Source
https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Maslow/motivation.htm — original source (opens in a new tab; the file is not redistributed)
Context: thesis · No NI feeds (shallow ingest)
Summary
Maslow’s 1943 paper is the recognisable origin of the idea that human needs sit in ascending levels, with the more basic needs generally claiming priority until they are reasonably satisfied. It is used in the literature review to frame self-sufficiency across levels, from physical basics up to higher-order flourishing, and to justify where the Neobiome model draws its boundary: the engine computes the physical-provisioning basics (energy, food, water, shelter) while belonging, esteem and self-actualisation are acknowledged but treated qualitatively. It sits subordinate to the project’s settled frameworks, Bustamin (LIT_001) and the food-energy-water nexus, and is cited critically rather than as an operational model.
Key thesis insights
- The five need levels, in ascending order. Maslow names five sets of basic needs. In his own recap (p.394): “There are at least five sets of goals, which we may call basic needs. These are briefly physiological, safety, love, esteem, and self-actualization.” The section headers in “II. The Basic Needs” are “The ‘physiological’ needs” [p.372], “The safety needs” [p.376], “The love needs” [p.380-381], “The esteem needs” [p.381-382], and “The need for self-actualization” [p.382], the last stated as “What a man can be, he must be. This need we may call self-actualization.” LIT_124
- The hierarchy is not rigidly stepwise (Maslow’s own qualification). In section III, under “The degree of fixity of the hierarchy of basic needs” [p.386], Maslow writes: “We have spoken so far as if this hierarchy were a fixed order but actually it is not nearly as rigid as we may have implied… there have been a number of exceptions.” This matters for the thesis: the ordering is a tendency, not a strict ladder, which is what lets the review treat basic provisioning as a defensible focus without claiming the higher needs are unimportant or strictly sequential. LIT_124
Notes
- Role. The needs-hierarchy anchor. Subordinate to Bustamin (LIT_001) and the FEW nexus; not a new operational framework.
- Cite critically. Pair with LIT_125: the familiar pyramid diagram is a later construction, not Maslow’s own. Read against LIT_127 (needs as a non-hierarchical system) and URL_035 (a relational, collective model of wellbeing).
- Provenance. Canonical open-access transcription at psychclassics.yorku.ca (Christopher Green’s Classics in the History of Psychology), the standard scholarly online source for this paper; downloaded directly, not AI-prepared, so no retrieval-provenance block. Original journal pagination preserved in the HTML as bracketed markers.
- Scope. context thesis, feeds empty, shallow ingest. No NZ data, no NI calculation exposure. No research target opened.
Connections
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