Educational Psychology—Limitations and Possibilities

168 The Praeger Handbook of Education and Psychology
Figure 22.1
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Self-
Actualization:
Growth
Esteem Needs:
Respect from Others,
Respect for Self
Belonging Needs: Relationships, Family, Love
Safety Needs: Protection, Stability, Structure, Safe Environments
Physiological Needs: Food, Water, Oxygen
During his tenure at Brooklyn College, he had the opportunity to meet many European intellectuals
such as Eric Fromm, Alfred Adler, and several Gestalt and Freudian psychologists (Boeree,
2005). Once on his own, Maslow began putting together the pieces of his life, his knowledge,
and his insights into primate behavior into a concise methodology of psychology.
Maslow suffered from a low self-esteem. While he was successful in his own right as he grew
up, he was less than his father had hoped for. This sense of never being enough, coupled with
his father’s frequent taunting about his appearance caused a lack of self-esteem to develop. His
understanding of the need for emotional security came from his work with primate dominance
studies during his years at the University of Wisconsin. Maslow did extensive work in the area of
submissiveness and dominance within the primate community. He examined how these elements
influenced relationships among the primates. He studied how impulses, needs, desires, sexual
drive, and aggression factored into the relationships of the primates. His observations of behavior,
motivation, and need coupled with his own personal understanding of environmental influence
and primate behavior began the basis for his hierarchy of needs (Boeree, 2005).
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs has huge implications not only to the world of psychology at
large but to the field of education as well. Maslow used the term hierarchy to illustrate that in four
of the five levels, the successful attainment of human needs is based on the fulfillment of needs
at the lower level. The tiers of Maslow’s hierarchy (Figure 22.1) are as follows: physiological,
safety, belonging, esteem, and, self-actualization.
The base tier of the hierarchy addresses a person’s physiological needs. The items that fall
into this category are air, water, and food. When people are very hungry, they begin to focus only
on the need to eat food. When hunger pangs escalate to the point where they can think of nothing
else, thoughts focus on getting something to eat. If those needs go unmet, the thought of eating