due to trauma. Modern interpretations treat the levels as overlapping priorities rather than rigid stages, and later writers have proposed extensions including cognitive needs, aesthetic needs, and self-transcendence above self-actualization.