• Maslow proposed a hierarchy of five innate needs that activate and direct human behavior.
• They are the physiological, safety, belongingness and love, esteem, and self-actualization needs.
• Maslow described these needs as instinctoid, by which he meant that they have a hereditary component.

• The needs are arranged in order from strongest at the bottom to the weakest at the top.
• Lower needs must be at least partially satisfied before higher needs become influential.
• Thus, we are not driven by all needs at the same time.
• In general, only one need will dominate our personality at any one point in time.

Maslow indeed proposed a hierarchical model of needs, BUT he didn't present it as a pyramid.

• The lower the need is in the hierarchy, the greater is its strength, potency, and priority. The higher needs are weaker needs.
• Higher needs appear later in life.
  • Physiological and safety needs arise in infancy.
  • Belongingness and esteem needs arise in adolescence.
  • The need for self-actualization does not arise until midlife.

• Failure to satisfy a higher need does not produce a crisis.
• Failure to satisfy a lower need does produce a crisis.
• For this reason, Maslow called lower needs deficit, or deficiency, needs; failure to satisfy them produces a deficit or lack in the individual.

• Although higher needs are less necessary for survival, they can contribute to our personal growth.
• Satisfaction of higher needs leads to improved health, happiness, contentment, fulfillment, and longevity.
  • For this reason, Maslow called higher needs growth or being needs.

• Gratification of higher needs requires better external social, economic, and political circumstances than does gratification of lower needs.
  • For example, pursuing self-actualization requires greater freedom of expression and opportunity than pursuing safety needs.

• A need does not have to be satisfied fully before the next need in the hierarchy becomes important.
  • Maslow proposed a declining percentage of satisfaction for each need.
  • He described a person who satisfied, 85% of physiological needs, 70% of safety needs, 50% of belongingness and love needs, 40% of esteem needs, and 10% of self-actualization need.

The following conditions are necessary in order for us to satisfy the self-actualization need, we must:

• Be free of constraints imposed by society and by ourselves.
• Not be distracted by the lower-order needs.
• Be secure in our self-image and in our relationships with other people.
• Have a realistic knowledge of our strengths and weaknessesand virtues.

• Self-actualizers differ from others in terms of their basic motivation.
• Maslow proposed a distinct type of motivation for self-actualizers which he called metamotivation(sometimes called B-motivation or Being).
• Metamotivation indicates that it goes beyond psychology’s traditional idea of motivation.

• Metamotivations involves maximizing personal potential rather than striving for a particular goal object.
• Having explained that self-actualizers are unmotivated, Maslow proposed a list of metaneeds toward which self-actualizers evolve.
• Metaneeds are states of being—such as goodness, uniqueness, and perfection—rather than specific goal objects.

• Failure to satisfy metaneeds is harmful and produces a kind of metapathology, which thwarts the full development of the personality.
• Metapathology prevents self-actualizers from expressing, using, and fulfilling their potential.
• They may come to feel helpless and depressed, unable to pinpoint a source for these feelings or identify a goal that might alleviate the distress.

• An efficient perception of reality
• An acceptance of themselves, others, and nature
• A spontaneity, simplicity, and naturalness
• A focus on problems outside themselves
• A sense of detachment and the need for privacy
• A freshness of appreciation

• Mystical or peak experiences
  • Self-actualizers know moments of intense ecstasy, not unlike deep religious experiences, that can occur with virtually any activity.
  • Maslow called these events peak experiences, during which the self is transcended and the person feels supremely powerful, confident, and decisive.

• A contemporary outgrowth of the essence of Maslow’s self-actualization theory is the self-determination theory.
• ..which suggests that people have an innate tendency to express their interests, to exercise and develop their capabilities and potentials, and to overcome challenges.

• Research supporting the notion of self-determination has come from diverse groups such as football players in Australia, teenagers in India and Nigeria, and older women in the United States.
• Those who scored highest in self-determination showed the greatest improvement in overall behavior and subjective well-being

• Self-determination is facilitated by a person’s focus on intrinsic motivation, such as engaging in an activity solely because of the interest and challenge of the activity itself.
• Extrinsic motivation involves engaging in some activity only for the sake of some external reward such as praise, a promotion or pay raise, or a higher grade.

• There is a basic similarity between the notions of intrinsic motivation and self-determination, and Maslow’s description of self-actualization.
  • Both are concerned with fulfilling or realizing one’s talents and abilities for the goal of inner satisfaction rather than any kind of external reward.

• Three Basic Needs it is through the satisfaction of these needs that a person can reach a state of well-being.
  • Competence—the need to feel that one can master difficult tasks
  • Autonomy—the freedom to base one’s course of action on one’s own interests, needs, and values
  • Relatedness—the need to feel a close connection with other people

• The Personal Orientation Inventory (POI)
  • A self-report questionnaire consisting of 150 pairs of statements, was developed by psychologist Everett Shostrom (1964, 1974) to measure self-actualization.
  • Time competence the degree to which we live in the present
  • Inner directedness how much we depend on ourselves rather than on others for judgments and values.

• The Smartphone Basic Needs Scale
  • A 20-item self-report inventory designed to assess the degree to which smartphone use can satisfy the needs in Maslow’s system.
• It was developed using college students in the United States and in South Korea as subjects, and the developers reported high levels of validity and reliability.