Renovating the Pyramid of Needs: Contemporary Extensions Built Upon Acient Foundations || Douglas Kenrick et. al.[Paper]

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Maslow rejected the idea (most famously proposed by Skinner) that there were primary drives, which provided the foundation for secondary drives that are learned via simple conditioning later in life
He suggested that there are many different systems associated with needs, which are now known to be processed in architecturally different parts of the brain
Maslow believed that some human motivations are not directly linked to physiological, homeostatic needs (e.g. self-actualization)
Needs influence behavior at both conscious and non-conscious levels
- Motivated behaviors can also have incidental effects that lead to the development of other needs
Maslow advocated a humanistic perspective and distinguished it from psychoanalytic and behavioral perspectives
- The psychoanalytic approach was limited, Maslow argued, by its focus on the negative and pathological aspects of human behavior, viewing people as motivated by suppressed feelings of hostility and sexual desires, often directed at their parents
- The behavioral approach was limited, in Maslow’s view, by its assumption that general principles of behavior could be developed by studying rats.

Maslow suggested that lower needs must be satisfied before the individual focuses on fulfilling higher needs
This hierarchy also underlies developmental progression: people move from lower to higher needs as they mature
- As humans grow more mature, they become capable of rejecting baser motives (e.g. the need for food) in service of higher motives (e.g. self-actualization

Basic human motives should be examined at three different levels of analysis: their ultimate evolutionary function, their developmental sequencing, and their cognitive priority as triggered by proximate inputs
Animals, including humans, need not be consciously aware of the ultimate function of their behavior