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Author Andrey Misyuk. Source
Recently, Maslow’s pyramid has been causing more and more criticism from marketers: they say, it does not work in real conditions. Someone even adds: in real Russian conditions (implying that it may work in the USA, where it was created). At the same time, if you ask who read Maslow’s works, only a few will answer in the affirmative. «What for? one colleague asked me. “Everything is clear with the pyramid!” It is understandable, understandable, but the whole trick is that Maslow did not draw any pyramid, and his theory is not as simple as we were taught.
«Anti-Maslow» today
About Abraham Maslow, the average marketer knows two things — this is a «pyramid» of needs and that he changed his surname from the Russian surname Maslov. Moreover, both are discussed with almost the same fervor.
It’s easier to deal with the surname: his father came from the southern provinces of the Russian Empire and really bore the surname Maslov. He emigrated to the USA at the beginning of the last century, and his son, Abraham Maslow, was born in the USA. His last name was «adapted» to a more familiar sound to the American ear. All his life, Maslow lived and worked in the United States, becoming president of the American Psychological Association in the late 60s, so he has every right to be called an American scientist.
With the «pyramid» is much more difficult. Only the lazy did not scold her. V. Tamberg and A. Badin call their article “Anti-Maslow” (however, at the end they make a reservation that perhaps it’s not Maslow that is bad, but marketers are trying in vain to use him here and there). On specialized forums and in LiveJournal, the “pyramid” is criticized for the very idea of hierarchy and the impossibility, in principle, to fully satisfy needs once and for all. «The pyramid does not work» — say V. Tsenev, V. Boys and others. There is even such an extremely laconic and sharp interpretation of the theory of motivation: “According to Maslow, a person is “an animal that constantly wants something.” (Yu. Kolov).
But here’s the problem: for anyone who has read Maslow’s work on the theory of motivation, at first glance at such accusatory texts, it is clear that their authors have not read Maslow’s work themselves. It even comes to the point of absurdity: after criticizing Maslow’s pyramid, some authors offer their theory of motivation, while in the list of references they do not give references to any of Maslow’s works, thus signing their own ignorance.
The authors of such works, alas, do not work with the primary source, but with a secondary product: they take the popular visualization of the theory in the form of a pyramid and try to apply it wherever they deal with motives, whether it is the development of an advertising campaign or the need to increase the motivation of company employees. Of course, this way of working cannot be effective because someone who is only familiar with the «pyramid» misunderstands the meanings that Maslow put into each concept.
Let’s turn to the original source: let’s compare what Maslow’s theory is usually criticized for (which postulates of the theory are usually objected to) with what is actually said in his works.
Maslow as it is
Objection: “The dissatisfaction of physiological needs does not always prevent the emergence of needs of higher levels. When I am very busy with some business, I can not eat for a long time, despite the feeling of hunger.
In fact: when Maslow talks about the impossibility of the emergence of higher-level needs without satisfying the needs of the physiological level (say, hunger or thirst), he is talking about conditions that today a person living in a civilized society does not experience. “In most cultures known to us, chronic, extreme hunger (chronically hungry man) is more of a rarity than a pattern. In any case, what has been said is true for the United States of America. If we hear from the average American «I’m hungry,» then we understand that he is more likely to feel appetite than hunger. He can experience real hunger only in some extreme, emergency circumstances, no more than two or three times in his entire life. (Quoted from: Abraham Maslow, Motivation and Personality. — K. PSYLIB, 2004.)
The physiological needs that Maslow speaks of are needs that are exacerbated to the extreme, extreme states. “In practice, this means that a person living in extreme need, a person deprived of all the joys of life, will be driven, first of all, by the needs of the physiological level. If a person has nothing to eat and if at the same time he lacks love and respect, then nevertheless, first of all, he will strive to satisfy his physical hunger, and not emotional … A person who feels mortal hunger will not be interested in anything but food. Pay attention — «deadly hunger», not «appetite»!
Thus, the meaning that the author of the theory puts into the concept of «physiological needs» is often misunderstood.
