posted
Upon researching the “Hierarchy of Needs” of Abraham Maslow I found myself becoming increasingly pulled into the world of psychology. I agreed with almost all of Maslow’s points, but I felt that he could have gone further in depth on certain areas. I may just be an amateur in this field, but I feel that I may know how to help make the pyramid more understandable and realistic. This is my revised version of the need of safety.
Maslow’s hierarchy describes safety as being out of danger. Most of us will automatically associate the thought of danger with fears of war and beasts and bogeymen of the past, and that is the safety that Maslow’s hierarchy needs to work. Physical safety is a base need for Maslow’s theory to work properly, but it is not the only thing that is needed to transition to the need for love and belongingness. For example, if one was abused as a child in a relationship that is supposed to be portrayed as loving, such as the one between a parent and the said child, then one may not feel safe with love. Fear from love and belonging can carry on through an entire life and be very detrimental to one’s well being. Working with Ivan Pavlov’s work in comparative psychology one could say that if one observes constant abuse by members of a supposedly loving they will be conditioned into believing that love and lack of safety come hand in hand. As the developmental years of a child’s life have been proven to be where most beliefs and fears are spawned from it is likely to believe that one could be safe physically but not emotionally and therefore shun love and belonging. Some may ask why this matters, why should we move on to love and belongingness? For some people this question’s answer may pose the answer to a life or death crisis. With the rising divorce rate, teenage suicide rises as well. Some theories that I have heard point directly towards some direct connection between the two, but I have yet to hear a coherent enough argument to prove what causes this link. In my opinion, if one person is stuck at a certain phase of need for too long, or in a period of time where one will usually see the development and fulfillment of a need, they feel as if they can’t ever become their inborn goal of self-actualization or self-transcendence and end it all there and then. Also, the inability to feel what you have heard about can deteriorate both mental and physical health. As for how we could further develop this there are many things to do. First off, if we could split that plane of the pyramid into two separate entities where the physical need is the base but it can never make its way up the hierarchy without achieving emotional safety. Second, if we can make this theory more freely known to the outside world, we may be able to create some change and have something to base life on. This is what can begin to help those who have been hurt, regain lost love and belonging.
I admit that this isn't the strongest writing, but if you hear the point then it is very worthwhile to care.
Posts: 1 | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
Hatew to break it to you, but here are a few points:
First, safety in MHN isn't just physical safety. I ahd MHN in 4 classes in the same day, about 10 years ago...talk about a LONG day! But in every class it was stressed that the safety he was refering to wan't necessarily of the physical type. A feeling of safety is necessary for many things in life.
However, at it's basic source, safety means not being hurt/killed. The entire point (or at least one of the major ones) of MHN is that in order to progress to the higher level of his pyrimid, all the needs of the lower teirs must continue to be met. Self-actulization isn;t a comsideration if a man is pointing a gun at your head...it is probably the furtherst thing from your mind.
Second, please link to show ANY direct corrrelation between divorce and teen suicide, There have been a lot of studies that show a correlation between the two, and the rates are higher in that group than in families that are together, but a lot of studies have also show even higher rates in abusive homes, regardless of the marriage state of the parents, so causation is far from a given.
I think that Maslow knew exactally what he was doing when he formulated his HoN, and it shows. I don't think dividing it into seperate parellel tiers is necessary, and it would not hold up as well. As it stands now, the MHN can apply to almost every situation, and can be a useful tool to help in a large variety of situations. It's vaugeness is an asset inmany ways, and trying to further define it can lead to confusion and exclusion, meaning that as you further subdevide it it becomes less and less relevant to a large number of situations.
quote:Also, the inability to feel what you have heard about can deteriorate both mental and physical health.
Or it could do the opposite, make you even more intersted in finding out what it really is.
Interesting idea though....could you expand on that some more?
quote: For example, if one was abused as a child in a relationship that is supposed to be portrayed as loving, such as the one between a parent and the said child, then one may not feel safe with love.
Just wondering ... wouldn't the mentioned abused child notice that the general definition of a child adult relationship as one that does not involve abuse, from TV, friends, etc.?
Posts: 2756 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
Not often, until adult life..and then a lot of damage has already been done.
That is one of the reasons you se so many abuse cycles that carry on in specific families. They carry on the abuse with their own kids, and so on and so forth.....
posted
I had MHN in high school, and then when I was in college studying psychology every single class I ever took within the field discussed it.
I still have nighmares about the day that every class spent the whole day discussing it. I have to sit through 4 classes, each almost 2 hrs long ( I had put all my classes on Tues/Thurs so I could work more) , and three of them used the same textbook.
I left college after that...I was never so bored as I was at Westfield State College.
posted
Anti-S, I'm a big fan of Maslow too. I think I may have read probably about 8-% of the stuff he wrote. What parts of his thought are you most attracted by?
One thing I've noticed about Abe is that while he was a revolutionarily creative genius, he was not particularly meticuluous. In many cases, he saw himself (rightly so) as a trailblazing pioneer who would be followed by the less creative but more detail oriented - he's got a neat quote along the lines of "Science is that process by which uncreative people are able to create." - people who would turn his broad conceptual frameworks into more specific laws and techniques. There's still plenty of room for elaboration under Maslow's theories, hierachy of needs included.
However, Kwea's point is correct, even if I think his tone was overly hostile. The different types of safety were part of the safety layer from its conception. The deficiency you're seeing isn't there theoretically, although as you've noticed, there is a lot of ground that wasn't covered by this definition. If you're really interested in looking into why pepole get hung up at various stages and how this plays out, associative conditioning's not a bad angle to take, but you may want ot include the work on complexes pioneered by Alfred Adler. He and the people who built on his work seem to me to be the best fit into what you're talking about. Albert Ellis and many of the other cognitivists may offer other useful ideas as well.
I've got my own problems with Maslow's theory. I mentioned one of them here. I think that he didn't give enough attention to the interpretive perceptual nature of the things he was talking about. The deficiency needs are generally not worked on their own but rather through the perception of threat. For example, people don't eat because they need food, but rather because they are hungry. Supress this impulse or trigger it in inappropriate situations and you can see that the actual motivation to eat is not lack of food, but the perceptual threat of hunger. I tihnk this is even more pronounced in the higher deficiency needs, such as self-esteem, which is pretty much only a perceptual phenomenom and one that cross-cultural researchers (Steven Heine, for example) have found isn't a valued component of other cultures.
This lack of attention to perception was, I think, the cause of my first disagreement with the theory. That is, Maslow states that someone who has been fully satisfied in a need will handle being deprived of it better than someone who has had past periods of deprivation. I don't think that this is necessarily true. Certainly, people can develop a fixation in response to deprivation, but in cases where this doesn't happen, they become used to the threat and develop psychic muslces and strategies to deal with it. When someone is confronted with an unfamiliar threat, the magnitude of the perceived threat is magnified by how unfamiliar it is. A person who has always had three meals a day is going to feel intense hunger and exhibit desparate behavior in situations where someone used to sometimes going without isn't going to find a big deal at all.
posted
I've been thinking about this ever since I posted to a MHN for dummies site in the Groundhog Day thread. Is safety really possible? I mean, maybe I'm just stuck at that level. But it seems that to live beyond the 4 walls of your room is to risk. Is there a delineation between acceptable caution and irrational caution?
Posts: 2010 | Registered: Apr 2003
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