Maslow would have been VERY worried about us

If Abraham Maslow were alive today, he surely would have been very worried about all of us. He probably would have sounded the alarm that as a society at large, we’re not even getting our basic needs met.

If you have ever taken an undergraduate psychology class or even a marketing or advertising class, you would have learned that Maslow’s “A Theory of Human Motivation” paper submits several key findings. From his IV Summary: “(1) There are at least five sets of goals, which we may call basic needs. These are briefly physiological, safety, love, esteem and self-actualization. (2) These basic goals are related to each other, being arranged in a hierarchy of prepotency.” He goes on to explain that as one level of needs are met or mostly met, then the next level of needs emerge, and this hierarchy of needs is what motivates us as humans.

Pre-pandemic, I started to study and prepare to write about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, and how the hierarchy and needs have changed in our modern day society. My hypothesis back then (2017-2018) was that we were struggling as a society because we were stuck at the love and belonging needs. Technology had lured us into more social independence and physical separateness. Gaming and peak TV had left us with more reasons to stay in vs going out and physically being together. Texting had lured us into being okay with not actually hearing each other’s voices.

But the pandemic introduced a universal, real fear of a deadly unknown disease that did two things: 1) it pushed us further in to social and physical isolation so that our love and belonging needs became even more deficient, and 2) it introduced a new fear of basic safety.

And safety is the second to lowest section of the hierarchy of needs! So forget about self-actualizing, folks, we’re not even having our most basic needs met, and according to Maslow’s research this will continue to hold all of us back from higher order motivations like love, belonging, intimacy, having self-confidence and achievement.

When Maslow wrote his “A Theory of Human Motivation” paper, he wasn’t worried too much about safety needs being met. He wrote “The healthy, normal, fortunate adult in our culture is largely satisfied in his safety needs. The peaceful, smoothly running, “good” society ordinarily makes its members feel safe enough from wild animals, extremes of temperature, criminals, assault and murder, tyranny, etc.”

It almost sounds like he had a hard time finding people to study that didn’t have their safety needs met. He states in the paper: “if we wish to see these needs directly and clearly we must turn to neurotic or near-neurotic individuals, and to the economic and social underdogs.” Suffice it to say, I’m guessing he would have the opposite problem today…finding someone that doesn’t feel either somewhat-completely neurotic or like an economic or social underdog.

But we’re a fearful nation right now, we just don’t feel safe. The 2021 American Fear Index reported exactly what we’re all feeling recently - that for Americans, mass shootings were the most feared crime and the third overall fear. The full list of things we’re afraid of is a disjointed assortment of everything from fear of loved ones dying (#1), to losing access to drinking water (#15) to being abducted by aliens! (#41).

Coming out of Covid (if we can even say that yet), we so needed to feel safe again. We needed to feel safe from unknown diseases and contagions; safe to go back to church, movies, concerts and class; safe to get on planes and go on vacation or get on the highway to go visit relatives. But the sad and scary truth is that we’re bombarded with this snowballing sense of the growing dangers out there, and it’s taking a toll on our human motivations.

We’ve got to figure out how to get our safety needs met pronto. Maslow’s theory states that humans possess an effective need for a sense of belonging and acceptance. If we’re stuck focusing on safety and stability, we might forever lose our motivation to pursue the next level, those love and belonging needs…and we’ll suffer as a society with no one reaching the higher levels of their individual needs. No self-actualized creatives and achievers and a lot of near-neurotic social introverts.