Objection: “Needs are not really organized hierarchically and sequentially. They exist, as it were, on the same plane, chaotically manifesting themselves in this or that person.
In fact: we remember only this fragment of the theory: “But what happens to his desires when he has plenty of bread, when he is full, when his stomach does not require food? What happens is that other (higher) needs immediately appear in a person, and these needs already take possession of his consciousness, taking the place of physical hunger. As soon as he satisfies these needs, their place is immediately occupied by new (even higher) needs, and so on ad infinitum. This is what I mean when I say that human needs are organized hierarchically.”
However, there is such a fragment in the theory: “When we talk about hierarchy , one may get the impression that we are talking about some kind of rigidly fixed structure of needs. But in reality, the hierarchy of needs is not at all as stable as it might seem at first glance. <...> Speaking about the hierarchy of needs, we only assert that a person who has two needs not satisfied will prefer to first satisfy a more basic, and, consequently, more urgent need. But this in no way means that the behavior of this person will be determined precisely by this need. I consider it necessary to emphasize once again that the needs and desires of a person are not the only determinants of his behavior.
Moreover, Maslow introduces the concept of reversal of needs: “In some people, for example, the need for self-affirmation manifests itself as more urgent than the need for love. <...> Of all the cases of reversion, perhaps the most valuable are those associated with the highest social norms, with the highest ideals and values. People who are devoted to such ideals and values are ready to endure hardships, torment and even death for their sake.
So, the general idea of the excessive «rigidity» of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is wrong. Yes, and it is rather difficult to argue against the thesis of hierarchy: an extreme feeling of hunger in the vast majority of cases will still determine behavior more than a lack of recognition.
Objection: “No need can be satisfied once and for all, so how can they replace one another ?!”
Actually: the best way to answer here is with a quote. “I’m afraid that our reasoning may push the reader’s thoughts in the wrong direction. It may seem that the hierarchy of the five groups of needs described by us indicates a specific dependence — it is worth, they say, to satisfy one need, as another immediately takes its place. From this, the following erroneous conclusion may follow — the emergence of a need is possible only after one hundred percent satisfaction of the underlying need.
In fact, almost any healthy member of our society can be said to be both satisfied and unsatisfied in all of their basic needs. Our understanding of the hierarchy of needs will be more realistic if we introduce the concept of a measure of satisfaction of needs and say that lower needs are always satisfied to a greater extent than higher ones. If, for the sake of clarity, we use specific figures, albeit conditional, it turns out that the average citizen has physiological needs satisfied, for example, by 85%, the need for security is satisfied by 70%, the need for love — by 50%, the need for self-esteem — by 40%, and the need for self-actualization — by 10%. The term “need satisfaction measure” allows us to better understand the thesis about the actualization of a higher need after satisfaction of a lower one. And at this point, Maslow’s theory was simplified utterly.
Objection: “It is impossible to classify needs, therefore the “pyramid” does not work”
In fact: Maslow opposed the idea of cataloging (or listing) needs because he thought it was impossible. So, in this case, it would be implied that all needs are equivalent, but this is not so. It would be implied that each need lives in isolation from the other, which is also not true. And most importantly, such a classification would be made on the basis of external manifestations of the satisfaction of needs — on behavior. But it is quite difficult to say unequivocally what motive caused this or that behavior, and even the person himself rarely realizes the real reason for his actions.
“Obviously, behavior as such cannot form the basis of a classification of motives, since, as I have already said, the same behavioral act can be dictated by very different desires. <...> The search for food, the subsequent chewing and absorption of it may be dictated not so much by the need for food as by the need for security. Behind sexual desire, after courtship and subsequent intercourse, there may be both a need for sexual satisfaction and a need for self-affirmation. <...> Thus, having consistently excluded all the bases of classification, except for the fundamental, and, as a rule, unconscious goals and needs, we are forced to conclude that they are the only reliable basis for constructing a theory of motivation.”
Thus, according to Maslow, if it is possible to make a classification of motives, then in the most general form and in no case based on behavioral acts.
