They spend so much time on so much crap. Why not spend some time on something critically important? I just don’t understand it. My motivation theory was published 20 years ago, & in all that time nobody repeated it, or tested it, or really analyzed it or criticized it. They just used it, swallowed it whole with only the most minor modifications.
Abraham Maslow, 1962 Journal Entry
(Cited in Lowry, 1979, p. 190)
Maslow initially published his paper in 1943, under the title “A Theory of Human Motivation” (Maslow, 1943a). The paper contains four parts in 26 pages. The second of his four parts is subtitled “The Basic Needs.” This is where he introduced a hierarchically organized list of needs, with the hierarchy organized through recognition of his principle of prepotency from his first part.
In the 80-plus years since its initial publication, it is only this second part of Maslow’s original four-part context that is popularly misunderstood as being Maslow’s theory of motivation. Generally speaking, the balance of his paper, the context of the other three parts, has been abandoned. One common implication of this is that it is only the second part of his paper that has come to be so widely recognized as “Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.” The problem with this is that the hierarchy of needs is not his theory of human motivation. It’s only the second of four parts from his paper on motivation. As we will come to see, maintaining the broader context of the other three parts offers crucial differences.
Turning now to Maslow’s mystery, as originally published in 1943, the first section of his four-part paper is its two-page introduction. He wrapped up that introduction with the following:
“It is far easier to perceive and to criticize the aspects in motivation theory than to remedy them. Mostly this is because of the very serious lack of sound data in this area. I conceive this lack of sound facts to be due primarily to the absence of a valid theory of motivation. The present theory then must be considered to be a suggested program or framework for future research and must stand or fall, not so much on facts available or evidence presented, as upon researches yet to be done, researches suggested perhaps, by the questions raised in this paper” [emphasis added]. (Maslow, 1943a, p. 371)
This passage from the end of his introduction suggests that, at least at the time Maslow wrote the paper, he saw it as a project that was somewhere between barely begun and far from finished. What were those researches that were yet to be done and what were those questions raised by his paper? Why haven’t we heard more about those? Why hasn’t his paper been the springboard to progress that he seemed to hope it would be when he wrote it? He did use the word “theory” in his title, but in wrapping up his introduction, he describes its intended role or function in terms that are at least equally if not more suited to a hypothesis than a theory. If he is describing the function of a theory, then we might agree that it must be a very early-stage theory, perhaps germinal. Then, 20 years after publication of his paper, I believe Maslow wondered about the same issues raised here in this paragraph. But when he expressed his concern on those topics, it sounded more like the quotation we have already seen from his journal. That journal entry indicates a suspicion on Maslow’s part that, even allowing for the fame and acclaim accrued to his theory by that time (20 years and 11 reprints later), there were somehow things related to it, things he believed to be critically important, that were not gaining attention or being pursued to the extent he thought they should be. What was it about the reception to Maslow’s theory that, even after 20 years of evident success, left him fretting over his failure to understand? He too seems to have been wondering about the failure of the audience to organize the suggested researches and/or wrestle the questions he believed were raised by his paper. And remember, his introduction to the paper cites the questions it raised and researches it suggested as being the main forward-going value he recognized for it. But in the ensuing 80 years, despite the achievement of significant cultural traction, his paper hasn’t spawned much forward progress.
So what might have gone missing between Maslow and the rest of us, and how might the communication loop be flawed? Or, if the loop is not necessarily flawed, perhaps it is just incomplete. Regarding the relative incompletion of a communication loop, for our end of the loop we have largely neglected over half of what Maslow gave us in his paper to begin with. He may have failed to realize our partial abandonment in the coming, even as he lived through the earlier stages of it.
In the quotation cited from his journal, Maslow’s third sentence sums it up: “I just don’t understand it.” Twenty years following initial publication of the work, he recognized some kind of misconnection between his work and its audiences; yet it was a misconnection he couldn’t quite identify and didn’t understand.
Presumably, the date of that journal entry would not have been the first time in 20 years that he paused to wonder about the communication loop between his work and its audiences. Even while wondering about a suspected misconnection, it evidently still never occurred to him that we were vastly neglecting at least some aspects of his paper that he recognized as being “critically important.” I am suggesting the reason we have not responded more satisfactorily to those aspects of his paper is simple enough: We have been missing and continue to neglect them even now. I think the sheer magnitude of misconnection escaped Maslow almost entirely.
To elaborate in brief, the hierarchy of needs is somewhat known for the contribution that it represents. But the hierarchy of needs is not Maslow’s paper on human motivation. It is only the second part of Maslow’s single, four-part presentation. That second part cannot be fully appreciated or properly valued apart from the challenges and resulting opportunities it helps to establish. The greatest value, and the one generally missed from Maslow’s paper, resides, in the challenging opportunities that the other three parts of the paper are able to pose by way of the hierarchy of needs from his second part.
In simpler if less precise terms, it’s impossible to properly value the second part (the hierarchy of needs) of Maslow’s four-part paper without the context of the other three parts. And the other three parts remain vastly, popularly neglected.
Minding Maslow’s Mystery offers a beginning remedy for this situation.
References
Lowry, R. J. (Ed.). (1979). The journals of A. H. Maslow (Vol. 1, p. 190). Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole.
Maslow, A. H. (1943a). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50, 370–396.