Maslow's hierarchy of needs

Voiceover: Building off the five approaches in understanding motivation, or the five schools of thought like we talked about in the last video, let's take a deeper look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs. So it's actually broken down into, into a pyramid that looks just like this. This was created by a famous psychologist named Abraham Maslow. So Maslow said that we have needs that need to be fulfilled in a specific order. It has to start from the bottom of the pyramid, all the way to the top. So our most basic need is our physiological need. And that forms the foundation or base of this pyramid. So our physiological needs can include anything from food, water, breathing and sleep. All of these are essential needs to survive. Moving up, the second level is our need for safety. So, safety of resources, safety of employment, and health and property. Safety is a basic need also, but it can only be fulfilled once our physiological needs are met. So, we can call these two levels the basic levels. Now Maslow went on to name a third level, and this is our level of love. Our need for love. It's our need to belong. Our need to have acceptance from friends and family. And our need for intimacy. This level of needs is called our social needs. The fourth level is our need for self-esteem. We like to feel confident and have a sense of achievement in what we do. We look for recognition in competence of skill that gives us self confidence. So these needs fall under a level of respect. We like to gain respect from others when we reach this level but again, this can only occur if the three needs below, physiological, safety, and love are fulfilled, and now we've come to the top. This last level is called self-actualization. It's a really big word but Maslow describes it as one reaching their maximum potential. It's a desire to accomplish everything one can do and become the most one can be. And this differs from person to person obviously. For example, one we have is strong desire to become an ideal parent, or an ideal athlete, or an ideal artist. Maslow thought self-actualizers were moral to their own principles and had mastered all the needs that fall below, this one. This level is our level of full potential. So think of this as climbing Mount Everest. You have to start at the bottom, but along the way you're going to have different checkpoints. All of these checkpoints are managed by different Sherpas on the mountain. You can't climb to the next level unless the Sherpa at the level you're at gives you the go ahead. He has to make sure you've eaten and gotten enough rest and are breathing okay. Then you can ascend to the next level and eventually, this keeps on going until you reach the top. Where you've realized your maximum potential. There you have it, Maslow's hierarchy of human needs.