Objection: “A person at one particular moment of time experiences not one need, but several needs of“ different levels ”.
In fact: Maslow says that, just the same need cannot be one; he speaks in terms of “multiple motivation of behavior” and “multiple determination of behavior”: “… behavior, as a rule, is determined not by one single need, but by a combination of several or all basic needs. If we are faced with a behavioral act in which we can identify the only determinant, the only motive, then we must understand that we are dealing with an exception.
Maslow in Kotler’s retelling
How did it happen that from a deep and multifaceted theory, most marketers took out only a “pyramid”, which, by the way, is not in any of Maslow’s works? Yes, there is the concept of a hierarchy of needs, but not in the form of a pyramid and without any graphical representation. Now it is difficult to find out who first drew the pyramid. It is said that this was done by the followers of Maslow or the popularizers of his theory, seeking to give the theory of motivation a clear and applied meaning.
It is also likely that Philip Kotler contributed to the spread of an extremely simplified version of Maslow’s theory in the CIS. It is his books that are our most popular textbooks on marketing. Here is how Kotler retells Maslow’s theory:
“Abraham Maslow tried to explain why people are driven by different needs at different times. Why does one person spend a lot of time and energy on self-preservation, and another on gaining the respect of others? The scientist believes that human needs are arranged in order of hierarchical importance from the most to the least urgent. The hierarchy developed by Maslow is shown in the figure. In order of importance, the needs are arranged in the following order: physiological needs, self-preservation needs, social needs, esteem needs and self-affirmation needs. A person will strive to satisfy the most important needs first. As soon as he manages to satisfy some important need, it ceases to be a driving motive for a while. At the same time, there is an incentive to satisfy the next most important need.
For example, a starving person (need No. 1) is not interested in what is happening in the art world (need No. 5), nor in how they are looked at and to what extent others respect him (needs No. 3 and No. 4), nor in pure whether he breathes air (need No. 2). But as the next most important need is satisfied, the next one comes to the fore. (Philip Kotler. Fundamentals of Marketing. — M .: Progress, 1991.)
No more is said about Maslow’s theory. We see that the theory is extremely simplified and the sequential movement along the hierarchy of needs is presented more rigidly than in Maslow.
Why the «pyramid» does not work
There remains one more reproach towards Maslow’s theory, not voiced by us above: «His theory cannot be applied in practice.»
Actually this is true. Maslow’s theory was not created for marketers. It arose because its author was looking for answers to questions related to human motives, to which neither Freudianism nor behaviorism at that time could answer. And, although the theory provides a deep understanding of the motives of human actions, it is more of a «philosophy» than a methodology. Any marketer, advertiser, PR specialist needs to study it for a general understanding of what drives people and how diverse the needs are and how intricately they are interconnected, but it is impossible to make a methodology out of this. And first of all, because it was not created as a methodology, its tasks were different.
The second reason the pyramid is not good for marketers is that for the marketer, the focus is on behavior—getting the consumer to take the action. Maslow’s theory, on the other hand, studies motives, and only says about the relationship with behavior that it is extremely difficult to determine what motives are behind this or that behavioral act, that the act itself can be dictated by several motives, and one cannot judge motives by external manifestation.
The third argument relates to the sociocultural context: the marketer works in a modern civilized society, where, in principle, physiological needs and self-preservation needs are satisfied (remember: Maslow understands these needs as extreme states, and not states of daily “appetite” or the desire to shelter from the rain). Therefore, it is fundamentally wrong to assume that detergent has a better chance of success than beer, just because it gets rid of bacteria (safety!), And beer solves issues of social intimacy and, accordingly, is higher in the hierarchy of needs, is fundamentally wrong.
It turned out a strange situation: marketers took a psychological theory and tried to apply it in marketing (where it was not created for), and when it didn’t work out, they accused Maslow that his theory was “absurd”, “outdated”, “it doesn’t work for us «. And the question is only in the correctness of the application of the tool — you need to apply it in those areas for which the tool is intended. And criticize by reading the original sources.